Witchcraft and Power Over People
This week’s text and the transcript are very different. Be warned!
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedA few years ago
I was invited to an art walk in Buffalo, New York.
Everyone on the walk kept mentioning the “technically brilliant”
installation inside a former synagogue building.
When I walked in I was shocked.
The artist, a ceramicist,
had created multiple satanic altars
that were visually stunning,
technically very difficult,
and spiritually charged.
I walked in,
and I walked out.
It was a reminder that arts are dominated by forms of witchcraft.
This week I want to talk about the nature of witchcraft.
I should have said this last week,
but the main principle in spiritual warfare is this:
Don’t be weird.
We are not talking about story book witches
with green skin
and flying brooms.
We are talking about real people who engage
with the spiritual world
apart from God
to have influence and power over people.
Anytime someone tries to have influence over other people
using means apart from God
they are engaging in witchcraft.
Paul in Galatians 3:1
comments that because they have chosen to
keep the Jewish law after receiving the Holy Spirit
they are now “bewitched.”
Derek Prince called witchcraft the “natural religion of humanity.”
And in a nutshell
witchcraft is the attempt
by human beings to manipulate
spiritual forces
in order to gain control
and become dominant.
Witchcraft is the effort
by weak people
to gain power over others through
control, manipulation and domination.
This is a spiritual principle,
anyone who performs some “gimmick”
to get results in prayer,
or through religious rituals
in an effort to manipulate God,
is engaging in a form of witchcraft.
Last year Rachel asked me
what was in it for witches
to go after Christians and Christian ministries.
The answer is simple:
power.
Satan has a vested interest in keeping the church from moving forward,
and those who engage in witchcraft
align with the demonic world to get power,
so they become useful idiots to the demonic kingdom.
Witchcraft is any form of engaging with the second heaven,
and with the intent of having power over people or situations.
And in the prayer movement,
it is seeing your activities on earth
as a method it get results or have influence over God, politics, or the church.
Christians need to come into alignment with the reality
that they are seated in heaven
and then pray heaven’s realities on earth.
This is how Jesus taught us to pray:
Come Kingdom of God
be done will of God.
At it’s heart,
witchcraft is choosing a false identity
over your true one:
you are the Image of God in the earth.
You are a a royal priesthood,
you are a son of God.
So all witchcraft is playing with the second heaven realm
in order to have power in this one.
And this generally means coming into an alliance
with some fallen being that is more powerful and smarter than you.
It is very dangerous,
and very deceptive.
The earmarks of all witchcraft are:
manipulation,
control,
and domination.
Babies learn how to manipulate very early on.
A baby learns that if they cry,
Mama will pick them up and hold them.
And of course, you know that by two years old,
this skill develops into the temper tantrum.
You see this sometime with chronically ill people
who use their sickness to manipulate and control family members.
They seem pitiful at first,
and then you see that it can become a nasty game.
We had someone in the ministry who was doing this,
and I had to completely cut them off.
They were using sickness to manipulate and dominate.
In the end I discovered they were actively cursing me.
Not funny.
Manipulation is about controlling information.
Lies are used to manipulate people
in the attempt to control them
with the end goal of domination.
Most of the time the lies take the form of omission.
You see this kind of thing in media, politics,
and in people playing power games in church.
If you watch any mainstream news program,
you will notice that key bits of information have been left out.
This is why I always ask God to show me everything
the enemy doesn’t want me to see today.
Jesus said the truth will set us free.
The Bible assumes that witchcraft is a real thing.
Witchcraft is strictly forbidden.
And this is clearly stated in
Deuteronomy 18:10
There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
Paul includes witchcraft in his lists of works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21:
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
There is a line in the spiritual realm that we are not to cross.
Christopher Lee the famous actor was once
asked if he was into the occult.
He warned the audience not to dabble in it.
“First you will lose you mind,
and then you will lose your soul.”
And this pattern I have seen many times,
and certainly saw it in the lives of the witches who lived in Salem, Massachusetts.
Let’s review a little of what I said at the beginning of this series.
The Spiritual realm is best understood as a series of dimensions.
All of them are created by God.
The realms that we do not see are populated
with spiritual beings that were created to serve God.
Isaiah 14
and Revelation 12 tell us that a third of the angels fell from heaven in a revolt led by the being we refer to as Lucifer or Satan.
There are mysteries in this.
When we talk about spiritual warfare,
we forget that two thirds of the spiritual beings did not rebel,
and there are more with us than against us.
When the Bible talks about the enemy being cast out of heaven, realm that we are describing is the “third heaven.”
This is God’s domain.
After there is what is called the “second heaven.”
This is a spiritual dimension where the demonic was cast.
This dimension is also mysterious,
and contains “all the ghoulies,
and ghosties, and long leggedy beasties,
and things that go bump in the night.”
Then there is our realm.
Everything that is visible is part of the earth and “first heaven.” The first heaven is this earth’s atmosphere, and outer space.
When the earth was created,
human beings were given dominion over it,
and told to name everything, and multiply.
God is in heaven, but the earth he has given to the children of men.
This multiplication was in part to create a redeemed humanity
that would outnumber the unclean and fallen spirits.
You as a redeemed believer are seated
in the highest heaven with Christ,
and out of this position,
you have been given authority over the demonic realm.
In order to really understand how witchcraft works,
we need to understand the demonic realm.
Derek Prince described this realm as a group of mobs and gangs.
Satan runs an empire organized
like a group of organized crime families,
always try to have domination and power over each other.
When ever you deal with the demonic,
you will always find a struggle for power over others.
And this power always has the goal of robbing,
killing, and destroying.
Jesus Christ came that we might have life
and have it abundantly.
When Jesus Christ died on the cross,
he dismantled this kingdom
making a public spectacle of them.
When he rose again,
he stepped out of the tomb as the total and complete
victor.
This war is won,
and so the only thing the enemy can do is scorch the earth.
This is described in Ephesians 1:20-23:
Which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead
and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places,
far above all rule and authority and power and dominion,
and above every name that is named,
not only in this age,
but in the age that is to come,
and he has put all things under his feet
and made him the head over all things for the Church
which is his body,
the fulness of him who fills all in all.
The Bible describes the following enemies:
1.Principalities and powers: high ranking fallen beings with power over places and situations.
2.”Rudiments” or elemental spirits of the world, Colossians 2:20.
These are sources of power in the creation that because of the fall have become demonically controlled.
3. Thought systems and philosophies. These are demonically inspired thought movements created by men in order to deceive and confuse.
4. The Anti-Christ Spirit.
I John 4:1-2 tells us that this is part of the Anti-Christ Spirit.
You Bible probably says that any spirit that denies Jesus came in the flesh
is the Spirit of Anti-Christ.
St. Jerome, in his translation notes on the Vulgate,
said that the best greek manuscripts all said
Any spirit that “dissolves” Jesus.
Any spirit that dissolves or diminishes Jesus is the spirit of Anti-Christ.
And this rendering is much closer to what I have seen in ministry.
Any spirit that diminishes Jesus,
reduces his importance,
or tries to talk about Christianity without Christ
is this spirit.
And this relates to the nature of witchcraft.
Jesus tells us in John 15 that apart from him we can do nothing.
Witchcraft, is in essence,
the attempt to have spiritual power and influence
without Jesus.
The anti-Christ spirit is anti-Jesus,
anti-human.
Again, we are back to the Incarnation.
When ever we talk about the Incarnation,
we eventually do talk about the arts,
because this is about making word flesh.
The Bible gives us an example of someone who got onto the slippery slope
and went from being among the prophets,
to a king,
and finally,
fell into witchcraft.
Saul.
In I Samuel 15 Saul is commanded to completely wipe out the Amalekites.
Saul disobeys,
and spares the king’s life, and keeps the best of the livestock and spoils for himself.
And Samuel said,
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to hearken than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,
and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has also rejected you from being king.”
There are several things we need to point out here.
First
Samuel says that Saul
“is little in his own eyes.”
Saul does not walk in his true identity--king over Israel
and representative of God the to people and the other kingdoms.
Saul, though he was a head taller than everyone else,
felt he needed to increase his power.
Second,
When confronted,
Saul withholds part of the truth.
He lies and tells Samuel he wanted to make a sacrifice.
He is trying to manipulate the situation.
Then Samuel utters the prophecy that is often partially quoted:
“Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.”
The second half of the verse is more telling.
“And stubbornness is as the sin of idolatry and iniquity.”
Derek Prince said that often people make idols of their own opinions.
Have you ever been with someone you cannot reason with?
No matter how many times you lay out the facts and use logic
they just refuse to change their position?
It’s almost like they have a vice on their head
that won’t let them change their opinion?
This is an expression of witchcraft.
Someone once said that if you are struggling in your life in some area, look for the root of rebellion.
And any time you see deception
in order to manipulate
to gain control in order to dominate,
you are dealing with witchcraft.
And as you know,
a few chapters later,
Saul goes to the witch of Endor and calls up Samuel from the unseen realm.
When you start to with rebellion and stubbornness,
that will lead you to manipulate and control
you are going to get into serious trouble.
It really is the slippery slope.
So what do we do?
First,
If you are trying to do stuff to get results in prayer, stop it.
Jesus said,
If you abide in me and my words abide in you,
ask whatever you will in my name and I will do it.
That is about relationship, not methods.
This is how you pray.
If you don’t know any words,
start with “Our Father, who art in heaven . . .”
Humble yourself and go low.
Witchcraft is all about power and dominance.
You cannot engage with witchcraft and try to become dominant.
This is why Christians in politics are often dangerous.
You cannot engage in a dialogue with evil.
I mentioned this last week.
Whenever we enter into a dialogue with evil,
first you discover that you have enter into the rules of the game.
And those rules are evil.
When you start trying to argue,
you suddenly begin to become evil yourself.
This is very dangerous.
This is why it is so powerful to ignore evil and do good.
You will know
if you are dealing with a witchcraft spirit if you say “no.”
They will immediately go into kill mode.
Often the things folks do in “spiritual warfare”
cause more trouble than solve things.
Folks will start going after demons or witches and they stir up the second heaven.
If you read these prayers,
they are often attempts to get dominance over people or situations.
God did not give you sovereignty over other human beings.
The most powerful thing you can do
is deny yourself and fast.
Witchcraft in all its forms is about self-gratification.
If you deny yourself,
no witch can get to you.
This is why I ask everyone who makes a commitment to Belonging House
to fast on Fridays.
It is very powerful.
It’s amazing how even little acts of self-denial can shift situations.
Bless and do not curse.
We will talk in depth about blessing and cursing after the gathering,
but this is very important.
Witchcraft prayers and spells are all forms of cursing.
The idea is to make someone else weak
in order to become stronger.
And so we do not fight evil with evil.
Jesus said,
bless and do not curse.
Often you will see people “cursing cancer” or something else.
That is a soulish, human prayer.
You speak life over situations.
Don’t be weird.
So when I pray about witchcraft,
I always pray this way.
I bless those who curse me.
I bless those who gossip and slander me.
I bless those who speak false words of prophecy over me.
I bless them with the blood of Jesus.
I bless them with the cross of Christ.
I bless them with a holy fear of the Lord.
I bless them with angelic visitation.
I bless them with a conviction of sin.
I bless them with an awareness of eternity.
I bless them with the light and love of God.
It is amazing how often the issues I am having will go away.
And now I have begun praying for every witch who bothers me to come to Jesus.
Wow, that is a game changer.
And finally,
all spiritual warfare
comes back down to basic discipleship.
Listen to the Lord and do what he tells you.
Pray.
Know your Bible.
Receive the Eucharist weekly.
Be filled with the Holy Spirit.
And be normal.
Satan loves weird Christians
who don’t do these things and run from one trend to another.
The slow steady walk with Jesus
has so much power
that Satan will do anything to keep you from it.
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