Speaker: Mike Connell
We’re going to carry on today on a topic – Freedom
from the Occult. The pastor’s asked me to share on three specific topics over
three days, so we’re able to develop it a bit more. Yesterday we looked at
Generational Issues, Iniquity, and Curses – recognising their impact, and how
to deal with them.
Today we want to talk about the occult. We want you to
understand what it is, and what it’s doing to young people today. I want you to
understand what divination and sorcery are, and to understand how you set
people free from these things. I’m not claiming to be an expert at it, but I
have some understanding because we’ve dealt with a lot of people in this area.
So, we’re going to share today about this whole area, and give you an
understanding of it.
The first thing to realise is that God has created us
to be bonded. God’s design has created us to be bonded - to be attached. We are
a spirit being, with a soul living in the body; and we have the capacity, by God,
to attach. We have yearnings inside our heart that only really God can meet. So
God’s design is that we become attached to Him; and that out of that attachment
to Him, His nature, His life, flows.
For example, in 1 Corinthians 6:17, the Bible says:
“He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” So, God has designed us to
become attached to Him, bonded spirit to spirit; and from that bonding, a life
would flow into the world. In other words, we’re designed to bring His kingdom
into the world. So God’s design includes: 1) Relationship – intimate connection
and bonding to Him; and 2) to Exercise Authority as His Representative - to
advance His kingdom.
His original mandate to Adam and Eve, one part of the
assignment He gave them was, He gave them a garden and He said: “I want you to
guard and keep the garden”. So He gave them a Territory to rule over. He gave
them Authority in that territory. So Adam was given Spiritual Authority to
represent God.
He was given two commands related to the Garden of
Eden. 1) Cultivate it; develop it, so it produces fruit. So God has called us
to cultivate our territory - make it fruit-bearing for the kingdom. 2) Also to
guard the territory - to protect it from an invader with destructive intent. So
right at the very beginning, God designed us for relationship, for bonding with
Him; and gave man authority to represent Him, and advance His kingdom in the
earth. He gave a mandate to cultivate the garden, and protect it from invaders.
We know what happened – Adam broke his relationship with God, and then lost his
authority.
When he broke his relationship with God, he became
vulnerable to living differently. We won’t track all of this, but we’ll just
say this: that over the course of the first century or so of human history,
demonic spirits began to invade the Earth and corrupt the culture. I won’t go
into how this has happened, and how it affected the nations of the Earth. We’ll
just focus on the occult, and what that’s about.
You need to understand that Jesus came to restore
intimacy with God, and to give us back our authority; and give us a mandate
again – be fruitful and go advance in the Earth. So becoming a Christian is
actually about the connection to Christ and following Him; and it’s about being
able to bring kingdom influence back into the Earth again. To act as God’s
ambassador, and have authority over demonic spirits, and over the creation. We
see that when we look at Jesus’ ministry, that He trained His disciples for
authority over the demonic. Let me give you a couple of scriptures on that, and
then we’ll start teaching about the occult.
First of all, we see in Mark 3:14-15 – “Then He
appointed the twelve, that they might be with Him, and that He might send them
out to: preach; and to have power to heal sicknesses; and to cast out demons.”
So the great commission includes preaching the gospel, healing the sick, and
authority over the evil spirits.
Have a look in Luke 10:17 - Then the seventy returned
with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” Verse
19, notice this: “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and
scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means
hurt you.” So, that word ‘Authority’, is the word ‘Exusia’ in Greek. It means:
a legal delegated right to speak and act on behalf of God. Notice that Jesus is
saying: I give you authority. He has the authority; we just act as His
representative. The authority is not yours; it’s yours as a delegated
authority. So we have an authority to represent Christ. Our authority comes out
of connection with Christ.
Notice what He gives authority: He says: authority to
trample, or literally crush under your feet, serpents and scorpions, and all
the power of the enemy. So He uses two pictures to describe demonic spirits:
the serpent; and the scorpion. They both inhabit the wilderness. The serpent
bites, it releases toxins into the body to poison it. The scorpion has a sting
that causes tremendous torment. It’s not clear, but it’s possible that He’s
referring to two specific types of demonic entity. The serpent - demonic
spirits; and the scorpions – angels, or angelic beings.
He says He gives you authority over all the power –
that’s the word ‘Dunamis’. So, ‘Dunamis’ is the same word that’s used when it
says “you shall receive power”. That word means ‘supernatural ability’. I think
it’s important to realise this: that you have legal right over the supernatural
ability and demonstrations of the devil; and nothing shall by any means hurt
you. That’s a very good scripture to memorise - if you ever get into a
deliverance situation which is a little bit intimidating, always remember –
nothing shall in any way harm me.
We’re going to look now at the Occult. We’re going to
refer to Deuteronomy 18. The Bible is not exactly clear where demonic spirits
come from. So, it’s a little bit open to ideas or opinions about this. Some
people think that they may be angels who fell. I’m not so sure about that,
there’s nothing quite clear on it. The Bible’s not clear where they originate.
They’re called ‘evil spirits’. So they’re definitely spirit beings, and they’re
definitely evil in their intention.
As an aside, the Bible does tell us, it refers that in
Genesis 6, that a certain group of angels abandoned the positioning God gave
them, took on a human form, had sexual relationships with women, and that there
were offspring off that called Nephilim. The Nephilim were extremely wild and
fierce beings. It would seem that they corrupted the Earth. You may wish to
search on the internet and find more information about these. Eventually, the
destruction was so great that God destroyed the Earth with the flood. If these
beings were part angel and part human, it’s quite possible these are the evil
spirits that are actually in the Earth now, continuing to attack humans. So, I
won’t go down that, it’s a very interesting area to explore. It helps you
understand the whole number of things that remain otherwise hidden. So, we
won’t worry about that, we’ll just say: there are evil spirits called demons.
What happens is that people in every culture are aware
of the spirit world. It appears when you read books apart from the Bible, for
example the book of Enoch, that there were a group of angels called
watcher-angels who were assigned to instruct men. But the whole group of them
abandoned their positions, corrupted the role God gave them, had sexual
relationships with women, and began to teach people about the whole occult
spirit dimension.
These angels God has held in judgment until the last
days. It seems that it’s from the influence of these angels, that all of this
teaching around the occult came into the nations, and spread through the Earth.
One particular nation that had been filled with all this Occult activity was
the land of Canaan. The nations that were in the land of Canaan were deeply
involved in the occult; and with it, a whole range of perverse practices.
So in Deuteronomy 18:9, it says: “When you come into
the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow
the abominations of those nations.” So God is warning the people that the
nation they’re about to go into, the nation of Canaan, was full of activities
God calls ‘an abomination’. He’s referring to occult activities. The word
occult means this: secret, covered, hidden.
So occult activity is: seeking knowledge or
information from the spirit world; or seeking power from the spirit world; or
protection from the spirit world. The two main streams of the occult are what’s
called divination – seeking information from the spirit world; and sorcery –
seeking power from the spirit world. Connected to this, of course, is idolatry.
They are all integrated together, although each one is quite distinct.
The problem that people of God had was: the whole of
the nations they came into were perverted by this demonic activity. In those
days, there was no deliverance. So they needed to destroy the nations, because
the people were demonically filled. So the word occult means to be covered or
hidden; because usually, the power is secret. The source of the information or
power is hidden.
People involved in the occult may be aware that
they’re connecting with evil spirits. But they are deceived – they think they
have power over the spirit, but the spirit has power over them. When people
engage in the occult, they think the spirits are helping them; but in fact, now
they’re gaining power over them. Eventually, they extract a price - all magic
exacts a price - there is a price to be paid!
In the kingdom of God, the price is always upfront:
pay first, benefits later. In the kingdom of darkness, it’s the other way
round: benefit now, pay later - and you pay more than you think! That’s how the
system works.
We see here that God lists a whole number of
practices. These are associated either with idolatry or with the occult. One of
the problems with the occult is that it is progressive, and it is addictive;
and once people are in it, they find it extremely difficult to get out of it.
It’s progressive; and it’s addictive.
Let’s have a look at some of the things that are in
here. When the people of God went into the nations, they found them involved in
idolatry and Spiritism. Let’s have a look at what it says (Deuteronomy 18:10 -
14): “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter
pass through the fire, nor one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or
one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a
medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these
things are an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations, the
LORD your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless before
the LORD your God. For these nations, which you will dispossess, listened to
soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not appointed
such for you.”
This list here is not comprehensive; it’s just a list
of some of the things they were doing. Every culture has their own variations
of this, and every one of them has a spirit power behind it. As we look at
these, we see a number of things. The first one they talk about was offering
their children to idols. There was a particular god called Molech. He was a big
brass god with arms reaching out. They would ignite fire on it, and heat it up
until it was very hot. Then there would be drums playing and people shouting,
and they would throw their children into Molech, where they’d be burned up.
You’d understand this is a horrendous thing in God’s eyes. It indicates the
nature of the demonic spirit that operates behind it. The desire is to steal
the children. The activity today most like that is abortion - the same spirit
operates behind it.
Notice there’ll not be anyone who practises
witchcraft, soothsayer, interprets omens, or a sorcerer. So people were
involved in a number or range of activities. For example, many of them were
into astrology – looking at star signs. Let me give you just a brief
explanation of that. There’s a book that explains the background to this: The
Witness of the Stars by E. W. Bullinger. Let me just explain the whole issue of
astrology.
The Bible says: the heavens declare his glory. So in
Psalm 19 it talks about the heavens, and it talks about the word of God. Before
the word of God was written, God revealed or spoke to... maybe it was Enoch,
and He showed him a pattern for recording God’s history by looking at the
stars. So they divided the stars into 12 different constellations or groups.
And they ascribed to various star groups, a particular picture so it’s easier
to remember. The stars were all given names, and each section of this described
a part of God’s redemptive plan.
Starting with the woman; and the serpent; and then the
fall of man, going right through to the coming of Jesus Christ overcoming the
serpent, and establishing a rule. So each of the constellations, and even the
names of the stars in it, were given as a message of encouragement; and a way
of understanding the bigger picture - from creation to the return of Christ.
The question is, where do you start? You notice the Sphinx has a picture of the
woman’s head, and lion’s body. The story starts with the woman, starts with
Virgo, and goes right through to Leo. It describes in the stars, God’s story of
history, and the coming of the Son of man to redeem His death on the cross -
everything is in that story.
So the stars have no power over people. It’s just God
gave a way for people to pass on to their generations, the hope of the coming
redeemer. Of course, over time, it became corrupted; and people began to
believe that stars influenced the course of our lives - it’s a corruption of
the truth. The truth is: God laid out some patterns, so people could know His
plan for redemption. The message of the stars is the most amazing message! Many
of the names of the stars have been forgotten. But those that have remained,
all in them have a message - the heavens declare.
So, the whole area of astrology opens the door for
people into the occult realm. It becomes addictive, because people are looking
to some spiritual source in order to direct their lives. They are attaching to
the wrong thing. God directs our lives. It’s God who has a plan for our lives,
not the stars. I encourage you to read up on that and become equipped, because
it will quite stun you how the message of the gospel is in the stars. At Psalm
19, it starts off ‘the heavens’, now we have the Bible, ‘the Word’. So the Word
now gives us the plan of salvation.
You notice here that it talks about the whole realm of
all of these areas. Notice divination or fortune telling, and magic - various
kinds of magic. Overall, you can summarise the occult activity into two groups.
The first one is divination.
Let’s have a look in Acts 16:16-18. We read here an
example of a woman involved in divination. “Now it happened, as we went to
prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us,
who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul
and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High
God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” And this she did for many days.
But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the
name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” - and he came out that very hour.”
So here is a woman who has a spirit of divination.
Today you would call her a psychic – a person who tells things about your life,
and foretells your future. Psychics are extremely popular today, but they
operate in way counterfeit to the word of knowledge. The second thing you
realise, is that this woman extracted money, in order for doing the
fortune-telling; meaning that people paid to get their fortune told. When
people paid to get their fortune told, they were entering into an agreement to
trade with a demon - they were prostituting themselves.
The Bible tells us in Leviticus 20:2-6, God warns his
people not to prostitute themselves with these demonic spirits. Let me read it
for you, Leviticus 20:5-6, He said: “I will set My face against that man and
against his family; and I will cut him off from his people, and all who
prostitute themselves with him to commit harlotry with Molech. ‘And the person
who turns to mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute themselves with them,
I will set My face against that person and cut him off from his people.”
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