p. 7 | Question Corner by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 19, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 12.

Question Corner

By Editor

1218.—Palmistry and Fortune Telling.

What is the teaching of the Bible on palmistry and fortune telling?

(1) There is very much of this that is pure folly. Some indulge them as pastimes, having no real belief in either the one or the other. Yet as a matter of folly it is playing in fire. But (2) the real basis of it is a perverted desire to know the future, which is in God's hands, and which He has revealed sufficiently in His Word. The desire is right to know, if we will meet it from the right source. But to answer this desire in unsanctified, selfish hearts, Satan has devised astrology, divination by stars, by entrails, by hands, by palms, by finger-nails, by feet, by cards, by a hundred other different ways. This is what God says of such things:—

"Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them; I am the Lord your God." Lev. 19:31.

"And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set My face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people." Lev. 20:6.

"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord; and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God." Deut. 18:10-13.