Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 <inaudible> welcome to summer Q and a pastor Michael, with you. I'm in the studio with pastor Craig and we have a guest today, pastor Peter from Uganda and on September 19th, 2021, pastor Craig and I preached on dark magic. It's in our series on spiritual war. So pastor Craig question for you today is, are the gods and spirits of false religions.
Speaker 1 00:00:29 And I struggled with this one because a piece of wood is a piece of wood. That's a piece of stone is a piece of stone, but when you look at this through God's eyes, it's very interesting that when we give credence to this inanimate object, we have a tendency to, um, to give it the attributes of God. When we do that, we open a door to the spirit realm for it to take really possession of area that we should be redeeming for the Lord. One of the greatest examples of this is in the book of Isaiah, when Isaiah it's kind of a funny passage, actually, you, we, we talked about this Razia was, um, um, was, he was kind of mocking the people. He said, why don't you get a piece of wood, cut it in half, cut it in half, one half created an idol that you devote your life to.
Speaker 1 00:01:19 That you'll sacrifice your kids too. You know, you'll give your whole, your whole identity to, and the other half chopping and kindling and warm yourself. And, and it's almost, it's like a mocking of what they were doing with these pieces of wood are these, these pieces of, of stone. But in reality, these, these objects, these inanimate objects have a tendency to steal our soul because they are possessed by the spirit realm in ways that we don't understand when the children of Israel walked into the promised land, God's greatest warning to them was don't get with the people of the land because don't marry with them. Don't don't add because what what's going to happen is you'll adapt their practices and what the one practice God said, do not adapt over and over and over again. Phil's the old Testament was devotion to idols. And this is exactly as we know now, this is exactly what happened to Israel, because they did not clean out the land. They instead, it exactly happened like God, like God had warned them about, they adopted the idols of the land and those idols took their hearts further and further away from God. Uh, even the Kings, I mean the Kings, some Kings would come up and they would read the land of the idols and it would be like, yay, hurrah, hurrah. But, but then another evil king would come up and put all those altars right back up
Speaker 0 00:02:36 And, uh, to get American politics, politician sets up a bunch of stuff and other types of down and sets up all this stuff and total it's over.
Speaker 1 00:02:45 But in the old Testament, it was far more evil Kings than there were righteous ones. Yeah. So Israel's heart was, was constantly drawn away from God because of these pieces of wood and these pieces of stone. And so these, these objects represented more than just inanimate objects. They represented what you are going to enter into the spirit realm through. And so, as we studied on Sunday, uh, God said to Moses, I'm going to give you a means whereby you can access a spirit realm, but it's not through wood and it's not through stone. It's through the prophet that will come. And then in the new Testament, we're, we're told that this prophet was Jesus Christ. He was the one that came and Jesus said, I love this verse. It takes on a whole new meaning. When you look at it this way, Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life.
Speaker 1 00:03:31 And then he says, no one comes to the father, except through me. We could say no one accesses the spiritual realm, except through me. He's the prophet that was prophesied. He's the one that arrived. And then he's talked about all through the new Testament as to the one that we are to surrender, to and give the authority of our lives to not to stones, not to wood, but to Jesus Christ. And that's why, um, when God talks about idols and the potential of idols and false religions and what they have the potential to do, the spirit realm is alive and well. And those spirits are looking to enter into our lives through any means possible. And they will access us through inanimate objects or through chance or through religious, uh, family, religious, uh, items that we hang onto. Um, they will access us through any means possible because they want to convince us of Satan's ongoing mission, that he is not God, but he is like, God.
Speaker 1 00:04:28 So if you want to access a spirit realm, you can do it through Jesus, but you can also do it through these other means as well. So it's, it's an insidious situation, uh, that we find ourselves in because we are born under this battlefield, but most people don't know it yet. We're born on the wrong side and most people don't know it. And when we access, when we access a spirit realm through anything, but Jesus, we're opening the door to all of those spirits in that realm to enter into our lives in ways that we're not prepared to do to, uh, to, to give up. I give you one verse that kind of opened my eyes to this in a new way, as we were studying through this and preaching through this, it's in first Corinthians 10 19, it says, consider the people of Israel are not those who eat the sacrifice participants at the altar.
Speaker 1 00:05:14 What am I implying? This is Paul talking to the new Testament church about the old Testament practices of idol worship and also new Testament practices of idol worship. He says, what am I implying that food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything. No, those things are nothing. I imply what pagan sacrifice they offered to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You can't drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can't partake of the table of the Lord. And the table of demons. Paul is making it very clear if you access a spirit realm through any means, other than Jesus Christ, you are accessing the demonic realm of the spirit realm. And that is, that is what kind of scares me to death because, uh, after we finished our message, I told you a little bit about this.
Speaker 1 00:06:05 I got a lot of, uh, feedback from some of our young people. And one of the things that they're doing on Instagram right now is they're doing the same called manifestation, which is a sorcery term. It's a magic term, it's a witchcraft term, but it's the kids in my car. I was, we had some international students with us and they all knew. They all knew what manifestation was and they would write on a piece of paper and it was on Instagram. And the prince of the power of the air is controlling their waves. And he's getting to our kids and they're, they're doing these really they're satanic chants. They just write something down over and over again, until they get it, they manifest it. They access the spirit realm to give them what they want. And we talked about this, uh, what are the three things lost knowledge?
Speaker 0 00:06:48 Uh, yes. Power, power
Speaker 1 00:06:51 And knowledge. Yes. Yeah. Those are the three things. And it's interesting when you, um, I, I re researched some of the, the beautiful people, some of the, um, um, Hollywood celebrities that were here and, uh, I access them and why they were doing witchcraft. Every one of them gave one of those three answers. Katy Perry is into witchcraft because she wants to want somebody to love her, um, other others, because I want knowledge. It's one of those three things. And I got to tell you, if you want any of those things, Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father, except through, through me one morning, one theologian that I love says this sin will take you further than you're willing to go keep you longer than you're willing to stay and cost you more than you're willing to pay.
Speaker 0 00:07:39 <inaudible> do you, um, I want to ask you Peter, cause we're PR is, is we're processing this here and I've brought this up in our last sermon QA we did with you, but I want to highlight it. Uh, one of the biggest threats to you guys is, um, Muslim fundamentalism, extremism, particularly a category of, of ISIS that has, uh, uh, uh, hold on major parts of Uganda. And, um, it's interesting because when we think about the demonic nature of religion, um, I want you to just share with, um, Craig and I, and everyone watching and listening here. Um, what is their agenda with children? And as you hear this, um, what I want you to hear is this is a demonically inspired faith, religion. Um, like demons were like, Hmm, let's put together a book or a version of something that allows this describe for us. And I think our audience would just hear the inherent demonic influence in Islamic fundamentalism. I think
Speaker 2 00:08:42 Again, with the day's known, uh, um, these are clear relationship between the agenda of, uh, S uh, the Sutton and their agenda of beliefs, because one hatred and death is a huge part of it. From the beginning, you've got to hate, you know, um, the people that don't believe like you, that don't do what we do. And then you got to kill, you know, putting these children as they kidnapped them and train them and prepare them. Unhardened their hurts to be ready to, um, put a bone there and be suicide bumpers.
Speaker 0 00:09:27 We received 51 of these kids from the Uganda government who were taken from, um, Muslim extremism. And now you are rehabilitating them, right?
Speaker 2 00:09:36 I mean, so you see this, they isolate them completely and engrain into them. The evil agenda that is, uh, um, aimed at hating killing and fulfilling their agenda. And it's purely evil and the use the children because they are easy to instill yeah. Uh, to initiate them. And so, uh, it's purely evil, um, and what they do to them, even through the processes. I mean, children, as young as 13, uh, given to as child, um, brights to the commanders, uh, into fighting, uh, before the 51 that we received two years ago, we said 1 21. And among those, we had about 15 goals under the age of 14 that had babies, others were pregnant, others, uh, you didn't attract infections. Um, and then the boys were so hard heartened for you to find a little child of, you know, 9, 10, 11 years, who is willing to stop you and kill you and hardened and, and caused an infidel and wants to kill you, uh, is not the heart of golden children. And so it is demonic influence upon their lives, uh, to turn them into adversed, um, demonic, evil agents, uh, to go and kill and destroy and, and, and pass it on is pure evil.
Speaker 1 00:11:13 Yeah. It's interesting that the contrast, I mean, we're talking about false religions and the contrast between the spirit realm is alive and well looking to act on our children largely on our children, because they can influence them. Like you said, the easiest. And it's interesting, the contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, um, the Satan is the thief that breaks in to kill and destroy. And God is the one who gave up his only son so that we could be free and have real life and redeem the spaces around us. And yet we live in a world that, that seems in our culture to look at Christianity as the evil one and all other religions as the positive ones. And it's almost like they, they're not willing to do their homework to see what's right in front of them. I mean, you live in this theater on a regular basis. This is not hard research, right. It's right there for people to see, and yet they choose not to see it. Why do you think, like, why do you think that's so hard for the American church to realize what's happening around the world?
Speaker 2 00:12:20 Um, I guess a lifestyle defines us in, in some ways to choose what we follow and what we decide to, to do. Um, I have to be careful here and I say seeing the American church,
Speaker 3 00:12:41 I mean, you have, you have an outside,
Speaker 2 00:12:44 But one of the things really, I struggle with that, not struggle, but I deal with all the time is when I come here, uh, it's always almost easy to not need God. Uh, and, and maybe I'm trying to be careful, but, um, it is the reality because sometimes when you have, um, ability to sort your life in practical ways, there is no need for you to realize this spiritual calling upon your life, uh, uh, to respond. Um, and, um, and not doesn't, doesn't make it better for us as well, because it is, there's a huge oppression on blindness and lack of, uh, um, lack of extensive spread of the gospel for the opening of the eyes. And there's a lot of openness. I'll tell you that you will go into one village in our area and people are quite willing to receive and to know Christ as well.
Speaker 2 00:13:57 But there's also a lot of manipulation that is happening in all levels of, uh, uh, spiritual, you know, approach. And so you're fighting both the desperation, but also, um, uh, fighting the vulnerabilities and whoever gets a leeway quickly into the lives of those people, influences them as well as their children. And so for us, that's where we, we want to focus on the children. Not necessarily not the adults, because they are quite easy and vulnerable. Um, um, I think, um, one thing I, I had somebody say that, uh, if you ever find yourself in a comfortable place, no, there is a problem for the cause of Christ. And I don't know if that's true because, um, every time I find myself too comfortable, I find myself, um, maybe not on the mission, not as engaged, as engaged, because life is easy and okay. And, uh, and times that's Shaq, my comfort kind of awakened my spiritual, um, intensity to be able to respond or to be aware, or to discern, uh, what God is calling me to do in some ways. And it doesn't mean that, um, uh, you put me in a spot here,
Speaker 1 00:15:36 You're speaking really. And I think a part of the challenge for us is we don't know who or what to believe anymore. Like the, the stories that you share about what goes on in a regular day in your life are so unbelievable for the American culture to even believe it exists because it's not reported on instead what's reported on is silly stuff. You know, just, just pedantic, like, like stuff that doesn't matter. And we're so used to it that we, we dig in pages that we expect to find things and we don't dig to find truth.
Speaker 2 00:16:06 And the reality is this spiritual pressure news all around us, all over the world. And, uh, as we dig into the, uh, into, um, to the Bible and in our faith, we, we have been given the authority to, uh, to sense it and actually to respond upon it and the boldness of Christ in us to be able to respond upon it, um, uh, is in our hands. What are you going to see and how are you going to respond? I, you, I, we're going to be bold enough to respond to the evil around us under the false hood is Ronda's and be bold for the repercussion that will come to us and stand for the sake of Christ. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:16:51 I just want to bring this home to the American culture. Um, you guys at Bartlett are involved with, uh, rescuing children here as well from the sex trade. Yeah. And, um, uh, do you want to speak to that? I mean, that's going on in our culture and we don't even know that,
Speaker 0 00:17:06 Oh, it's all over the place. I mean, rehabs daughters is an incredible organization and the opportunity to partner with them and, and to watch just the women and children who are just trapped, literally trapped and have no way out. And, um, but this is where, I mean, years ago we just set out, like we're going to really hyper emphasize our mission strategy to be on, um, children, um, slavery around the world and, uh, church planning. So just those three things, but the, the child's, it's amazing how children seem to be the common factor in all of them. And then when you're starting churches, so much of that is about the next generation with kids when you're looking at, um, slavery. So much of it has to do with children. And when you're looking at obviously just kids' needs and to bring the gospel to around the world, which is why we partnered with Juana.
Speaker 0 00:17:51 And we want to just see the gospel, but you, you grabbed the children. I mean, the demonic is so smart. You grabbed the children and get the next generation, and then you get every generation after that. Well, I am very thankful for both of you. I'm thankful for, I mean, Craig and I, we could do this all time, but like, you come with a very different perspective and stories and I just, half of everyone listening, thank you for that. We have more to come on, sermon Q and a, every Sunday after our sermons, we kind of take some of the biggest questions and we go deeper. So thank you for joining us. And we got more. We'll see you later.
