Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:04 Well, good morning. My name is Michael fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the village church. We are in week three of our series on spiritual war. Michelle said at the beginning of the service, I want to reiterate this for all of you. This is probably a darker sermon than you're used to primarily because we'll be dealing with issues of dark magic, possession, oppressions, sorcery, witchcraft, et cetera. Um, I have been fairly confident that leading up to this message. There's just a small surprise we have for you at the end of the sermon, but that the evil one does not want you to hear anything that we're saying. So it's also not surprising that little things happen. Like for example, on Wednesday, this frequency comes into our sound system and we can't get rid of it. We are trying, we're trying, and it's just lingering.
Speaker 0 00:00:58 And so every once in a while we'll be talking and it'll feed back and never happened before ever. And anything that evil one could probably do to discourage us or to distract us. And I don't, I don't pretend for a moment to know how all of that works. I am convinced as is with every production and church tech guy on the planet that somehow Satan went before the throne of God and said, could I just mess with their technology, just their technology. And God's like, but only their technology. So anyways, um, I am confident that that is a spiritual law here, but this week we're going to be looking at dark magic. And then I want to invite you back next week because we're going to be going into what we call dark deceptions. It's the primary deceptive schemes that the evil one uses globally.
Speaker 0 00:01:42 And especially in your family to trick you into living a life that does not give God the most amount of glory. So what I'm going to share with you today, many of you who are newer to the Bible, um, have probably never heard some of these concepts. And that is okay for some of you. Maybe this is a subject you have avoided because it can be weird, dark and scary at times. Um, I want to encourage you. If you are in Christ, you have the spirit of Christ. You have confidence, you have overcome because he has overcome and there need not be fear in you today whatsoever. Amen. And so whatever we talk about the nature of things and how they work and how dark magic works and why it's so evil, whatever we talk about, here's what I want you to walk away with.
Speaker 0 00:02:32 I want you to walk away with an unbelievable unshakable confidence that the spirit of Jesus, the spirit with the greatest authority in all of creation and human history resides in you. And you can walk out of this place with confidence, more aware of the schemes and tactics of the evil one. Now John 10, 10, here's what Jesus says. The thief, Satan comes only extreme phrase here, but only to steal and to kill and to destroy. And then Jesus says about himself. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. The reason we're teaching on this is because we want you every one of you in this room to have life that is abundant in Jesus Christ and anything that could compromise that we want you to be well aware of. I especially want to address anybody in college or younger. If you have never been taught on these subjects, I want you to pay very close attention because when you are younger, you are more susceptible to lies and schemes of the devil because you have not been around as long.
Speaker 0 00:03:53 And so I want you to pay very close attention because there are going to be things that your friends do that are normal for them, but are actually insidious schemes of the evil one. So it as many tactics as you know, but he particularly relishes in the tactics that do the most devastation to your body, into your soul. So if you have been around here for a while, here's what you have probably heard me say. The three of the greatest wounds a person can experience in life are dad wounds, sex wounds, and church wounds. Three of the greatest through the greatest pains and wounds. You can experience dad wounds, church wounds and sexual sins. Why? Because what the evil one has learned is that God has infused certain things with unbelievable spiritual power. And what he's learned is that if he can take these powerfully wonderful things that God has made and subvert them, they can do as much damage when broken and subverted as they can when they're healthy.
Speaker 0 00:05:09 And so what you find is that these three big things, dad wounds, sex wounds, church wounds. God has infused these three things with unbelievable spiritual power. And he's learned if I can mess with these things, I can do unbelievable spiritual damage. The most, I would say insidious of his schemes is what we call dark magic. Dark magic is any attempt to dabble in the spirit realm. Outside of God's loving boundaries. I want to read this again, and I want you to see this because this is going to be so important for you for the rest of your life. Dark magic is any attempt to dabble in the spirit realm. Outside of God's loving boundaries, dark magic is a scheme. It is a trick. And the point of a scheme, the point of a trick is that you don't know you're being tripped. So you might be innocently trying something that your friends or your neighbors tried.
Speaker 0 00:06:21 You might be unknowingly dabbling in something that you watched on TV. And it looked interesting, but the very nature of a trick, a scam or a scheme is that once you buy into it, you now have to deal with the repercussions of it. And here's, here's the trick here's Satan's scheme. Participation in dark magic is always an invitation to demons, whether you intended or not. Can we just let that linger for a moment? Participation in dark magic is always an invitation to demons. So let's unpack this for the non-Christian. I'm going to talk about non-Christians for a moment. You might be here. You might've never trusted in Jesus. And, and I hope from a Christian perspective, maybe this can help you make sense of some things around you for the non-Christian who participates in dark magic. The concept of possession or demon possession becomes a very real possibility.
Speaker 0 00:07:36 One of the reasons Christians hate this and teach against it is because it's a trick because what you don't know is that when you dabble, whether you intend to or not, you are inviting the demonic realm always into your life. This is the nature of it. It's sort of like when you borrow money from the bank, is it always attached to interest? Always whether you like it or not, whether you realize it or not, whether you realize what an 18% interest rate on a credit card does, the bank will come calling for the 18%. Will they not? And what you don't realize is that every time you dabble, there is an interest rate on this and you will have to pay whether you like it or not. Whether or not you read the fine print on the contract, are you responsible for the terms of the contract and everybody?
Speaker 0 00:08:31 The answer is yes. Dark magic is like signing a contract saying demons. I invite you to participate in my life. Now I want to take a moment and ask you a question. Have you ever wondered if theologically non-Christians are under the domain of darkness? Why aren't more non-Christians possessed by the evil one? Because when you look around, you don't see demonic, possession everywhere, right? You would expect maybe to see more. And there seems to be a spiritual law that prevents a demon from possessing, a person, Christian, or non-Christian that there are certain things that need to actually happen for this reality to take place. And one of the best articulations of this actually came from the Roman Catholic chief. Demonologist very interesting research that they've done over millennia. I am not Roman Catholic, as you know, but I have found their insight into this to be profoundly helpful.
Speaker 0 00:09:34 And in it, here's what they say. Demons are not permitted to possess anyone unless they are granted authority to do it. Now, here's what we find. We find in scripture. This is consistent. We find in experience, this is consistent that a demon is not allowed to possess somebody unless authority is granted. Now this is a theme in the first two series that are sermons that we preached here. And I want to put up the principle here. Why is this? Because authority is the currency of the spiritual realm. Authority is the currency of the spiritual realm, a demon or an angel cannot do anything without it. And the same applies to you, which is why when you're in Jesus Christ, you were given ultimate authority over the demonic realm in his name. But authority is the currency of the demonic realm. It's the currency of the angelic realm.
Speaker 0 00:10:37 It is the most valuable resource that you have. And somehow in the spirit war, when an angel and the demon of fight against each other, it's not a battle. It seems of swords and spiritual blood. It seems to be battles of authority and that in the demonic and angelic org charts, there is an authorized system that the lower demons must submit to the higher demons and the lower angels must submit to the higher angels. Now, there are three ways that I want to just be very crystal clear. There are three ways that you can grant authority to a demon in your life. I'm going to process these to the lens of a non-Christian. And then we're going to talk about what these three things mean for a believer. Number one, first, you make a willful decision to invite a spirit into you. This is conscious.
Speaker 0 00:11:28 You know what you're doing? You may not know by the way that the spirit is a demon. You may just think it's the ghost of an ancestor. You might think it's just a, I don't know, a good spirit hovering around will a good spirits ever want to inhabit you. The answer is never, they will never do that. In fact, there is a group of demons, apparently in the old Testament that they attempted to humans against their authority. And God was so angry. He sent them to hell early Jude. And Peter, talk about that. Now you're going to know if you do this, like, if you're sitting here, you're like, did I invite a demon into my, like, you will know if you do this one. Okay. So if you don't think you did, you didn't, that's about as simple as it goes, but here's number two.
Speaker 0 00:12:16 And this is where, um, this may stretch your thinking just a little bit, three ways to grant authority to a demon. Number two, someone with authority over you invites a spirit into you. What is the currency of the demonic and angelic realm authority who has authority over a child, spiritually. Mom, dad go back into the Bible with me for a minute. Um, you remember there are a couple of children who are possessed by demons, and you're wondering, how is this possible? Well, particularly in first century, Rome, what would be very common is that as a mom or a dad, you would dabble in pagan religions. And they would often not blood sacrifice, but offer a sacrifice of their child in different ways. Some kids, as soon as they're born, their lives are devoted to demonic activity. Now, the parents don't know probably that they're demons.
Speaker 0 00:13:10 They have a pagan worldview in Rome in the first century. This is the scheme. This is the trick they're masquerading as an angel of light. When in fact they're not, they're only existing to steal, kill, and destroy. And so it seems that parents or those with authority over a child actually do have the ability to negatively spiritually demonically impact their children. Here's the third way that you can grant authority to a demon. You engage in forbid and practices that act as a gateway. Do you need to know it's a gateway in order for you to be impacted by it? Now you don't. Let me define a gateway for you. A gateway is a behavior, whether you realize it or not, that gives the demonic realm, freedom to oppress you physically, spiritually, emotionally, or mentally. We're going to talk about multiple gateways here in a moment, but let me talk about what this means for the Christian.
Speaker 0 00:14:16 As a Christian, you have the spirit of Christ that dwells in you. Do you have the authority or ability to invite a spirit into you to possess you everybody on the count of three? The answer is no 1, 2, 3, no, not at all. That's number one. Now, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, especially if you are a child, do you have the spirit of Christ in you? Of course you do. And can your parents or your authority, spiritual authority transfer or do something that would actually make a demon possess you? The answer is no, which is why we love to see kids come to faith in Jesus Christ and get baptized because we love to see the authority that Jesus gives them. And there's this beautiful protection. In fact, let me just take a moment. I want to read you. I think one of the most interesting passages of scripture, and it's in the book of Matthew, a book of Matthew chapter 18, verse 10, listen to Jesus process.
Speaker 0 00:15:11 This Jesus says, see that you do not despise one of these little ones. And what are the little ones kids listen to this for? I tell you that in heaven, their angels always see the face of my father, who is in heaven, that God just somehow understands the weakness and the vulnerability of a child. And I don't know how this works. This is actually where the notion of guardian angels even emerged from this seems to be an emphasis on children. And it does not say that every single kid has one. What it says is those kids who have trusted in Jesus, that there are angels ministers of God designated for their protection. And I love this. They have 24 7 access to the father so they can inform the father of anything nefarious happening on the ground for a beloved child of God. Who's placed their faith in Jesus.
Speaker 0 00:16:12 Isn't that cool? I'm going to love this. And I'm always been like, how have my children not died yet? And I am just convinced that there's some kind of angelic protection over them, but Christian, here's what I want. I want to, I want to go deeper with you. You are very susceptible to gateways that foster real and measurable old pression. So let me take a moment and define oppression for you because it is not uncommon that a follower of Jesus experiences, spiritual war in a way where they are not possessed, but they are constantly bombarded in different ways. So here's oppression, it's demonic influence over one's mind, emotions, body, or soul. And this seems to be the onus of the spiritual battle for the Christian. It is a fight against oppression. Oppression can happen externally. When somebody comes at you or lies about you or antagonizes you or bullies you, it can come somehow in the way of thoughts where you might be sitting here and you might have evil, dark thoughts that are just not things you would normally think.
Speaker 0 00:17:35 I do not pretend for a moment to understand how an angel or a demon can inform the mind of a human. I'm not even gonna begin to surmise, but here's what we know. This seems to be a very real thing that happens. Christians articulate on a regular basis. Thoughts are in my brain. There are all of a sudden these really dark feelings of oppression that I have psychologically. I have these things that I just cannot get rid of in my brain. And then when they pray in Jesus' name, it's like instant relief. In fact, one of the ways that you know, the difference between what is medical and what is spiritual is that when you fervently pray over something spiritual, it begins to dissipate. And when you pray over something that is primarily medical, it kind of lingers and hangs on for a bit. The apostle Paul, he had this unbelievable gift, super jealous of the guy in this area and not in others.
Speaker 0 00:18:28 God gave him a vision into what he calls the third heaven. The first heaven is like, you look up at the sky and the clouds that's in Bible theology, language that's first heaven. Second heaven is going to be the stars they're above the clouds. Third heaven is the boat of God. It's where God dwells. It's where his throne room is. And, and so what Paul says is he has given this vision into the third heaven. In fact, what he said is this. He said, no eye has seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. In fact, after this series, we're talking right now about doing a series on heaven and hell, because this has got pastor Craig and pastor Alex and I who are preparing together. This series really excited about heaven saying the beauty of God after the study and the tabernacle.
Speaker 0 00:19:13 So we're likely going in that direction after this series. And I hope it would be an encouragement to you, but, but Paul's takeaway from this vision is you have no clue what God made for you. And it was interesting because God's conclusion is that Paul, this vision is going to make you arrogant and prideful and boastful over. When I was in heaven the other day, I saw this thing, you wouldn't believe, you wouldn't understand. It's probably too much for you, right? So what Paul says is that God gave him a messenger of Satan to torment him.
Speaker 0 00:19:48 And so Paul says, three times, will you take this away from me? And God says, no, my grace is sufficient for you. And Paul's whole, whole reasoning is so that God would keep him humble. Now did this messenger of Satan. Did it possess them? No. Was it a constant irritancy to him? Yes. Was a mental. We don't know. Was this psychological? Was it emotional? Was it physical? We have no idea. All we know is that Paul is articulating this and some people have surmised that the messenger of Satan is a metaphor. I actually don't have any reason to think it is because we see that somehow in the Bible that demons have the ability to negatively impact. And there could very well be a circumstance where God might look at somebody like Paul and say, yeah, you're what I showed you was so incredible that this is the only way to keep you humble and to remind you of your desperate need for my grace.
Speaker 0 00:20:42 Now, if you're concerned that the Lord would do that to you, I would say that unless he gives you a vision of the third heaven that you're going to become boastful for the rest of your life, I would probably say he would not do that to you, but that is oppression. And sometimes Christians live in oppression. And because we don't think about the demonic, we don't understand our authority because we're not praying regularly because the most authorized, powerful tool that we have in our tool belt is prayer. We just live in oppression and we don't even recognize it for what it is. Now you should be asking, okay, pastor Michael, what's our text today? Can we get, can we get into this? I needed some time to set that up. Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse nine, open up your Bibles with me there. Before the land of Israel was called Israel.
Speaker 0 00:21:31 It was called the land of Canaan. And 400 years before Israel would go into the land of Canaan to take it over. God gave a promise to Abraham, and here's the promise. It's in Genesis chapter 15, verse 13 and verse 16. Here's what God says. Abraham know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs. That's Egypt and will be servants there Egypt. And they will be afflicted 400 years, verse 16. He says, but they should come back here in the fourth generation. And I want you to hear this phrase for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. That might be a weird phrase to you, but it's very important. In other words, Abraham, I have a land for you and the land right now. It's called the it's called Canaan, and there's a whole bunch of tribes and the land of Canaan, and don't get me wrong.
Speaker 0 00:22:38 These tribes are really evil, but if we're being honest, they're not evil enough for me to kick them out yet, but in 400 years, because I'm on mission. And I know the future of the past, the present, and 400 years they're DoubleTree and evil is going to get so vital that I will actually be required by my own justice and righteousness to eradicate them from the face of the earth. Every single one of them. In fact, Satan is going to have such a field day with these tribes, that it will be the most evil dark place the world has probably seen since the flood. So for 400 years, you guys are going to go be afflicted. You're going to be, you're going to be slaves in Egypt. Um, but don't worry when the 400 years is up, I am going to free you. And I'm going to release you.
Speaker 0 00:23:22 It's interesting too, a little side note for you say new this prophecy, and it's not an accident that 400 years later, he's been waiting for the seed of, of Adam and Eve to crush his head for a hundred years later, he incites Pharaoh to start killing all of the babies who were born. Why? Because he can count because he's smart. He's trying to kill the seed before the seed can kill him. And so here's what happens 400 years goes by and Moses is born and all of this stuff is happening and they're going into the promised land, but they're not yet there yet. And Deuteronomy and God is so gracious because they have no clue what they're walking into. It's like the first time you go to like middle school, elementary school, you were so protected. Everything was so easy. And then you go to middle school and you're like, who are these evil people?
Speaker 0 00:24:12 What is happening? Kids are terrible now. Um, but you know what I mean? Remember, the first time you went to high school or you went to college, the only way you can prepare yourself for what you're going to see is kind of to experience and all of these good intention, people say, let me just tell you, we're going to experience. And then you're like, I got it. I got this thing under control. I know what I'm doing. Anybody else like that? Right? A couple of you, mostly just me. And so God has this very candid conversation. And he basically says, listen, you don't know what you're walking into. Let me tell you what you're going to see in Egypt. You saw magic and sorcery, but it was powerful people who did it. It was, it was sorcerers who worked for the king. And, and there was a little bit on the ground, but it was kind of contained.
Speaker 0 00:25:01 But when you go to Canaan, it's going to be everywhere. In fact, normal people are going to be dabbling in very dark practices that you have not even surmised yet. And you're going to look at them and say, what's the harm. And so we get to Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse nine. And here's what the Lord says. When you come into the land that the Lord, your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. God calls there, dark magic, which we're going to identify what specifically it was in just a moment, but he identifies it as a bomb. Rateable which as Hebrew sins go, abominable is the worst absolute evil sin you can do because abominations have the greatest negative impact on your body and on your soul. And we talked about one of his favorite tactics is to take the very good things that God has created, that are infused with much spiritual power subvert and invert them.
Speaker 0 00:26:20 And have you take advantage of them. And then the damage corresponds to the good that they could do. Now you're experiencing the bad that they have the capacity to do. He loves this stuff. So he lists eight specific abominations and demonic practices to flee. He says this, there shall not be found among you. Anyone who burns this son or his daughter as an offering right off the bat. You're like people do that. They'd never seen this before, by the way, this is new categories of evil. And now they're listening. And after this, it's like, what could possibly lead to this kind of behavior? Anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sourcer or a charmer, or a medium or a necromancer or one acquires of the dead. Now I want to take a couple of minutes. I want to just define each of these for you.
Speaker 0 00:27:21 And here here's the goal. A couple thousand years ago, they practice these things in different ways than people practice them today. But what I want you to be aware of in your life, whether it's taro cards or psychics or crystals or astrology, doesn't matter what it is. I want you to be aware principally of all of these. Um, if you go on Wikipedia and you look up divination methods, they literally have to alphabet the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of divination methods. And you scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll. There are that many practical applications of divination in the world today that Wikipedia has identified. Go check it out. It's very dark and sinister, but let's explore each of these child sacrifice, sacrificing children, typically to death for power provision or benefit that people would actually choose to lose a child in order to gain these, in fact, crazy thought, Solomon, at the end of his life, do you know what God he was participating in worship with molec, which is the God who sacrifices children on a burnt alter, and everybody would sit back and watch.
Speaker 0 00:28:42 And their hope is that they would get power provision or benefit. Number two, divination. This is a big word, but basically is seeking secret knowledge from dark spirits. You'll find a lot of these categories have overlap. Um, but each of the words are really important just to know, in and of themselves. This is the most base meaning seeking secret knowledge from dark spirits. Number three, fortune telling this is using spirits to predict and control the future. So you may have different means of accessing the spirits. You might go to a psychic or a tarot card reader, et cetera. There might be smoke and crystals and different things. But the end of the day, the goal of fortune telling is you're using the spirit realm to predict, and then optimally to control the future. Number four is interpreting omens. And this is telling the future by signs.
Speaker 0 00:29:39 And it's this belief that there are spirits and demons that are constantly working through the physical round to give you clues. And omen is like this bad thing that might be happening. And maybe an owl shows up on your tree and you're like, oh no, it's an omen. The demons are telling me that bad things are gonna happen to me this week. And so you might go to a, diviner a sourcer, a psychic to say there was an omen, asked the spirits what the omen means. And so they will tell you, oh, and they'll make up something and try to make you give them your, their money, your money sorcery, um, inducing, magical effects by drugs or some other potion. And so drugs, aren't a new thing. And so what would happen is they would create environments where they would put somebody under some sort of hallucinogenic drug, and then they would do evil, dark things to them.
Speaker 0 00:30:34 Drugs are a gateway mechanism for demonic oppression for what it's worth charming. Um, this is controlling people or animals through spells, you know, the, the king Cobra, snake charmers. That's what this would be. That'd be a version of this, but in the charming world, particularly in voodoo and different things that you can actually control people with this, a medium, someone who communicates with spirits or lets them use their body to communicate a medium, it's sort of like a mediator, but in a really bad way. And so, um, a medium could just be the voice of it. They might hear a demon speak and then give you the information. Sometimes mediums will invite a spirit to possess them. And then you have the ability to communicate with said spirit through the body of this medium. And finally there is the notion of a necromancer. A necromancer is somebody who communicates with the dead, through visions, apparitions, or even raises them bodily.
Speaker 0 00:31:36 The spirit realm has unbelievable power. And what we find is that there are, there are dark forces. We don't know if they're just talking to demons. That seems to be the, the, the idea that, um, if you're talking about the dead person, it's a demon masquerading, maybe as a loved one or something of the sorts. So somebody might say to you, Hey, you know, like, um, uh, I had, I was talking with my great aunts or my grandma, or they just showed up and it's like, they were there. And theologically, that's impossible. Your great aunt, your grandma, your ancestors are not going to speak to you now who knows their names, the demonic realm, who knows what they looked like, who knows their personality, who note there is an observational capacity and ability of the demonic realm. And so if someone is particularly susceptible to this, um, you might be participating in necromancy and not even know it, but no angel and no dead person is going to talk to you theologically when you die. That is it.
Speaker 0 00:32:38 Now watch what happens next in verse 12, the Lord is going to be pretty harsh here. I'm going to just give you some affirmation. Some warning here. He says in verse 12, whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord, your God is driving them out before you let me say it like this. There are some sins that aren't just evil, but make you evil. The Lord goes from calling the things, the dark magic, the practices, and abomination to saying that the people who do them are now in abomination. So before we move forward, I want to make two things clear because I can see the questions arising in your brain. Um, I'm going to say something that maybe on the surface might feel a little controversial. Trust me is not all sins are not the same.
Speaker 0 00:33:43 Let me prove it. Would you rather have somebody murder you or steal from you steal, right. I hope because they're not the same. All sins are the same. In one way, the blood of Christ covers all of them equally. There is no sin that cannot be forgiven. Amen. Anybody who comes to Christ, no matter how bad the sin was, like the blood of Christ can cover all sins have this in common. They are only ever forgiven through the shed blood of Christ when you place your faith in Jesus, but in the, in the spirit realm, all sins are not the same. And they're not the same in that they do not have the same bodily impact, spirit impact, psychological impact or social impact. There are some things that when you do them, aren't just bad, but they actually make you now the conduit of evil, because the person who dabbles in them almost invariably invites other people to dabble in them as well.
Speaker 0 00:34:43 And this is why the person who participates in them becomes an abomination. Now, if you're here and you have practice any of these, maybe you tried it once it freaks you out. And you're like never again. And the idea here is that the person who becomes the abomination is not the one who like tried it. It's the one who continues to practice it. It's the one who says I'm going to actually make this a part of my life. And I have great news for you. Jesus Christ offers you complete restoration, forgiveness, heaven, the spirit of God, and full access to the spirit realm at a good way through faith in Jesus Christ. And this is why the Bible says that those who come to Christ, they are transferred out of the domain of darkness, into the kingdom of God's beloved son, Jesus Christ, which is light in life.
Speaker 0 00:35:36 Give me that transference any day. And if you're here today and you're like, oh no, I had no idea. I have one answer for you. His name is Jesus. And if you weren't a Christian, maybe you unknowingly were dabbling in these things. And I have great news for you. Never do it again. The blood of Christ covers you and we need to pray for you. And what you've done is you've invited oppression into your life. But guess what greater is he who is in you than he, who is in the world. You have one of the greatest tools, which is the power of persistent prayer in Jesus' name, use it, use it, get some counsel and get some help. Now, verse 13, he says this, you shall be blameless before the Lord, your God, and blameless as the antonym to abomination and the person in scripture who is blameless.
Speaker 0 00:36:21 I love this. They are emotionally, mentally, spiritually free. They might be played by their own physical conditions, but they are free from oppression, from the demonic realm. What a gift that God has given to the person who is blameless and by blameless, he doesn't mean perfect in every way. He means you're avoiding these abominable practices. You're closing the gateway doors of, of oppression and demons into your life. You're keeping these things, not just at bay, but completely away from you. What a gift for you to be blameless because for the blameless man, woman, and student and child, his life verse 14, he says, so these nations, which you're about to dispossess, they listened to fortune tellers and diviners. But as for you, the Lord, your God has not allowed you to do this basic question. So what's the harm who cares? I mean the Weegee board here, it's a psychic.
Speaker 0 00:37:22 There it's a tarot card reader. There it's crystals here. Four simple things. Number one, each of these schemes were designed by Satan to trick you and destroy him. Who came up with crystals, who came up with tarot cards. They're all just tricks to get you to dabble. That's all they are. They're they're they're schemes to get you to call on darkness. You don't even have to know what you're doing, but it's like, oh, I know. I think if we give them cards, we put little faces on them. Maybe they'll call on the spirit realm. It could be dice. It could be cards. It doesn't matter. They're all just made up avenues that the evil one is designed to get you to dabble. Because the moment you invoke the spirit realm in any way, apart from the loving boundaries that God has given us, you are literally always inviting the influence of demons into your life.
Speaker 0 00:38:14 Again, you don't have to know it, but he knows this. It's a trick. That's why there are 8,000 different ways to practice divination. All of them essentially are avenues to the same thing you dabbling outside of God's boundaries in the spirit realm, which always opens you up. Uh, what's the harm. Number two, each of these schemes were designed to do maximum body and soul damage. That there's something about dark magic. That it's not just bad. It's not just an abomination, but it corrupts you to your very core. Here's the third reason why I think what's the harm. Each, each of these brings God's judgment on you. I don't want that. Does anybody in the room want that? No. And then finally, each scheme opens, especially Christians. I'm telling you don't do this, but it opens you unknowingly to spiritual oppression. It's just not worth it.
Speaker 0 00:39:13 I don't want to give you, I have five. So Watts and they're all quick. And I hope this encourages you. Number one, repent. If you have dabbled, I'm going to read you a passage from the book of acts, verse chapter 19, verses 18 to 20 bunch of people, practicing magic arts trust in Jesus. And here's what it says. Also many of those who were now believers came confessing and divulging their practices. A number of those who had practiced magic arts, brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all what a statement. And they counted the value of them. In case you're wondering how rampant in the Roman empire, um, witchcraft is, they counted the value of them and it came out to 50,000 pieces of silver. Can you talk about revival? You think the evil one was thrilled in that moment? Do you wonder why the demonic realm hated the apostle Paul so much?
Speaker 0 00:40:09 Because he'd go preach the gospel, the gospel and the power of the gospel started saving people from their evil, dark magic, dark magic practices. And then verse 20 says, so the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. Let me give you an encouragement. If you have any kind of literature, books, um, symbols signs, crystals, I don't care what it is. Taro cards. Don't just throw them in the trash and burn them, get rid of them. And then you begin praying in the name of Jesus that any oppression, any demonic influence that you have opened your life up to in the name of Jesus, that he would release you from those. And let me tell you this, every obstacle between you and that fire pit is going to come up, do not let them get in your way. Number two, flee. If you are exposed, many people are exposed to this and you don't even know it.
Speaker 0 00:40:58 You're not even trying. You're just there. You might be at a, at a sleepover at a friend's house. You might go to a party with some people. You might go over to a neighbor's house and it's just, it's just there. And it's like, Hey, would you mind sitting down with me? We're going to do a seance right now. And you're thinking I don't want to be, I don't want to be rude. I don't know. It's kind of weird. You know, like, am I going to be that person? Am I gonna be the fundamentalist have walked out of the room. I'll judgy. Get out. There are ways for you to do it so that you're not a rude jerk.
Speaker 0 00:41:24 If a Muslim came into your house and you offered pork and they said, I'm sorry, I can't eat pork. Would you be offended? No. And in the same way, Christian own who you are. If you go into someone's house and they're practicing any level of dark magic, you can say I don't, I don't, I just, I'm not comfortable with that. I'm so sorry. I love you think you're amazing, but my faith doesn't let me do that. It's okay. And I would much rather have my neighbor think I'm weird than give myself the opportunity for demonic oppression. Amen, everybody. Amen. Number three, close the door. If you have not opened again, I want to invite every person in this room. If you have never dabbled, I want to invite you to resolve in your heart today that never wants for the rest of my life. Will I let my curiosity or social pressure get the best of me?
Speaker 0 00:42:15 And I will never, from this day forward ever dabble in any dark magic, anything that is accessing the spirit realm outside of God's boundaries, I will never do. I will be blameless. When it comes to these dark practices, number four, engage the spiritual realm. God's way. I'm going to show you four things in scripture. Some are for a new Testament. Christian. Some are actually exclusively for old Testament. These are ways that the spirit realm is was, was dabbled in, in a way that got approved. So you want to know how you can dabble in the spiritual realm. You can dabble as long as it's according to God's loving methods. Here's number one, prayer and worship in Jesus name. You may access the spirit realm through prayer in Jesus' name. Anytime you want. Now, when I say access to spirit rounder, I mean talk to angels.
Speaker 0 00:43:09 Nope. I mean talk to demons. Nope. Do I mean talk to your dead ancestors? Nope. I mean, you talk to God through faith in Jesus, by his spirit. And that is it. But you are invited to do that. This is one of the reasons I love worship because worship is just prayer to melody. When people say we never pray in church, we literally pray together in unison. Probably one of the prayers that the evil one hates more than anything else is the unified exaltation of God in Jesus name. You know what you do when you pray, you are accessing the spiritual realm. God's way giving God glory. He loves it. Worship your head off. He loves it. The demons hate it. They hate it in the, in the old Testament, prophecy was another way this happened. How do you hear from God? How do you access?
Speaker 0 00:43:54 What's going on into the future will prophecy was God's gift. And prophecy happens only according to God's will. And God's way today you have the full scope of God's word. You have the full revelation of God. We don't need to have prophets running around left and right. Trying to surmise the future and the old Testament, there was actually an interesting, very confusing people. Actually don't totally understand it. Um, the priest would have what's called an, uh, Uram and a <inaudible>. I can never pronounce it. And, uh, again, well, we don't know how, but somehow if they didn't have access to the right decision, they didn't know the right best thing to do. They would somehow access these and know the best way to do it. Nobody knows how they worked. Uh, nobody knows even what they looked like. Uh, but somehow the priest had access to this and got approved that therefore I've got approves it is it approved?
Speaker 0 00:44:43 Yes. Now we don't have these anymore. So we don't do that. Finally. Number four, you want to know what's happening behind the scenes. You wanna know what's happening in the spirit realm. You wanna know what's happening in the future. You want to know, you want to make sense of reality. The word of God, every time you open it, you are opening up a spirit book that is unveiling behind the scenes. What's really going on in this world. I would just tell you, I think, I think three of the most important things that you can do is you can pray and you can worship. You can open up God's word and you can get into the spirit realm that way. And the Lord loves it now last. So what very simple, these abominations are still happening.
Speaker 0 00:45:27 Uh, I want to, I want to end the sermon and I want to invite a very special friend of mine up. Um, you guys remember Peter, uh, Peter, why don't you come up and Peter and I we're gonna have, um, just a brief conversation about what this looks like, particularly in his part of the world. Um, as he's coming up, Peter was with us. Gosh, Peter was like a year and a half ago, um, where all the fire alarms went off. Yeah. That was amazing. And, um, he was with us and he shared a bit about his ministry. Peter's from Uganda. And Peter comes back to the states. How many, how many times a year do you come back to the states? Oh,
Speaker 1 00:46:06 There've been more this year and last year because of the COVID, but usually two times. Um, and yeah, I would, yeah,
Speaker 0 00:46:14 Two times a year. Yeah. So, um, I wanted, I wanted you guys just to see him, get to know him a little bit tonight at six 30, we're going to go out, we're going to go much deeper into some of these things and we're going to be in the 6 0 1. If you want to come here just more about what's happening in Peter's ministry. But I think today is going to just give you a little bit of insight into the reality of the things we're teaching on today. So Peter, could you just share with everybody, what do you do
Speaker 1 00:46:42 And, uh, good to be here. Thank you, pastor. Um, Peter, I am a pastor of a rock hill church in Uganda, uh, in the village of champ PC for the five, uh, um, kilometers out of Kampala. It's the church. Um, I'm honored to have been the founding pastor there. Uh, and then in the center of where witchcraft is, uh, the capital of witchcraft in the whole of Uganda as well, planted a church. And I pass to that. Um, I also had a ministry that was bust out of that after what we saw in the community of sacrificing of children. So we do rescue children from witchcraft, um, uh, sacrifices. And as a matter of fact, I have one of the kids here that this judge has helped to support us through the old deal. So we have a rehabilitation center, kind of a, uh, an orphanage children's home, that rehabilitates, uh, children that have survived from, uh, those practices and all sorts of different damages to their bodies. Uh, we have a school that educates them and we help the children of the witch doctors that we arrest and take to prison for life. We reach out to them and bring them so we can love them and take them to school and love them to show them that, you know, if your father did this, it's not your problem. God loves you. And you deserve that. So that's, that's what I do.
Speaker 0 00:48:09 Sounds like you're bored. So you're a pastor, you run an orphanage, run a school, you help and work with the government to prosecute, uh, which doctors you take their kids in, show them the love of Christ that, um, pastoral ministry by the way is very different. I mean, people are people, but what you're doing is incredible. And I think for all of us here, this is just so outside of our normal, it's hard to wrap our brains around it. So I think most Americans are surprised to learn the extent of witchcraft, um, that it still happens even in a way that is similar to Canaan. So what does witchcraft look like in Uganda today? You said it was the capital of witchcraft in Uganda, but what does it look like on the ground?
Speaker 1 00:48:59 Uh, unfortunately it is real alive and, um, widespread all over the country, uh, right now. Um, and, uh, people practice it using, especially the blood and sacrifices and they will, um, you know, sacrifice that in most, uh, for the benefit of whatever they want wealth though, um, blessings, um, and it, it starts of course, through initiations. They initiate the children from a young age and they pick them out and say, this one is going to serve in the clan as a, which, uh, these also accusations, especially to children and adults, where they will accuse her child to be a witch. And they will through that, um, abused them some mental health issues as well. Uh, that comes as, uh, an accusation of witchcraft are those, um, do all mens and, and, uh, kill animals and worship trees and lakes and rivers and, and use magic trickeries, uh, into people to, uh, initiate them into each graft. It's unfortunately widespread happens every day. It is visible and everyone's eye, um, and has led to the death of many of our children in Uganda. So why,
Speaker 0 00:50:20 How do you, why do you, the people involved in witchcraft focused so heavily on children,
Speaker 1 00:50:28 Uh, children, as you know, I believe, uh, closest to the Lord, his heart, and I think a target for spiritual oppression, but they are vulnerable as you know, they are defenseless and they believe that the sacrifice of children or the use of their body parts into witchcraft practices has more power than any other sacrifices. There was a sacrifice of animal, blood and other things or chickens, but when they sacrifice the children, they believe that that gives them the sacrifice more power. And you're closer to get what you want, uh, when you tuck, uh, the children, um, it's unfortunately, wide spread as well. And the accusations as well at targeting to children because they people claim authority in which they do. Uh, sometimes if their parents are clan leaders and they will use children because they don't have any sense of rejection, uh, they will receive whatever the impact of them.
Speaker 0 00:51:31 What leads a parent to do this? Like why, why are people even willing to go to the extent of sacrificing a child? What are they desperate?
Speaker 1 00:51:45 There's a huge sense of, uh, evil and then desperation. Unfortunately, the last case of, uh, I worked on where the father who sacrificed his only two children, we rescued the young eight year oldest, she's in our rehabilitation center. And I have seen many parents fathers, especially, and, uh, a few mothers that have offer their children for sacrifice to conflict, death. And, um, it is desperation. Some of it is attached to poverty, desperation of their initiation into witchcraft because that's all they know and they defend it. And then the deceit that comes from those, that claim to be, to hold the power, that which doctors, and they will push it to the parents and say, if you want to get out of the desperate situation, you are the only sacrifice you're going to have is your child. And unfortunately people sometimes realize late when they children a date or a maimed through the practice. And, um, sometimes there are great others, uh, absolutely. Um, not remorseful at all. And you can see the position over their life that they are not alone, that evil has taken over their being, and then they will kill.
Speaker 0 00:53:05 So you, you sent me a couple of weeks ago, this picture, and it's a 51 kids who were, um, rescued. Can you tell us, who are these kids? What were they rescued from? And what's, what's the next steps for them?
Speaker 1 00:53:21 Uh, those were 51 children. Um, two weeks ago before I came into the country, uh, we were involved in the risk of this children from a very, um, you know, ISIS, have you heard of it? ISIS
Speaker 0 00:53:35 Is
Speaker 1 00:53:37 The nicest, uh, leaning rebel group in Uganda that kidnaps children all over the country and radicalizes them. So they take them into underground cells, kidnapped from their different, uh, places in the country. Some of them, their parents actually give them in because they're subscribed to that radical sect. And they use them for, to be child soldiers. The children, the girls used as child brides and others are radicalized to be suicide bombers in the DRC, Congo or Somalia. This is the fourth group we've had. This is 51, 2 years ago. We had 122. And what we do them is we give them a place to stay close them, feed them a walk with them, to deprogram them and, um, rehabilitate them, trust their families so that we can reunite them back into their families. Those that we can, those that we can't, they stay on for, for a long time, because they don't remember. And actually most of these children are not originally Muslim. They kidnap them, they give them a new name and they train them to be, um, pretty hard hardened. Uh, once when they come, they're pretty difficult to deal with these ones because they were a little bit younger. They were still easy to do, but the older ones were pretty difficult to work with. So we have them, um, we have fitting them, loving them and showing them God's love. Um, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:55:08 Well, so, Hey, last question. Um, Uganda just made child sacrifice illegal this year. Yes. What took so long?
Speaker 1 00:55:19 Uh, first of all, I want to thank you. I was here last year and I was asking for petitions to the president and the speak of parliament. I petitioned in 2014, the speak of parliament to enact a law that prohibits and prevents human sacrifice in Uganda to the ninth parliament, the ninth parliament deed, all the consultations came to our center. So the families, but they did not do something. We petitioned again, a second petition. And this time there was a hand of God in the, in the move. Sadly, it happened when a child head was taken to parliament in the middle of our petition. It was a such story. And I, and this was a daughter of a pastor in the middle of when parliament was, uh, discussing on this law. It awakened them. And in the moments of just a few months, the petition was escalated. The parliament passed the bill. I was actually here. I rushed back into Uganda to be present in parliament for that, after they passed the bill, I wrote a letter to the president and say, please expedite the passing of this bill. We had an event where she was going to come. And two months ago, the president signed on that bill. And right now human sacrifice is prohibited and preventable in Uganda.
Speaker 1 00:56:53 So I want to thank you for your partnership in that, that doesn't mean the practice stops now. Their work is still a lot, uh, but we are thankful and praising the Lord for making it prohibitive for these, the law. Now that if you sacrifice a child or aid or fund, and the processes that killed the child into witchcraft accusations, you will go to prison for life. The person who killed unfortunately, will be put to death. Now, the parliament asked me my opinion on the final presentation of the bill. And I wrote to them, I said, the sanctity of life belongs to God and nobody should take it. And because we are still learning the people that practice, this should not be killed, but the opinion of all, most of Uganda is when we did consultations. They say that whoever sacrifices a child should be killed, I had no influence in making sure that they killed. I tried to fight the death, but the opinion of the majority of the Ugandans that we consulted over the last eight years say they should be killed. And parliament passed that. And then I said, well, my role was to find to push for the law was not to fight the death penalty. Somebody else will deal with that. Wow.
Speaker 0 00:58:08 Well, let me take a minute. I want to pray for you. And, um, I want to invite all of you, sir. Would you just extend your hands and pray father? I want to thank you that despite the darkness of this world, you, when the spirit of Christ is unbelievably more powerful than anything we can imagine. And, um, I wanna thank you for Peter. And I know from our many conversations that there are fears for safety for him and, um, for the children and for the church. And, and I pray over my brother, would you continue to give him remarkable miraculous spiritual protection from feels so foreign to us here, but from ISIS, from terrorists, from people who want to kidnap these children, especially since an orphanage is just, uh, a target of vulnerability. I pray God for their children's ministry for their school Lord, that there would be a foiling of every plot and scheme of the evil one.
Speaker 0 00:59:23 God, I pray that as the gospel is proclaimed to all of these children, that Peter would continue to be able to see. And the men and women who worked there, unbelievable transformation, God, I pray that you would continue to give him wisdom, but courage and your will clearly with each and every step. God, I pray you protect him from the evil one and from oppression and from lies. And God, if there's any way that we can come around, would you just open those doors? Make it crystal clear. Thank you for my brother. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for salvation from all of this that comes through faith. And I pray for these witch doctors, even right now, God, that they would be revival as they meet Jesus from one to the next, whether it's in prison, on death row or out, out in the, out, in the open God that they would meet Jesus. And you would begin to bring revival, even amongst the darkest of the dark and Uganda. Lord, we love you. We commit a brother to you and we pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen, boy.
Speaker 0 01:00:45 I think this is the perfect moment to celebrate and remember what Jesus has done for us and what he has freed us from. If there is no inclination Christian in you to dabble into dark practices, it is because the spirit of Christ has freed you through the blood of Christ. And as we partake of communion today, I just hope you are able to savor the incredible gift that God has given you victory over Satan freedom from these dark practices, the holy spirit who leads and guides and convicts and trains and transforms you through the blood of Christ and the resurrection. We have been given everything to be freed from these. And so here's what we'll do. If you're, um, visiting with us might be your first time. If you've trusted in Christ, I want to invite you to join us. If you have never trusted in Jesus, I want to invite you today to personally trust in Christ and to be transferred from the domain of darkness, into the kingdom of God's beloved son.
Speaker 0 01:01:53 Jesus. If that's a decision you want to make today, I want to invite you in a moment. We're going to partake of communion, partake with us and let this be your declaration of belief that Jesus Christ is your God. He died on the cross for your sins was raised from the dead and your salvation is not because you're good, but because Jesus was good for you. If you're hearing, you're just not ready to trust in Christ, don't partake with us because the partaking is this public declaration of personal belief in Jesus over to my right, your left over that, um, a piece of wood. What do you call it? Thing? Forget my brain left to me. There are elements there between the double doors and also to my left. Your right, and we're gonna have a time of silence here. And, uh, this is an opportunity to reflect. We're going to sing together as we're singing. If you don't already have elements, feel free during the song to go get them. If you'd hold onto them, we're going to partake together at the end as a symbol of our unity in Jesus. And by the way, feel free not to open them until the song is oversee. You can just freely worship it's okay. While I'm reading scripture, if we hear the crackle of cellophane, let's have a time of silence together.
