Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:06 Em unmute or it is. So I was just, uh, just verbalizing all of that in my hand. Ventriloquism. Good morning village. True Jesus. Good to see you this morning. My name is Craig <inaudible>. I'm the lead pastor here at village church east. And it is my privilege to bring God's word to you this morning. Now we have been working through oh yes. And if you'd like to go elsewhere and learn, uh, with the village kids, this is your moment for escape. Uh, so you can head out with that lovely lady in the back, over there to my right, your left that's Gail, and she will take you where you need to go. We, uh, we're glad that we can have a kids program back and alive and well village village. Jeez, that's very exciting for us. And you should also know this is Nathan's first time here as a married man.
Speaker 0 00:00:55 Congratulations. Is this your first time that you guys are married? Have you, were you here before? Oh, okay. All right. All right. Yeah. We're just so used to having you around now, huh? Congratulations. Yeah. So, so it's been two months, two months and everything. Okay. So far they're pausing a little bit, so it's still good. Okay, good. Uh, no, Nathan's great. Great to have you with us. And, um, yeah, it was good to have you guys with us this morning. Okay. Listen. So we are talking about spiritual warfare and this one is a little weird because every time I talk about this particular subject in the spiritual realm, all weird stuff happens. And it has been the case here this morning has been a case for me this week. If you've had a weird week in your efforts to get here this morning, now, you know why this morning, we're talking about our pull toward dark magic.
Speaker 0 00:01:52 You ever wondered why that is such a poll for us? Why is there such a, an attraction for us to know beyond this physical realm, if you're just joining us, you need to know this. Isn't just something where we're pulling out of the dark and talking on this morning. This actually is a series that we're working on called spirit war as spiritual war. And if you haven't caught up with us, you definitely need to know that all of these messages build on the others. And so I'd encourage you to jump back a couple of weeks and kind of track with us as we work through this. But we're working through this one particular subject tonight, uh, today on, uh, our, our attraction toward black magic. What is dark magic? All about why is it that it's so attractive to us? And why is it that our world certainly cannot seem to get rid of this one?
Speaker 0 00:02:45 It comes up through every generation. If you don't believe that you obviously don't know all a wonderful, beautiful people on TV, because so many of the beautiful people are involved with dark magic. You may not know this, but Adele. How many of you Adele you've heard of Dell? Dell is clearly into dark magic. Adele credits, spiritual crystal healing for calming her pre-show nerves holistically. That's another wonderful word that we're using these days to describe what dark magic is. We call it holistic. Be careful when you hear these words, because they usually mean something else. Now, this lady I can never pronounce her name, right? As Celia is banks. You know this lady anyway, Azealia banks posted clips of her, cleaning up what looked to be remnants of chicken carcasses in her closet. She says in the video that she put out that she's been practicing brew Juriah for three years, uh, that is voodoo and that real witches do these things before cleaning up the mess, mess with an industrial sander, she made a mess with the chickens she was killing in the closets.
Speaker 0 00:03:52 How about this one? Heather Graham, have you heard of this lady before? Hey, you know, Heather Graham? Sure. Heather Graham says this quote. I have this group of friends. We get together. We call ourselves the goddesses and we wish for things. And then a lot of amazing things happen to all of us. We burn things, honoring the elements of earth, wind, Arun fire. We do spells we did this thing when we were calling on the wind and the air and the whole storm started on my roof. It was amazing. It was empowering. How about this now about Heather Graham? No, keep her up there. Not, not yet. Heather Graham revealed, this is kind of funny in 2009, she's so much into this, that she had a witch coven join her and they quote sent Barack Obama positive energies in the hopes that he would be the next president. So there you go now to help her along Lana Del Ray, this is this next lady she confirmed to this magazine that she used witchcraft to put a hex on president Donald Trump. So now, you know what actually happened for some of us older folks. You might know this man he's Patrick Swayze. Remember Patrick Swayze. What's that movie that he did, that everybody loves.
Speaker 0 00:05:04 I'm not going to say how, how sad I am at the first person that responded to that was our drummer Mike mark. But Mike mark, our drummer, Mike, uh, mark mark has always had a thing for Patrick Swayze. I know that Patrick Swayze told the Philadelphia Enquirer that he absolutely believes in crystals and even owns a magic wand. So I don't think he got into Harry Potter land, either sports coaches. Uh, these, this is a normal, here's one sports coach that, uh, practices dark magic. Uh, this guy can never pronounce his name. So I put the news clipping up there. He, uh, he performs magic before dark magic before, uh, he enters into games. He casts spells. In fact, there's one picture. He has. He actually walks out on the field in his, in his garb and with his little, uh, uh, skulls around his neck.
Speaker 0 00:05:54 And some people are just very confused as to what actually they do believe about this thing. Civil shepherd. How many of your members, civil shepherd now moonlighting, right? Several shepherd calls herself. Now get this a Christian pagan, Buddhist goddess worshiper. That's just confused. All right. Christian pagan, Buddhist goddess worshiper. And it's not just celebrities. The draw for the common person to dabble in the spiritual realm is compelling. Listen, it always has been. There's always a compelling nature in us, a desire to peel back the curtain so we can enter and tap into this spirit realm. The desire that you can know, something beyond yourself, you can engage something that you cannot see. You can tap into something more powerful that exists beyond your world. This is a natural poll of the human heart. This kind of a magic is called black magic or dark magic because it's meant to spur the spirits to act on somebody's behalf.
Speaker 0 00:06:57 Dark magic is actions taken to initiate the spirit realm to act on somebody's behalf. So anytime, whether it's just getting answers or whether it's it's actually to do evil, or whether it's to know something by the way, tonight at village church of Bartlett, you may not know this, but in our world today, uh, dark magic is practiced to such a degree that children are actually still sacrificed. Um, you may not know that, but there is a missionary that village church of Bartlett supports, uh, from Uganda. He's actually speaking tonight. His whole ministry is about rescuing these children that have been sacrificed in these dark magic rituals. Uh, he has, he has, uh, stomach churning stories, but wonderful stories of redemption. Most children don't survive. Some do, and they are maimed. Seriously. He goes in, he rescues them. He adopts them. He puts them into loving families.
Speaker 0 00:07:54 This actually goes on today and he doesn't have one story. He has a whole ministry based on this because it is prevalent. In some countries you can hear about that tonight, jump on village, church of Bartlett website. You can find out all the details about that tonight. I'd encourage everybody to be there. This is not something new. This, this is something that has gone on throughout all time. We went down to Peru and we stood on the pyramids and thought only, only a, you know, a couple of thousand years ago, they were throwing children off of the edges of these pyramids, praying that they could have rain. They still find all these remains as they dig in the corners of the pyramids of children who have been sacrificed so that the clouds would bring forth rain. This is nothing new. This was going on in the old Testament.
Speaker 0 00:08:42 This was going on in Noah's day. This is going on in our day. Today, there is a draw for the human heart to tap into the darkest part of the spiritual realm in order to get something from it. And if you interview all of those folks that I just put there up on screen or anybody that's involved in the black magic, it's always one of three reasons why they're tapping into or trying to tap into the spirit realm. It's either for knowledge, power, or lust. It's one of those three, Katie, what's her name? She sings Perry, Katy Perry, uh, that she's not one that I put up there, but Katy Perry dabbles in the spirit realm all the time, hoping that she'll find somebody who can love her. It's amazing how it's not just the beautiful people. It's the people that live in your neighborhood.
Speaker 0 00:09:29 It's the people that, that dwell in in common day life that are just pulled toward knowing a little more about the spirit realm. I've already told this story. When I was a youth pastor, I took the kids to this like gaming area and this, uh, arcade kinda deal. And you would go in and you win these little tickets from the games that you play and you could turn them in and you could buy something. And I remember the first time I went in there and usually you can get the, you know, spend $30,000 and you get a pencil eraser. That's usually how it goes. But this particular time I walked in there and I could remember looking in and thinking to myself, there's gotta be a better treasure in here that I would like. And I looked inside and I could see there in the same where this place is full of teenagers. It's full of kids. And they had an Luigi board sitting in there. I think it was cheaper than the pencil eraser. There is a natural tendency for human beings to tap into the spirit spirit realm.
Speaker 0 00:10:26 And when you ask them why it's always those three things, knowledge, power, or lost. It's a very real temptation. And God has a lot to say on this throughout all of scripture. So let's go back to our narrative that we're talking about, where we are in the life of the children of Israel. They have been rescued from Egypt and they are now at Sinai. They are receiving the commandments of God. We just finished that series, but now God is telling them. Now you are about to enter into a land that you are not going to believe. Now, keep in mind, they've just come out of Egypt, where they experienced a lot of source or you know this because when, uh, when Moses had the ability from God to have his staff turned into a snake, the magicians did the same thing. They mimicked all the miracles that he could.
Speaker 0 00:11:17 Do you remember when Moses turned a water of the Nile into blood, do you remember? The magicians did the same thing and they kept up with him for a little while, until they couldn't keep up with them anymore. They mimicked all of the miracles of God. How did they did that? They tapped into the spirit realm. It's a very real realm. It's where Satan knows he cannot be God, but he does everything he can to be like God. So he mimics all of the miracles. Moses was given to prove he was a messenger of God to confuse Pharaoh and to abuse the message that God gave for Pharaoh to bend to.
Speaker 0 00:11:57 But as they get through through Sinai, now God tells these guys, these gals, this, these families that are about to enter into the promised land, you are going to see something you've never seen before. You've seen magic in Egypt. It's been very entertaining, you know, stuff that flies out and whether it, whether it was a illusion or the actual tapping into the spirit realm, it's almost like you have seen magic before, but you're never going to, you're not going to believe what you're going to see. Now, when you get to the promised land, this is a land filled with witches filled with diviners, a land where children are sacrificed to idols, to demons and the practices and devotion that you're going to see by these people in Canaan to the spirit realm. You're not going to believe it is way worse than anything that you think you are used to.
Speaker 0 00:12:49 It is idol worship that has been translated into demon worship. Now, listen, I've done way too much research in this area. Uh, because at, at some point it just gets like, I don't even want it on my screen anymore, but in doing this sermon series, I've had to dig a little bit more than I would've ever wanted to, into these kinds of things. I watched a video of this young girl that was a witch. And she talked about what it means to do witchcraft. And it just flowed out of her mouth, like nothing ringing a bell to clean the spirits. And she had her favorite spirits. She wore tattoos on her body to S to celebrate her devotion to some spirits that she was more devoted to than others. She called them by name ancestors, that she knew that would bring her information so she could share it with other people.
Speaker 0 00:13:41 And she had little pieces around her room that demonstrated all of those ancestors. One was the job bone of some animal. I don't know what it was. And as she was talking and she said, this thing that I'm doing, and she was interviewed in this interview that I was watching. She said, this thing that I'm doing this witchcraft is sorcery. This is, this is not a religion. And that bone went flying across the room and you know what? Her reaction, my reaction would have been I'm outta here. I'm leaving. Right? Wouldn't that be your reaction? Her reaction was, oh, and she called that demon by name. What she thought was her ancestor. She called it by name and she said, oh, she didn't like that. She wants it to be a call to religion. We're going to call it a religion. She leans down. She picks up the bone and puts it back on the shelf. This happens to her all the time.
Speaker 0 00:14:29 There is a tragic poll of the human heart toward the spirit realm. And it's as true today as it always has been. And the only thing behind all of these things that you see like this, you can make it as benign as you'd like to. You can stick a Weegee boards in arcades and give them out to kids. You, you can, you can make it into games. You can make it into chance and play it up overnight with your friends. But ultimately what you are doing is you are engaging the demonic realm. And that's what makes it very malicious insidious.
Speaker 0 00:15:08 In fact, in scripture, when it says, when you engage in witchcraft or idol worship, you are engaging the demonic realm. This is why the Bible explains worship of idols as demon worship. Let me give you one verse here on this first Corinthians 10, 19 to 20, the apostle Paul is writing to the church at Corinth. It is already in this society. That's being inundated, which wit with witchcraft and idol worship. And he says, in first Corinthians 10, he clears it up for them. In verse 19, he says, what am I implying? What I'm implying is this food offered to idols is nothing or idols or not. That's what he's saying is food offered to idols? Anything? No, it's not. Or the idol is nothing. It's a piece of wood. It's a rock. It's whatever you want it to be in Isaiah. It says, you know what? An idol is. An idol is like a piece of wood. You cut in half, half. You make into an idol and you worship. And half you warm yourself with, at nighttime, you burn it. It's the dumbest thing you've ever heard. Paul is saying to the church at Corinth, what do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything. Or that an idol is anything. And the answer is no, it's, what's behind the idle.
Speaker 0 00:16:21 Look at verse 20. No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to church? What does it say? There? They offer to what yeah. What, what they offer. They offered to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with deepens. What he's saying here is there's no benign idol worship. There's no benign crystals. There's no benign idols. There are only demons that are behind them. All an idol is just a piece of wood. Demons are behind all idol worship. And when you worship or you pay homage to something, or you give your future to that thing, or you rely on that thing for, for any of those things, power, knowledge, or love, whatever you're doing, you're tapping into a spirit realm. You're tapping into an idol. When you request anything, you are making a request from that thing, that thing has become your idol. That rock is nothing it's, what's behind the rock. You need to be very scared of you are worshiping and demon. According to Corinthians and idol worship in Cayman is not just like something everybody does. Once in awhile, idol worship is prevalent. It's everywhere. It's everywhere through Canaan. And if idol worship is everywhere through Canaan, what else is everywhere through Cayman demons?
Speaker 0 00:17:52 Israel has not seen this level of evil before God absolutely tolerates. None of this kind of activity. And you're going to find out more of why that's the case. God demands that all of this evil be ejected from the promised land. He won't put up with it at all. Now, you know, kind of why, because demons are behind idols. Let's pick up and Deuteronomy 18 in verse nine. If you've got your Bibles, you can turn there on your, uh, on your, uh, device, Deuteronomy 18 and verse nine. When you come into the land, the Lord, your God is giving you that's Canaan. The promised land. You shall church. And I wasn't say you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of these nations. This is the first thing he says to them. He says, you're going to go into the land of Canaan. Here's the first thing you should know.
Speaker 0 00:18:41 They're doing a lot of bad stuff there. Don't follow their example. Stay runaway, stay away from it. Don't go near this thing. God knows the pool will be on the people to dabble in this stuff. They will see things. They can't explain. They will be intrigued by stuff. Moving when nothing is touching it, it will seem very normal. And we know, we know it did become normal. They did not cast all these people out. And because of that, idol worship became a problem for the Israelites. And it became a big problem. When you get to Gideon, Gideon was one of the greatest judges, his real head. When you get to Gideon, what's the first thing Gideon had to do. Do you know, he had to go back to his father's house and clean out the idols. Why? Because they had all these little Canaanite idols.
Speaker 0 00:19:28 In fact, they called them in the, in the book of judges. It calls them, uh, um, uh, idle garden. There's an idle garden in the back. So they have these little figurines. Uh, they might look like this, but there's a little tiny figurines that Canaan had all over the place you got to figure in there. Oh, it's going to come up though. Uh, so they have these little figurines Dyke that Gideon would have had in his, in his, uh, idol garden. Uh, he said, you can go to shopping areas and you could find little crystals there. And these crystals help people sell their items in the shopping area. And so, so, so God is saying to them, you're going to have all of these idols that you can choose from. Rachel. You remember Rachel, when Rachel tried to escape her dad and stole some stuff along the way, you remember the story of Rachel.
Speaker 0 00:20:14 One of the things Rachel stole was one of the ancestor idols. She hit it under her, the saddle of her horse. We know because we know the rest of history. We know that there are, uh, there is a big problem going on with Israel and their tendency to worship these and adopt this idol worship practices. It may not be as entertaining as staffs that turned to snakes, but God says, listen, it's going to be like nothing you've ever seen before. It's more than just the little idols. There's bigger problems. This spirit realm. When you get too far into it, we'll take you into dark magic that you have to elevate to even worship that you never thought you would, the Canaanites have made idol worship so normal that they've constantly elevated the ante. And so God says to Israel, he says, when you get there, get rid of it all because what you were going to encounter is, and you know, the first thing on the list, he says, here's some of the practices you're going to experience in verse 10. There shall not be found among you. Anyone who burns his son or daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sourcer, why didn't he put sourcer first? Why didn't he put interpreting omens? First, those are a little more benign. What is the first thing on the list? Church, anyone who, what burns their children in the fire.
Speaker 0 00:21:56 He said to these Israelites, he said, you're going to go to a land where it is a normal practice for people to want fame, power, a knowledge, power, or love that they are going to be constantly giving their children to their idols. This has to shock the Israelites. Don't you think? I mean, wouldn't it shock you they've never seen anything. They've seen magic before staffing the snakes. That's pretty cool. But we're talking about children. Put on burning hands of idols until they burned to death. First thing on the list, this has to shock them. And not only that God is telling them, this is your new home. This is where I want you to live. Go live there. This would be like God saying to you, listen, I have this apartment that I'd like to you to go live in. All of your neighbors are doing black magic all around you. Stuff's flying around the room. It's going to be very normal. It's going to be very oppressive. Some of them are even killing each other, but I would like for you to go and live there now go. How would you feel?
Speaker 0 00:23:08 And not only that God is saying, there are demons who live there regularly. I'd like for you to pitch your tent in the middle of the group, how scared would you be? I know I would be. They've seen fortune tellers and interpreters. They've seen sourcers in Egypt, but the, these Canaanites have gone all in on this dark magic stuff. And now they're told this is your new home, the Israelites, this is your new home verse 11. The list goes on or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires the dead good grief. The list goes on and on. All of these are dark magic. All of these are our magic that taps into a spirit round where demons live exist and are very active. Is it no wonder that the Bible tells us as believers, don't participate with the things of the dark.
Speaker 0 00:24:06 This is the dark magic that is popular in our culture today. We may not know that exists, but it is alive and well. There are nine historical practices of the, Canaanite see if any of these sound familiar to your world today. Number one, they sacrificed children in the fire that doesn't, that doesn't necessarily happen in America. Maybe it does in some cases, but it is prevalent in other countries. And if you don't believe that, go to village church of Bartlett tonight, and you can hear all about it. Number two, witchcraft witchcraft is engaging the spiritual realm for personal benefit. Number three, a sooth saying this is the ability to attempt to control the future. By engaging the spirit realm. Number four is interpreting omens back then it was done by looking at clouds or reading your Palm. They were doing that back in Canaan, uh, that, that metamorphoo, uh, that, uh, uh, evolved into snake charming.
Speaker 0 00:25:03 This was a part of this. This is basically telling the future based on the movements of the snakes, the, the Palm of your hand or the shapes of the clouds in the sky. Number five was sorcery. This was using magical effects through drugs, some other Porsche potions or crystals, being able to, to use sorcery, to produce some sort of, uh, a magical effect on your life. Number six was conjuring, spells, binding other people through magical muttering. Number seven is being a medium. A medium is somebody that communicates with the dead, but actually is communicating with demons. Number eight is being a spiritist, oh, by the way, did you know number seven is where van <inaudible> began to do none of that. That's where that practice actually began. I say, idea of using your hand to control something else. That is what a medium is. The demons hand controls the mediums, mouth number eight, being a spiritist that is somebody with an intimate acquaintance, with the demonic spiritual spirit world. And number nine is conjuring up the dead investigating and seeking information from people who have already died. These evil practices were going on in Canaan. These are the nine that were normal, where these folks were about to pitch their tents, where they were about to live. This is why God said they're all out.
Speaker 0 00:26:32 This is why God said you, you can't, you can't participate in this kind of behavior. I remember the first time I saw this guy on TV, do something like this. He was, uh, he was very entertaining. He was surrounded by, by tears of people in their seats, watching him. He would stand in the middle. It was probably 200 people in the room. And he would say to himself, somebody named Agatha is trying to get my attention. Does anybody know an Agatha here? And somebody would raise their hand and they would say, yeah, Agatha is my sister. Okay. I got this, says this. Do you understand what she means? And the person would say, yeah, I totally understand what she means. What do you want to say to Agatha? And then you'd speak to Agatha. That is entertainment, but that is demonic.
Speaker 0 00:27:29 Why do I know that? Because to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord one life to live. And that is it. There are no souls wandering the planet, seeking to make things right. That is nowhere in scripture. If you're talking to somebody that you think is somebody else, they are not saying there's a wonderful job. He's called the father of lies. For a reason, his efforts are just deceive us, even giving us a feeling of peace. As long as we give him the credit that only belongs to God. This show on TV was intriguing. It was compelling. And it was evil. Number 12, verse 12, for whoever does these sings listen to this church because of the wording is really interesting. Whoever does these things read this with me is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord, your God is driving them out before you any question as to where God stands on these things, any question could, could he could, he had just allow it and learn to live with it. Now his goal is to drive all of this out of the land so that it doesn't become a trap for these people. The other thing I notice about this is this. Could you put that verse up there one more time, Josh, thanks brother.
Speaker 0 00:28:59 Who is an abomination? You see, we have a tendency to say to ourselves, well, a fif isn't necessarily a thief. Somebody who steals, he's just somebody that a thief is not an evil person. He's, he's just somebody that has trouble with stealing or an adulterer. Isn't necessarily an evil person. They just, they fall into the sin of adultery. Okay, fine. But looking at scripture, when you dabble in the world of demons, who is the abomination? Yeah. It's not the practice. It's the person. God. Now listen. Not all sins are the same. Did you know that if you dabble in this stuff, you are an abomination to God. That is crazy. Talk because God loves everybody. But if you dabble in this stuff, the Bible says the practice is not what I'm talking about. God says, I'm talking about you. You dabble in this and you are. And if you want to know what abomination means, the Hebrew actually means God throws up in his mouth a little bit. That's what abomination means. These people are judged as the abomination because not all sins are the same. Some sins turn you into the abomination. And in first Kings six 60 and three, you can read about it. There. The people of God have become an abomination to God because they delve into the despicable practices of demon or idol worship.
Speaker 0 00:30:35 And nothing has changed for a time when the end of the world finally arrives, whether we're in it or not. Right now, I have no idea. But when the final end of the world finally arrives, it will be through the deception of demons and the world that is intrigued by it all. Second Thessalonians two nine. Listen to this. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan. The lawless one is the antichrist. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders all the things that intrigued us, all the things that make us go, ah, that's, that's great. Do another one. And with all verse 10, wicked deception, for those who are perishing, because they refuse to love the truth. And so be saved. People will believe demonic, lies, and practices done by people who follow these demons.
Speaker 0 00:31:30 Why? Because the human heart is desperate for power and answers. Let me say that one more time. It's really good. We fall into this because the human heart is desperate for power and answers, and you need to know that's from God. That's just the way humans are created in the image of God. We have a need to know knowledge. We have a need to know power. We have neaten to, to be impressed by wonders. People have always and will always have this, this intrigue for power signs and wonders. But here's the problem. The natural state of the fallen human heart is intrigued. Not by God, but by Satan, our pull is not to bend to the authority of God. Our poll is to give Satan more authority than he deserves.
Speaker 0 00:32:26 Look at verse 14 for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to the fortune tellers and the diviners. But as for you, the Lord, your God has not you to do this. The signs and wonders are powerful. People want to tap into the spiritual realm. We're built with a need to know what we should do. We're built with a fascination to know the spiritual side. These up on us are not bad. Our desire to tap into the spiritual realm is not bad. Our desire to tap into the spirit realm is from God, God lives in the spirit realm. It's a very natural thing. The human heart is desperate for power and answers. And so we have a pole. Calvin calls it a hole in our heart, a God shaped hole. We have a need to tap into power beyond ourselves, not a bad thing, but how do you know you're going about it the right way?
Speaker 0 00:33:23 And how do you know if you're going about it the wrong way? Here's your antidote on how to know? God always gives us enough that we need to know how to tap into that spiritual realm, the right way and how to stay away from doing it the wrong way. God always gives us exactly what we need to know when we need to know it. Now in the old Testament, the Hebrew is didn't have the, the F the word of God. Moses had not written down the Pentitude. We had, they had no word from God. And so in the old Testament, it was a little different from us. We have the complete word of God. We have Jesus Christ revealed. We have church history. We have a lot of this stuff that we can look back on. They had nothing. And so God gave these Hebrews that were wandering through the wilderness.
Speaker 0 00:34:11 And later on, when they got him in Canada, God gave them profits. Why did he give them profits so that they could have a means to tap into the spirit realm? God gave them profits. So these profits could speak the words of God to them. They needed to know what they needed to do. So God gave them profits to tell them what God wanted them to do. You see, we have this need to tap in the spirit realm. It's not a bad thing, but God always gives us what we need to know when we need to know it. And so the prophets were given that, but here's the thing. Israel grew up to such a extent. There's so many of them that they couldn't, the profits only told them like the big things, but each person needed to know like a little something for their own selves.
Speaker 0 00:34:48 Like I got to have a relationship with God. And so they did this or sacrifices and things like that. But God gave the priests another unique way to tap into the spirit realm so that they could know what God's will was. Do you remember what that was? Only the high priest could do it. He took two little stones. We call them, earn them and thumb and mum, mum, mum, mum, mum. That's not the real name, but it's funny. Erm, and thumb a man, these were stones and he would roll them and they would give these men and women, the answers that they were looking for sounds a little bit like magic, right? But at that point of time, that's the way that God had them to tap into the spirit rum. When Jesus arrived, Jesus tapped into the spirit realm. He did miracles left and right.
Speaker 0 00:35:30 He raised people from the dead. He healed people. He created food from nothing. I mean he's tapping into the spirit realm to do magic people, follow Jesus because he was a great magician. They weren't all interested in what he had to say, but they knew a good show when it came to town. So they followed Jesus. I mean, they didn't have YouTube. What are they going to do? So they find a guy that does pretty cool magic tricks and they follow them around. Jesus tapped into the spirit realm to do miracles. We call them. But these miracles were always done so that people would know the messenger was valid. Jesus miracles always validated Jesus message. Say that with me, William Jesus miracles always validated Jesus' message. Jesus was able to do miracles because God validated those miracles by tapping into the spirit realm. Even when the disciples carried the gospel, they were preaching this gospel that nobody ever heard before.
Speaker 0 00:36:34 They had the old Testament, but they never heard about Jesus dying on the cross. They D they didn't even know who Jesus was. So the disciples Jesus sent the disciples out and gave them the ability to do what miracles magic and their miracles always validated the message of God. Those miracles were not for fame. Those miracles were not for power. Those miracles were not for, for evil knowledge. Those miracles were to validate the message of the gospel in Luke 10 17. It says this the 72 returned with joy saying, Lord, listen to this. Even the demons are subject to us in your name. Isn't that cool? We met some demonic, possessed people. We cast the demon out of them because we gave them the message of the gospel.
Speaker 0 00:37:25 What is the difference then between God using magic and the devil using magic? Here's the key. God always uses creation where his magic, his miracles removes the influence of the curse to get it to function in the way that glorifies God, let me say that one more time. God always used the miracles of Jesus and the disciples to remove the effects of the curse on humankind in order to get the, the end product of people, glorifying God, every time Jesus did a miracle, somebody always ends up glorifying God. Every time the disciples did a miracle, somebody ends up glorifying God. Even when Paul was casting out demons out of, out of people though, somebody always ends up glorifying God. And that's the difference. The effects of the fall that make our bodies weak or broken, the effects of the fall are removed so that God is glorified and people join in that of God. The devil on the other hand, always bends creation to confuse, destroy, create fear, or you SERP authority.
Speaker 0 00:38:47 The devil will do his magic in order to confuse, destroy, create fear, or you SERP the authority that only belongs to God. Do you want that one more time? The devil always bends creation always does his magic to confuse, destroy, create fear, or you serve the authority that belongs to God alone. And that is the difference. Look at the temptations in the wilderness. There is nothing wrong with Jesus turning stones to bread, nothing wrong with that. Can Jesus turned stones to bread? Sherri can, is that a miracle that's beyond him? No, he could. He could do that. That's easy. Why did he refuse to do it? Because it, you serve the authority of God and gave it to, gave it to his demons, gave it to the devil. It was insidious. It looked okay, but it was evil. God always gives us a right plan for tapping into knowledge so that we can gain the knowledge that we can gain from the spirit realm.
Speaker 0 00:39:57 But we have to do a God's way. Verse 15, the Lord, your God will raise up for you. This is great. You know, you could read this passage of scripture and skip over 15 and not even realize you read it. Look at 15, the Lord, your God will raise up for, you know, you're going to read this verse and you're going to think to yourself. I don't understand. We should have just ended on 14. Why are we reading 15? I'm going to read it for you. And then you're going to realize this verse is not one that we should just easily say, you're going to read this verse and think to yourself. I don't know why this verses here. And this verse is quoted so many times throughout the Bible. After this, listen to what it says, the Lord, your God will raise up for you.
Speaker 0 00:40:37 A prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. And it is to him. You shall what church. Listen, you see the contrast. You're going to go to a land where they're going to tap into the spirit realm and tell you a lot of stuff you should listen to. But verse 15, the Lord, your God will raise up for you. A prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. And it is to him. You should live. God is giving them away. He way to tap into the spirit realm. God literally says to Moses, Moses, listen, I want you to tell them there's a prophet because they're going to say, well, once Moses has gone, how do we tap into the spirit realm? How do we know what God wants us to do?
Speaker 0 00:41:24 So Moses tells the people, listen, the Lord told me there's going to be a prophet that comes up after me. That God's are going to raise up from you from you guys. You listen to him. He's your means to tap into God's roam the spirit realm. And in this prophet, you will always know knowledge. That is revealed from God and not from demons. Who is this prophet? Who is this prophet to come? That will come from among them. Who is Moses talking about? Well, I'm glad you asked to answer your question. I'm going to take you to a story. This is a story that occurred in the new Testament.
Speaker 0 00:42:06 Peter and John in the book of acts went up to the temple after Jesus rose and ascended into heaven. Now they're proclaiming the gospel. They were on a mission to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and on their way to the temple, they encounter a lame beggar. His friends, the Bible says would carry him there every morning, drop them in the dirt and let them beg for money. I'm sure they took a cut of it, but he would bake for money. And that would be his livelihood, whatever he earned, he would live off of because lame people in Jesus' day and Paul and Peter's day and Peter and John's day, they just couldn't do a lot. It wasn't a lot of help from the government, from them.
Speaker 0 00:42:51 The gate that he was always requesting to go to was the gate that is called beautiful. And that'd be a great name for a gate. Come through the gate. That's beautiful. When Peter and John saw him, when he saw them, he asked them for money. He said, listen, you guys, do you have anything that you can spare? I can't walk. I lay here every day. I live off the generosity of other people. I lay at the gate called beautiful. Peter said, I don't have any money to give you, but I do have something a lot better. I want to give you the name of Jesus Christ. This present suffering that you're suffering now has nothing to be compared to what is about to come. You can know Christ and a life free of this pain. Verse six, Peter said, I have no silver and gold.
Speaker 0 00:43:44 These poor disciples. I got nothing on me. I got no silver. I got no gold, but what I do have I give to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk, what do you think he thought? What do you think the beggar thought, this is what he does every day. For years, he's done this rise up and walk. Verse seven comes along. I want to go right to verse eight and leaping up. He stood and began to walk and entering the temple with them walking and leaping and church. What was he doing? Is he when Jesus and the disciples do miracles, they bend creation. And the end product is that the gospel is proclaimed and God has given the authority. God has given the credit.
Speaker 0 00:44:32 Peter then declare this magic was done the right way. The way God intended, any proclaims, the gospel in verse 16, he says, and in his name by faith, in his name, this name Jesus' name has made this man strong, whom you now see and know, cause everyone going, Hey, I just saw this, this, this guy, joking. This guy was just at the gate. I gave this guy cash and now he's jumping around. He's he's a shyster, Peter. And John said, oh, what you're experiencing here is we have tapped into the spirit realm. A miracle magic has been done. And this man is giving God the glory, the gospel Jesus has made this man strong, whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all by faith through Jesus. This is the way the man was healed.
Speaker 0 00:45:25 No idol worship, no spirit worship, no black magic, no dark magic. And just to be sure, just to be sure that Peter got the message across, we come across this very familiar verse in verse 22, read this church with me, acts, just follow along. As I said, Peter quotes an old Testament passage. And you know what? The one he quotes is Moses said, the Lord, God will raise up for you. A prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him and do whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. Does that verse sound familiar church. It's right out of Deuteronomy. And it's picked out of there because, because Peter says, I know the prophet, we killed him. His name was Jesus. He rose from the dead. Jesus was that prophet that Moses talked about in Deuteronomy.
Speaker 0 00:46:26 Peter says, that's the name through which we tap into the spirit realm. It is the only name through which we tap into the spirit realm. When Jesus arrived, the plan of God had finally been revealed. God always intended that Jesus was our pathway into the spirit realm. Only one way. Don't tap into truth in the spirit realm. Apart from this prophet, this prophet will not cause fear and confusion. This profit will be the truth. This profit will be the way this profit will bring life. This profit will not coerce you through making deals that demand more and more from you until low and behold. You're willing to give your own children in order, just to get an answer. This prophet will not coerce you like this. This profit will never demand sinful practices from you to analyze your level of devotion. This profit, this prophet finally arrived and confirmed Moses prophecy by saying stuff like I am the way the truth, the life, this prophet says truly, truly so many times.
Speaker 0 00:47:32 It's ridiculous. Truly, truly. I say to you truly, truly, I say you only need to say it once, but he said it all the time. Why? Because he's the true means through which we engage the spirit realm. This prophet said, I have the words of life. This prophet said, believe in me. And you will never die. This prophet thought the whole Bible was written about him. And it was just to be clear, God himself confirmed. This was the prophet in Luke nine in verse 35. A voice came out of the cloud saying, this is my son, my chosen one. Then what does it say? Church, listen to him.
Speaker 0 00:48:16 This is my link between you and the spirit realm. This is my link between the physical and the spirit realm. This is the prophet. You should really be listening to. Not all of those antichrist, not all those false prophets, not the demons, not the idols. Not those people that, that lead you astray, listen to what? Listen to this prophet. And some people did listen to what they said about Jesus, John six 14. When the people saw the signs that he had done, what were signs that he had done, we call those miracles magic. When the people saw the signs that he had done, they said, what did they say, church? This is indeed the prophet. This is the guy that Moses was speaking about. This is indeed the prophet who is to come into this world. Last thing I want to point out to you is a question I want to ask you. Why are all of these other means and abomination of God, why all these other means? Why crystals and little idols and earth, wind and fire. Why, why are these all like an abomination to God?
Speaker 0 00:49:22 So you can tell the future. So you can answer questions from the spiritual realm. So you have superhuman abilities. Why is that wrong? Simply because of this church, they seek to take the authority away from God. Do you know what the mission of Satan is? Let's be really clear about this. The mission of Satan is to get you to believe he is like, God. And when you can tap into dark magic, what do you believe? This is just like God stuff. That's his goal, his mission. And he's inviting you to be on his side. Every time we attempted to engage the spiritual realm, apart from the true means, which is Jesus Christ. All those that follow dark magic joined the timeless mission of Satan to usurp the authority of God, through fear, confusion, intrigue. They convince you that there is truth. Apart from God. There's something else. Jesus, isn't you everything. There's another way that you can engage the spirit realm and God's chosen are meant to live according to God's plan. And we believe in Jesus' own words. All authority is given to me. We are to listen to him and believe in him. What does that mean for us today? Here's your only, so what only one. And here it is only engaged the spirit realm on God's terms. Don't play with this.
Speaker 0 00:51:05 Playing with this doesn't mean you are acting in an abominable way. It means you are an abomination to God. This is a high ranking sin with long-term effects that can damage you and your house. When you opened the door to your house and invite people in, some people are really tough to get rid of. Have you found that to be true? Some people it's like, oh, look at the time. You know, and you're trying to get them out of the house. When demons come in, they don't leave. They like it there. And when you invite them in, it's very difficult to get them out.
Speaker 0 00:51:45 I think we need to look at this verse through new eyes, John 14, six Jesus said to his disciples, would you quote this with me church? I am the way the truth and the life would you read this next phrase with a new understanding with me this morning, read it after we've heard this message with new eyes, new ears. I'm the way the truth and the life. Now read this with me. No one comes to the father except through how do you tap into the spiritual realm church? Only through Jesus Christ. If you tap into the spiritual realm through other means, you're going to get some power. You don't want some influence. That's going to get hard to get rid of something is going to land that you don't want to have any part of it's intriguing. It's fascinating. Boone's flying across the room. Oh, she didn't like that.
Speaker 0 00:52:53 Put her back up on the shelf and acting like it's just nothing but church. This is what Satan's mission is. And when you engage the spirit realm, apart from Jesus Christ, you join him in his mission to serve the authority from God. Jesus literally says you cannot tap into the spirit realm apart from me, no matter what you call your spirit, no matter what, how devoted you are to it with, through the tattoos on your body. Any that we engaged. And by the way, this woman that I saw interviewed, she also said, she said in the interview, she said, you should know. I refer to these ancestors, the spirits as deities. And it rolled off her tongue. Jesus' gospel is the truth that allows us to see the spirit realm at work on our behalf. I have five things for you to remember here. They are one repent.
Speaker 0 00:53:55 If you have dabbled in this repent, you gotta, you gotta repent. You may have not have known what you were doing. You may be ignorant of the door. You were opening. You may have long lasting effects from this stuff. You may see other people that are doing this. Our goal is to repent. Why? Because this is an abomination of God. Number two, flee. If you're exposed, get rid of this flea. If you are exposed number three, close the door. If it's opened already, if you've got this door, that's open already. You need to close this door and do not open it again. Do whatever you need to do. Clean the house out. Stop watching the movies that you're watching, whatever it is you need to close this door. If you think it's too far, you've gone too far. And you're thinking yourself, I don't know if I know if I need to close that door, close that to, because the devil only needs a crack close the door.
Speaker 0 00:54:52 If it's open already. And number four is choose to stand against the door. If it's not open yet, choose it. This is going to be a stand for you and your family were not going to allow this stuff in our home. And number five. And especially by the way for kids, Satan is such a weasel. He'll get our kids way before he'll get us, their innocent little minds and hearts. And so if you've got kids, grandkids put your back against the door and refuse to open it in this area. Number five, remember finally, you do not need to fear God wins. And you were on his side.
Speaker 0 00:55:33 Tough, right? Scary, real, and something. We need to remember as a part of the battle we fight every day. Let's pray. Father. I pray that you would give us the ability to be the kind of people that we need to be taking. The stands that we need to take against this stuff. Now, dabbling it, not play with it, but that you would Lord guard our hearts from it. And remind us, you are the way the truth and the life, no one encounters, the spiritual realm apart from you. Thank you for being our means today, by which we encounter and engage the spirit realm. Even in what we're doing now through prayer, even now talking to God with our physical tongue, I'm grateful that you've given us this means to engage the spirit realm.
Speaker 0 00:56:32 Now I ask that you be with us as we take communion, lay it on our hearts so that it's not just rote, but that it is something that changes us. Once again, I pray in Jesus name. Amen. Nathan, would you ask those guys to not do that? Uh, that little, uh, cleaning thing. Just give us about 10 more minutes. Thank you. Uh, we come, we always finish our service with communion. And the reason we do that is because we want to make sure that the gospel has clearly been presented and that each one of us has an opportunity to have a moment with God to respond to what he has said to us today. If you think about a church service, it really is a moment that we tap into the spirit realm, right? When we sing, we are singing to the spirit realm. You ever think about that?
Speaker 0 00:57:19 When we, when I preach, I'm giving you words, Lord willing from God and not so much from me, which God uses to speak to us. When we take communion, it's just juicing crackers that we use. But what it means has changed our lives. It's a physical realm that engages a spiritual truth. When we pray together, we literally are talking to the spirit realm. You see, all of this is available to us. All of this tapping into the spirit realm is available to us because of Jesus Christ. And the reason we can do that is because Jesus died on that cross. Not that cross right there, but one just like it.
Speaker 0 00:58:04 He was nailed to that cross. He had a physical body that was nailed to a cross blood float out of that body. That body was pierced where blood float out. And it was on that day. That incredible climactic day in human history that Jesus paid for our sins. Your sin is what keeps you from engaging God. Your sin is what attracts you to engage the spirit realm, but reject God's ways to do it. Our sinful nature is naturally intrigued by all of the evil that's around us. We may not like it. It may make us feel sick to our stomach, but some of it is kind of cool to some degree, we all have an attraction toward evil. Jesus Christ knows this. And that is why God gave us his only son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. His son, Jesus Christ gave us his body that blood can cover our sins because Jesus is perfect.
Speaker 0 00:59:05 He didn't have sin like you. And like me is the only sacrifice that could cover our sins. And that's why we say that his blood has washed us clean. That's why we say that we were the righteousness of Jesus. We basically have a relationship with the father because we crawl on the broken body of Jesus Christ and he invites us to do it. So every time we finished with communion, this is what we're proclaiming. We're literally saying, I believe this blood is what it takes for me to have a relationship with the father. I believe this, this body represented in this cracker is what it took for me to have a relationship with a father without Jesus. We have no way to the father. We only get duped by demons. Maybe that would have been a good title for today, duped by demons. But because of Jesus, we can know the truth and that truth can set you free.
Speaker 0 01:00:08 And for a lot of us, it has. So when we take the juice and when we take the cracker, it doesn't, there's no demonic moleculars trend. There's nothing. It's just silly. It's juice. And it's a cracker and it represents what it took to change our hearts and to give us a relationship with the father. So in a few minutes, I'd invite you to come up. Uh, there's going to be people at the table that will help you. If you come up, take, take the bread and the juice send a little cup. The bread is on the top, the juices on the bottom, and just take it back to your seat. Don't partake yet. Wait for everybody else. While we're singing the song, people will be moving around, just grow up and grab something, take it back to your seat. Don't eat and drink. Just hang onto it.
Speaker 0 01:00:47 When the song is over, I'm going to come up. I'm going to read a passage of scripture and then we're all going to eat and drink together because we're all in this together. I don't like that phrase anymore after COVID, but it's true. We're all in this together. We're all in need of a savior. And so we proclaim this truth by taking it together. So I'm going to come up, I'm going to read and we're all going to partake together. And then I'll bring the service to a close. Before we do any of that, I'm going to give you a moment to spend some time with the Lord. Listen, I realize those watching online, those in the house, I realized this may have tapped on a nerve from something you've been involved with in the past. I realize all of us are intrigued by this stuff.
Speaker 0 01:01:29 It is very normal and maybe you need to take a moment and just the Lord's bringing something to mind that happened from the past or something you're struggling with now to take, to tap into the spiritual realm. Apart from God, you need to confess that, do it today. Get rid of that, whatever that is, ask God to forgive you. Remember, that's the first thing on the list. Repent, ask him to forgive you and then eat and drink and rejoice in the fact that Jesus has opened a way for you to have a relationship with a God who rules and who lives in the spirit realm. So would you take a moment and spend some time with the Lord and give him, um, whatever you need to give him during this moment. And then, uh, we'll partake in community together.
