There were no tricks, schemes, artifice or deception about this. He cast unclean spirits "out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed." Verse 7. In connection with his preaching he actually wrought miracles by the power that God had given him. He was not aided by divine power at all and was simply practicing "fakery" as a means of livelihood, as many others are doing today.īut Philip went to that city to preach Christ to lost men and women. He had been "giving out that himself was some great one" and had "bewitched the people" to such an extent that they had great regard for him and had concluded that "This man is the great power of God." But it was all deception. Whatever form of sorcery Simon engaged in-whether simply sleight-of-hand tricks, some other form of magical arts, the claim to foretell the future by the aid of divine power, or simply fortune-telling, he had succeeded in deceiving the people. The use of any of these often baffles the minds of men. Sorcery means the use of magic, necromancy, witchcraft, soothsaying, fortune-telling, sleight-of-hand tricks, and other such things. And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries." Thus we are told that Simon was engaged in the use of sorcery. This record tells us this: "But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, this man is the great power of God. His work of deception is described for us in Acts 8: 9-11. This man was in Samaria at the time Philip went there to "preach Christ unto them." In fact, he had been there for a long time before Philip went.
But the Simon of this lesson is Simon the sorcerer, whose brief history is given to us in the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. There was also Simon, a man of Cyrene, who was compelled to bear the cross of Jesus on the way to Calvary. In the list of apostles there is also Simon the Canaanite, or Simon the Zealot, as he is also called. There was Simon, whose surname was Peter, also called Cephas, who was one of the twelve apostles of the Lord. A number of "Simons" are mentioned in the New Testament.
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