A SPIRITUAL REVIVAL
Isaiah 8:19
There is a spiritual revival in our land since the attack on the World trade center. It is a revival that is drawing many people toward the things of Christ. I am thankful for that revival. There is another spiritual revival that is taking place that started several years before the attacks. It is a spiritual revival of a different kind. I remember going to the BMAA national meeting about 7 years ago and hearing a speaker say that he thought we were on the verge of a spiritual revival. After the amens stopped, he went on to say that it wasn’t a good thing. You see, he felt like we were about to see a revival of satanic spiritualism that would come under the cover of many things. I believe he was right. I believe we must be aware of, teach our children about, and take a stand against an enormous revival of satanic spiritualism in our day.
You know that I enjoy using jokes and humorous illustrations to introduce a sermon topic.
I. WHAT DOES GOD’S WORD SAY ABOUT SATANIC SPIRITUALISM?
A) Don’t have anything to do with them. Deut 18:9-11
1) Don’t play around with it. Many people, especially young people are pulled into this kind of thing by curiosity.
2) God is just as serious about Satanism today as He was with the children of Israel.
B) Don’t ignore the seriousness of it. Prov 14:9
I will talk about this more in a minute. Christians today are burying their heads in the sand on this topic. They refuse to take seriously the influence of Satan, especially in the lives of their children.
II. A LOOK AT THE RISE OF SATANIC SPIRITUALISM.
A) WICCA
1) On one major search engine that host clubs of different topics there were 976 separate clubs for the practice of wiccan witchcraft.
2) On other search engines there were literally tens of thousands of hits on the term wicca.
3) It has been claimed that there are as many witches in England as there are Christians in the United States.
4) There are people who claim to be Christian Witches. Wiccan witches claim that they are not spoken of in the Bible because they do not do any harm to people, yet every single prohibition given about witchcraft in Deut 18 is practiced in WICCA.
5) WICCA is a recognized religion by our government. There are WICCAN chaplains in the armed forces.
B) Children’s literature, specifically Harry Potter.
1) Harry Potter is a topic many Christians have refused to make a stand against for a few reasons.
a) They don’t understand the danger of it.
b) They were burned or saw others burned by the Harry Potter spoof article that was circulated a couple of years ago. It turned out to be an article written by an anti-Christian newspaper, making fun of Christian’s reaction to Harry Potter.
c) There is a social and academic pressure to accept these books as being a great thing because they have gotten children to reading.
d) They say—It is harmless fantasy.
If you walked into your child’s room and they suddenly shoved something under their bed, and you said “what was that” and they said “Oh, mom, it was just fantasy, would you ignore it?
If you knew that your child was reading fantasy comic books that taught sexual perversions, rape, or incest, would you say Oh, that’s just fantasy? Of course not. Why? Because it’s harmful? Because it’s an abomination to God? Deut 18:9-12
III. LET ME TELL YOU A LITTLE ABOUT HARRY POTTER.
A) Harry’s parents were killed on Halloween night, he survives and receives a lightening bolt on his forehead, and gets special powers of witchcraft.
1) The lightening bolt has long been a Satanic symbol And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Luke 10:18
2) Placed on his forehead. Rev 14:9-10
B) Harry Potter books have a changed world view. It is not a view of Judeao Christian belief system, it is a Neo/pagan world view. A world view of no absolutes.
C) J. K. Rowling is the author of Harry Potter. To write the book, she admittedly did intensive research into the WICCAN Witchcraft movement and wrote the book from that research.
D) In Book 4 Harry Potter introduces Human Sacrifice, and 3 blatant inversions of Scriptural teaching by using terms of Bone of my Bone, Flesh and Blood, and Harry’s Precious Blood in a ritual to raise a wicked, evil, creature from the dead.
E) The founder of Rapha Christian Treatment Center, in Houston TX, said that Harry Potter is a very dangerous movement. He sees young people that are in the grasp of Satanic activity on a daily basis. Things like Harry Potter books is how they get there.
IV. SO WHAT DO WE DO?
A) We teach our children about the dangers of playing around with things of Satan.
We teach them to hate the things that God hates and to love the things that God loves.
B) If our children are asked to do a book report on Harry Potter for school, ask for an alternative book or assignment.
C) We put on the armor of God. Eph 6:10-18
