Years ago, we had a popular preacher in our brotherhood named Ben Alexander. Ben had once been a Spiritualist Medium who held seances where he’d talk with the dead. Then he became a Christian, and spent much of his life explaining that a lot of seances he’d been part of (he said) were fake… but there were others that were quite real. He explained that the “spirit world is real” a place of dark spirits (demons), and these DARK SPIRITS were nothing to be messed with.
That’s what the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy was saying: There IS a real place of dark spirits where God’s people must not go. Don’t go messing with this: “There shall not be found among you anyone… who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD.…”
Notice the activities God condemned: Divination, telling fortunes, interpreting omens (things like palm reading, horoscopes, tarot cards, & Ouija boards). And God condemned Mediums, and inquiring of the dead (that’s what happens with Seances, psychics, etc.).
God makes no comment about whether or not these things are real - He just says DON’T DO THAT! Don’t go there! Why not? Because these are dark places… where dark spirits roam. Don’t do that! Don’t go there! Whoever does these things is an ABOMINATION to the LORD. God hates it!!!! These are places that demons roam. As Ben Alexander said: “The Spirit World is Real.”
And activities like those condemned in Deuteronomy are NOT safe entertainment.
ILLUS: I had a relative who thought she could trap me on this topic of demons. She really didn’t believe the Bible and she thought she could get me into an argument on this topic that I couldn’t possibly win. She asked me if I believed… in demons. Now I’d read about demons and demon possession in Scripture but I’d never been around anyone who’d been demon possessed, and I was pretty sure I’d never seen a demon and wouldn’t even know one even if I DID see it. (Although there were a few people in the last couple of churches that might have… but no, that’s a topic for another day).
So, I couldn’t answer her question with first-hand information. Instead, this what I told her: “Well, I believe in angels, and the Bible says that demons are fallen angels. So, ‘YES’ I believe in demons.” That’s the best I had, but it did shut down the conversation.
Now the real question is: WHAT do I believe about demons? Well, first – I believe they exist. And 2nd – I believe that demons are Satan’s associates, minions, helpers. What that means is… demons have the same kind of power that Satan has. They are powerful beings and we shouldn’t take them lightly, but we don’t really have to fear them because - as God says - we don’t really have to fear Satan either.
I John 4:4 says “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you (Jesus) is greater than he who is in the world (Satan).” In fact, we’re told “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and THE EVIL ONE DOES NOT TOUCH HIM.” (I John 5:18) In other words: Satan can’t control the lives of dedicated Christians, because Jesus is greater than Satan. And because of that, Satan cannot touch us when we walk closely with Christ.
Now that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be careful when it comes to Satan, and to his minions, the demons. In 1 Peter 5:8 we read “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” i.e. don’t mess with him. Don’t take him lightly.
Even GOD’S angels were careful when dealing with Satan and his power. Jude verse 9 tells us “When the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’”
Michael was an archangel - one of the most powerful beings God created, and even Michael was careful not to take on Satan by himself. Notice he said to Satan… “The LORD rebuke you.”
So IF I were ever to be confronted by demonic activity, I wouldn’t be afraid, but I would NOT presume to have any power over them. Only God has power over demons: “the Lord rebuke you.”
Now, we’re NOT going to focus this morning on demonic possession. Most of us wouldn’t know what it looked like even if we saw it. Besides, for all the press that demonic possession gets… and for all the books and movies that are done about it, that doesn’t seem to be where Satan focuses his attention.
Even in the days of Jesus’ ministry, demon possession seems to have been fairly rare. I mean… why should Satan and his demons destroy a person when they can more subtly, and influence how people think?
Did you realize that there isn’t a single passage in Scripture that instructs us on how to cast demons out of people? Now granted, there was the time when Jesus’ disciples (who had cast demons out in the past) had trouble casting out a demon of young boy. Jesus explained that that type of demon could only be cast out with fasting and prayer. But that was NOT instruction for us to go cast out demons. Nowhere in the New Testament do we receive an order and instruction for casting out demons.
Nowhere does the Bible tell us how WE should to do it! We have examples of people casting out demons but there’s no Scripture that makes it a priority for us.
By contrast we read this in II Timothy 2:23-26 “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and ESCAPE FROM THE TRAP of the devil, who has TAKEN THEM CAPTIVE to do his will.”
Really? Demon possession is a scary thought but people who oppose the Gospel (who don’t drool at the mouth and run around like madmen) - these people have often been trapped by Satan and made CAPTIVES by him to do his will!!!! They’re going to hell! And there’s nothing more scary than that!
But, how did Satan make seemingly stable people to be his captives? Well he influenced how they THOUGHT. These folks are argumentative and quarrelsome and they’re often downright mean and spiteful. James 3:14-16 puts it this way: “… if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is NOT the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, DEMONIC. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.”
Satan loves to influence us. He wants us to be bitter and jealous, and driven by selfish ambition, because his goal is give us HIS wisdom… which is DEMONIC. And if Satan succeeds, our lives will be filled with disorder and every vile practice.
In fact, that’s the trap of things like Ouija boards, divination, horoscopes. Satan can use them to gain control our thinking and manipulate our decisions.
ILLUS: Back when I was a teenager I knew my Zodiac pretty well. I knew I was a “Libra”, and I intently studied what the horoscopes said about my character. And I believed it all. Now, I hadn’t quite gotten into studying the daily predictions for my “sign” but I getting closer and closer to wanting to do that very thing. My affection for horoscopes had gone a long way towards shaping my view of myself and of my future.
ILLUS: Ouija Boards are marketed by Mattel and their sales have surpassed Monopoly as the top selling board game on the market. I’ve listened to friends who’ve told me how eerily accurate the “messages” are that they’ve received when they played their games. And they found that the Board would make predictions that would eventually shape how they viewed themselves and of their future.
ILLUS: Then, of course, there are the palm readers and fortune tellers. My dad went to visit one before I was born. The lady told dad that he’d: 1. live near water (he bought a resort on a five acre lake named Silver Lake), and 2. that he and mom would have 4 children – 2 girls and 2 boys (they did). And 3. she told him WHEN he would die. (When “we’ll die” is a prediction that often comes up when dealing with the occult). Until THE DAY that she predicted he would die, dad always kept that date in his mind. It dominated his thinking. And it shaped his view of himself and of his future.
You see, that’s the danger of the occult: it makes predictions. And those predictions tend to shape our view of ourselves and our future.
But God says “I’m a jealous God.” I’m the one who wants to shape your view of yourself and your future! God says “I want to be the master of your life.” Jesus said you can’t serve two masters – you’ll either love the one and hate the other or vise versa. You’ll either look to God for your answers to the future, or you’ll look to the occult… and Satan.
And God tells us I ain’t sharing you!
So, one of the big reasons God hates the occult is that it leads those who accept it to embrace evil and reject God. The 2nd reason God hates the occult is because of the damage Satan can do in our lives thru it.
ILLUS: I once listened to Christian speaker tell of the time that he noticed a young couple having trouble with their youngest of their 3 daughters. This youngest child had an eerie habit of screaming horrendously and then smiling in a deathly calm way, scream and then smile – BUT ONLY when they entered a church building. The speaker says he wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it himself. The couple asked if he could give them advice on how to deal with this, so he started by asking a number of questions including asking if they’d involved with fortune telling or things of that sort. The wife related that before she was married, her mother took her to a restaurant where an old woman asked if her mother would like the daughter’s fortune read for a dollar. Her mother, thinking it to be a lark, fished out a dollar from her purse and let the old woman read tea leaves for her daughter. The fortune teller told the daughter that she would marry a tall dark man in a uniform and that they would have 3 children - all boys. And, when she grew up she fell in love with a tall man with a dark complexion who was in the military. They married and when she became pregnant... And guess what she had? NOPE, she had a girl… not once, not twice, but three times… and she found herself being particularly disappointed with this third child. The Christian teacher explained that that was one of the dangers of fortune telling: it’s often 90% right, but… it’s that 10% that Satan can use against us. Whether it was direct demonic influence or simply the result of personal disappointment, the tea reading had led to the odd behavior of this third child. That night, the couple went home and prayed over their youngest daughter and asked forgiveness for the sins of the past and thanked God for giving them this beautiful child. From that day forward, the odd screaming stopped… and weird smile never reoccurred.
CLOSE: One last thing. When I originally was going to use the passage from Deuteronomy, about God’s hatred of the occult, I almost overlooked the last verse I read. It says “You must be blameless before the LORD your God. Though these nations you are about to drive out listen to fortune-tellers and diviners, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do this. The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. YOU MUST LISTEN TO HIM. (Deuteronomy 18:13-15 HCSB)
Do you know who this prophet who was like Moses was going to be? It was going to be Jesus. Moses was saying… don’t listen to fortune tellers and diviners. They’ll lie to you and they’ll bring you under the influence of demons.
LISTEN TO JESUS! Jesus won’t lie to you, and Jesus will change your life.
INVITATION.
