Significant Scriptures Concerning Animism

 

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Exodus 20:1-6 -- And God spoke all these words:
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 
"You shall have no other gods before me.
"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments."

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Deuteronomy 18:9-15 -- "When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.  Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritists or who consults the dead.  Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you.  You must be blameless before the Lord your God.  The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination.  but as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so.  The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers.  You must listen to him."

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Psalm 86:5-10 --
You are forgiving and good, O Lord,
    abounding in love to all who call to
            you.
Hear my prayer, O Lord;
    listen to my cry for mercy.
In the day of my trouble I will call to
            you,
    for you will answer me.
Among the gods there is none like you,
            O Lord;
    no deeds can compare with yours.
All the nations you have made
    will come and worship before you,
            O Lord;
    they will bring glory to your name.
For you are great and do marvelous
            deeds;
    you alone are God.

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Psalm 106:34-41 --
They did not destroy the peoples
    as the Lord had commanded them,
but they mingled with the nations
    and adopted their customs.
They worshiped their idols,
    which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
    and their daughters to demons.
They shed innocent blood,
    the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of
            Canaan,
    and the land was desecrated by their
            blood.
They defiled themselves by what they
            did;
    by their deeds they prostituted
            themselves.

Therefore the Lord was angry with his
            people
    and abhorred his inheritance.
He handed them over to the nations,
    and their foes ruled over them.
Their enemies oppressed them
    and subjected them to their power.
Many times he delivered them,
    but they were bent on rebellion
    and they wasted away in their sin.  

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Jeremiah 10:1-16 -- Hear what the Lord says to you, O house of Israel.  This is what the Lord says:
    "Do not learn the ways of the nations
        or be terrified by signs in the sky,
        though the nations are terrified by
                them.
For the customs of the peoples are
            worthless;
    they cut a tree out of the forest,
    and a craftsman shapes it with his
            chisel.
They adorn it with silver and gold;
    they fasten it with hammer and nails
    so it will not totter.
Like a scarecrow in a melon patch,
    their idols cannot speak;
they must be carried
    because they cannot walk.
Do not fear them;
    they can do no harm
    nor can they do any good."

No one is like you, O Lord;
    you are great,
    and your name is mighty in power.
Who should not revere you,
    O King of the nations?
    This is your due.
Among all the wise men of the nations
    and in all their kingdoms,
    there is no one like you.
They are all senseless and foolish;
    they are taught by worthless wooden
            idols.
Hammered silver is brought from
            Tarshish
    and gold from Uphaz.
What the craftsman and goldsmith have
            made
    is then dressed in blue and purple--
    all made by skilled workers.
But the Lord is the true God;
    he is the living God, the eternal
            King.
When he is angry, the earth trembles;
    the nations cannot endure his wrath.

"Tell them this: 'These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.'"

But God made the earth by his power;
    he founded the world by his wisdom
    and stretched out the heavens by his
            understanding.
When he thunders, the waters in the
            heavens roar;
    he makes clouds rise from the ends
            of the earth.
He sends lightning with the rain
    and brings out the wind from his
            storehouses.

Everyone is senseless and without
            knowledge;
    every goldsmith is shamed by his
            idols.
His images are a fraud;
    they have no breath in them.
They are worthless, the objects of
            mockery;
    when their judgment comes, they
            will perish.
He who is the Portion of Jacob is not
            like these,
    for he is the Maker of all things,
including Israel, the tribe of his
            inheritance--
    the Lord Almighty is his name.

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Isaiah 8:19-22 -- "When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God?  Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?  To the law and to the testimony!  If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.  Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God.  Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness."

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Zephaniah 1:4-6 -- 
"I will stretch out my hand against
            Judah
    and against all who live in Jerusalem.
I will cut off from this place every
            remnant of Baal,
    the names of the pagan and the
            idolatrous priests--
those who bow down on the roofs
    to worship the starry host,
those who bow down and swear by the
            Lord
    and who also swear by Molech,
those who turn back from following the
            Lord
    and neither seek the Lord nor inquire
            of him."

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2 Kings 17:33 -- [The people of Samaria] worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.

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Matthew 12:22-29 -- 
   
Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see.  All the people were astonished and said, "Could this be the Son of David?"
    But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, "It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons."
    Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.  If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself.  How then can his kingdom stand?  And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out?  So then, they will be your judges.  But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
    "Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man?  Then he can rob his house."

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Colossians 2:8-15 -- See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.  For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.  In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.  When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ.  He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.  And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. 

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1 Thessalonians 1:9 -- [The Thessalonians] turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.

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Revelation 12:7-12 -- And there was war in heaven.  Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.  But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.  The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.  He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.  Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

"Now have come the salvation and the
            power and the kingdom of our
            God,
    and the authority of his Christ.
For the accuser of our brothers,
    who accuses them before our God
            day and night,
    has been hurled down.
They overcame him
    by the blood of the Lamb
    and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
    as to shrink from death.
Therefore rejoice, you heavens
    and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
    because the devil has gone down to
            you!
He is filled with fury,
    because he knows that his time is
            short."

 

Revised December 10, 2001.

 

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