Sunday, July 25, 2021 PM

All right, well, if you open your Bibles to 1

Samuel chapter 15, we're going to read a familiar story there. But we're starting a new study, one which will be immediately interrupted next week.

It's hard to plan these things well. Is it next week? August?

Oh, it'll be in two weeks. We should have one more. In two weeks, I think it is, we're having a special Sunday night.

It'll be a little bit more lengthy, as we're participating in a...

I'm ringing, Edgar, just so you know. I can't... I don't know why I'm ringing so bad. Wow, there's more.

Hello, hello, hello. So, the conference is going to be in connection with Oklahomans United for Life.

John Mishner is going to be here on that Sunday night, and he's going to do a workshop in how to do the

Ministry of Interposition at the abortion mills. What you can do by...

What it means when you show up, how it helps, what you can do, whether you're holding signs or praying or actually speaking with those who are arriving at these places.

And it's basically a workshop just familiarizing folks with what it's like. When you drive by an abortion mill and you see people outside, you may have an initial cringe like, oh,

I'm a bunch of crazies. Actually, there are some very helpful things that are happening there, and understanding it from the inside and getting some practical training will show you what it's like.

And we actively support Oklahomans United for Life financially and logistically.

We have a closet here at the church, and people have access to come pick up signs and equipment to go down to the abortion clinic just down the road.

We try to do whatever we can to help facilitate and support their efforts. So that'll be

Thursday night, the first Thursday in August. That Thursday night, we'll be meeting here for a workshop and training.

The next Friday morning, we'll be going out to the abortion clinic itself, but immediately put into practice the things that we trained and learned about.

That'll be Friday morning. Friday evening at Blue Lakes Baptist Church down in Norman, there's going to be a training session on street -level apologetics, about how to talk with people about abortion and refute some of the basic arguments and so on.

And then that Saturday morning, following that training session, going out and doing a survey -type engagement with folks and talking to people and doing some street -level apologetics, actually putting that into practice.

And then Sunday night, back here at Sunnyside, we're going to have

John Mishner again talk to us about the legal landscape of where the abolitionist movement is at, what the legal landscape looked like to abolish the illegal murder of unborn infants.

How close are we? What are the avenues that we have available to us? How can we, as God's people, get involved in that righteous cause?

So we're going to hear about the legal landscape Sunday night, that second Sunday in August.

That Monday morning, whoever's available, we'll be going down to the state capitol and doing what we can to support the moving forward of that endeavor.

And if you can't go down there, there's ways that you can contact and communicate with legislators and so on.

So that's coming up. Hope that you will make some time, set aside some time to be involved with that.

And God has us in a position to be good stewards, given our location and given the relationships that we have with folks.

I think that we have a responsibility to be involved. So that's coming up.

Tonight, we're going to start a new study called Christian Opposition to Witchcraft, which seems pretty obvious.

You know, it's like, you know, do we have a lot of Christian support of witchcraft?

Is that, you know, is that a problem? But it's important to note that sometimes certain things in the

Bible just don't get talked about a lot. Some things in the Bible just don't get talked about a lot.

Oh, that's not very relevant. Or we don't really have a lot of this or that.

So we just don't talk about it a lot. Now, obviously, the Christians in Africa, the Christians who are preaching the gospel in an animistic context and so on, they're going to be preaching against witch doctors.

They're going to be preaching against superstitions and taboos and so on. You know, missionaries in the Dominican Republic and Haiti are going to be dealing with the voodoo culture and so on, and they're going to have some direct application of these things.

But when we read in the Bible, when we read in the lists in both the Old Testament and the

New Testament, which condemn witchcraft, which condemn divination and so on, we say, check, no problem there, and we just glide right on.

And part of the problem is we don't understand what witchcraft is, and we don't understand what it looks like. And remember what, we know there's stuff wrong in the world today, right?

In our culture, right? We know that things are going awry in our society and so on.

We kind of had that sense. You know, Paul says that he was a sinner before the law told him, but when the law told him what covetousness was, then it was exceedingly sinful.

Then he understood it for what it was. He knew it was wrong. He didn't know how wrong until the law clarified that for him.

And in this sense, there is a lot of things going on that I think fall under the heading of witchcraft, and we just don't know what it is, and so we don't know how sinful it is, and we don't have any idea, therefore, of what it means to oppose it from our own lives and in the church and in the culture today.

This is a tough sell at some level because the immediate objection to the claim that witchcraft is a problem is that we have a striking lack of green -skinned, warty, black -rubbed, pointy -headed, cackling, lemon -stirring, boiling, poison, and big cauldrons.

This is not the problem on the street corner. It's like, oh, there's another witch. This is not a pressing issue, it seems.

But what I want to do is I want to read to you a familiar story and consider it, and then

I want to talk about a biblical definition for witchcraft, and then tonight we're talking about the origins of witchcraft, then we're going to talk about the biblical prohibitions against witchcraft.

What caught my attention was when I was meditating on these things, reading through the Bible, there are over a dozen particular words that pertain to witchcraft that God prohibits.

Now, that seems a little robust. Why all the specifics? Why all the attention on it?

And what dangers are there when we just gloss over it? Because these words are foreign to us, we just, you know, whatever, we don't have that problem.

So, we're going to talk about the prohibitions against witchcraft in the Bible, and then once we understand it from a biblical perspective, we're going to talk about the manifestation of witchcraft.

There are stories in the Bible where witchcraft shows up, and we don't quite know what to do with them.

You know, the witch did endure, and so on and so forth. But then there's manifestations of witchcraft all around us in our culture, and we need to know what it is and call it what it is.

Use God's terms for it. And then we're going to talk about the practical ways, biblical ways, that we can oppose it.

Oppose it in our very own lives, in our own homes, in the church, and so on, so that we can be a—we don't want to participate with those doing evil deeds, but rather expose them,

Ephesians says. So, that's the goal. So, we're talking about the origins of witchcraft.

Let's go to 1 Samuel 15, and Samuel has given the word of the

Lord to Saul. Saul is king of Israel, very first king of Israel, and he has a job to do.

And his job is to bring about the prophesied judgment of God upon the Amalekites. And so, everything about the

Amalekites has been put under the ban. If you want to know what the ban is, you can read Deuteronomy 8. The ban means everything under the ban is dedicated to the

Lord for destruction. Everything under the ban is dedicated under the

Lord for destruction. It doesn't belong to you, it belongs to God, and he's decided he wants it destroyed.

Okay? It's all going into the dumpster fire, and none of it is yours. When Achan tested that, remember

Achan? He stole Angericho. He took what was the Lord's. It was dedicated for destruction, but he took it and hid it in his tent.

Then he and his whole family came under the ban. Remember that? So, Saul has been instructed, you're going to go and destroy the

Amalekites, everything that they have. Now, to be clear, it is as bad as everyone fears.

Verse 3, now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have. And do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

The reason why this is not genocide is because God is not a man. God is not a man.

He's not murdering. He's the creator. He's the maker. He's the owner, and he is bringing righteous judgment upon a nation with whom he has had hundreds of years of patience.

And so, destruction is mandated. Israel, under the leadership of King Saul, is that instrument of judgment.

And so, Saul proceeds to follow the instructions somewhat.

Verse 9, Saul and the people spared Agag, who is the king of the Amalekites. They spared

Agag, and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them, but everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.

That's a little humor from Samuel. When it was easy to obey, they did, but they did not obey the instructions.

And now, Saul is responsible because he's king. And so, there's a confrontation.

Now, verse 13, then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, blessed are you of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the

Lord. Did he? I went and attacked

Amalek. I took the armies of Israel. We went and attacked Amalek. I have obeyed.

We have done this good and godly thing. We have obeyed God. We are doing the ministry of God.

Notice how he's describing what he did. But Samuel said, what then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which

I hear? Saul said, they have brought them from the Amalekites.

For the people spared, the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your

God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed. Notice how he couches that.

Oh, we saved the best stuff because we're going to sacrifice it. Now, he's labeling it stuff and calling it good, right?

Then Samuel said to Saul, be quiet, which is a very polite way of saying what he said. Samuel said to Saul, be quiet, and I will tell you what the

Lord has said to me last night. And he said to him, speak on. So, Samuel said, when you were little in your own eyes, when you were not head of the tribes of Israel, and did not the

Lord anoint you king over Israel, now the Lord sent you on a mission and said, go utterly destroy the sinners, the

Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil and do evil in the sight of the

Lord? And Saul said to Samuel, notice how he protests. But I have obeyed the voice of the

Lord and gone on the mission which the Lord sent me and brought back Agag, king of Amalek.

I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took the plunderers, sheep and oxen, the best things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the

Lord your God in Gilgal. So 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 heed 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. Do you remember how Jesus talked about the law?

You have heard it said, do not commit adultery. I say to you, if a man looks upon a woman with lust in his heart, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

You have heard it said, thou shalt not murder. But I say unto you, if you hate your brother in your heart, you're a murderer already.

Jesus is rightly giving the sense of the law of God. It wasn't a matter of external adherence.

Well, I haven't committed adultery with anyone physically, so I'm holy and clean, no matter how much

I lust in my heart. Was that the intent of God's law? No, not at all.

Many, many prohibitions against witchcraft in the scriptures, but just because you don't cut the liver out of a goat and study its spots for information, just because you don't commit that form of divination doesn't mean that I'm free of witchcraft because I didn't do the physical thing.

Where does witchcraft begin? Where does sin begin? How does witchcraft manifest in the heart?

Rebellion. Now, what is the difference between rebellion and just lying, rebellion and just disobedience?

Rebellion involves, as we see with Saul, not only disobedience, but a sustained disobedience through lying and deception, wherein

I'm going to call the disobedience that I have committed my lack of adherence to the word of God.

I'm going to call it somehow good. I'm going to rename it.

I'm not going to confess my sins and agree with God about them. I'm going to call it something else. I'm going to use euphemisms.

I'm going to talk around it. I'm going to use excuses, or I'm just going to label it something that sounds a lot better.

I'm going to sustain my disobedience to God's word through deceptive words.

Okay, that's rebellion. And Samuel says that is as the sin of witchcraft.

Now, to prove the point, you'll notice that at this juncture, having been so rebellious and as committing the sin of witchcraft, the kingdom is promised to be taken away from Saul and given to another, given to a man after God's own heart, which ends up being

David. But at the end of Saul's career, at the arc of where Saul ended up, where was he when he last kind of peeked in on him?

He was in the house of a witch at Endor. How did he end up in the witch's house, eating the witch's food, consulting for spiritual, supernatural information from a witch?

How did the king of Israel end up with a witch? He didn't just one day wake up and said,

I think I'll go ask a witch for help. Where does it begin? It begins back here where there is rebellion in his heart.

Now, this is what I want to kind of draw our attention to, that all the passages in the

Bible talk about witchcraft and are against divination, against witchcraft, against necromancy, against so on and so forth, all the different words.

This begins in the heart. This begins in the way that we use our words and think about who

God is and what he has said and how rebellion is the sin of witchcraft. And God's word is sufficient to answer the problems and the confusion and the perversion and the spells being cast in our day.

Is God's word sufficient to speak against the pregnant man emoji?

Yeah. Yeah, the word of God outlaws witchcraft. Is the word of God sufficient to deal with that thing called homosexual marriage, which is a bit of sorcery?

We'll talk about that. Yeah. Is God's word able to explain what's going on when so -called mostly peaceful protests in the name of justice steal, kill, and destroy?

What is that? It's a form of enchantment. Is God's word sufficient able to speak to the twisted, mixed up, convoluted, perverted thinking of our age?

Absolutely it is. The word of God is sufficient. So sometimes, well, they just have an agenda.

Remember, yeah, we've heard that, right? Oh, they have an agenda. They probably do, yeah. Some of the less activist marketing.

Oh, that's just politics. Oh, that's just semantics. I think the

Bible has a better word for all that. The Bible says it's witchcraft. I think the

Bible calls it witchcraft. And we just don't know what it is. We don't know how the

Bible looks at it, so we don't know what to call it. We're kind of reeling all over the place trying to get a word for it.

I think the Bible calls it witchcraft. So this is not at all some kind of despairing observation.

1 John chapter 4, verses 4 through 6 says this. But you are of God, little children, and have overcome them.

Because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world, right?

They are of the world. Therefore, notice, they speak as of the world, and the world hears them.

They are of the world. They speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God.

And he who knows God hears us. He who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

But the spirit of truth, remember, is greater than the spirit of error. And we need to proceed with that hope -filled, victorious assumption.

And this is not a despairing study. Let's talk about the origin of witchcraft then.

Well, I want to give you a Joe Boots definition, then I'll give you mine. Joe Boots' definition of witchcraft.

Witchcraft is the attempt to acquire knowledge or power by manipulation and control.

Mine's shorter, so wait for that one. To be clear, trying to grab a different source of authority, a different source of knowledge, a different source of power, it is, in the last analysis, done from a demonic source, or a demonic route.

So whether someone's trying to hex someone, or attempt a seance, or casting a pronoun spell on your classmates, ultimately it's from a demonic source.

Witchcraft is just this. Here's my definition. It's only five words long, so hopefully we can remember it. Witchcraft is just this.

Ready? Demonic appropriation of alternate authority.

Demonic appropriation of alternate authority. Demonic appropriation of alternate authority.

In this sense, the demonic may be subtle, or it may be overt, but this appropriation has the idea of both trying to grab alternate authority to oneself, or trying to apply that alternate authority in real life.

But in either case, it's an appropriation that is, in and of itself, a deception.

It is a deception, and it is a defiance. It's a deception because it's not real authority.

It's false authority. It has no reality to it, and it's a defiance because it is a sustained act of rebellion against God.

It's futile. I mean, it's not real authority. Someone walking around as a man calling himself a woman, well, that's vanity.

That's emptiness. That's not true. It's unreal. But the fact that he sustains this lie is defiance against God.

This appropriation, this demonic appropriation, is deceptive and it's defiant.

Now, what is alternate authority? My presupposition is that all authority is from God. God is the maker.

God is the creator. All authority is his. And all authority has been given unto Christ in heaven and on earth. Seeking alternate authority, therefore, is just plainly having to come from somewhere else.

So it's a demonic appropriation of alternate authority. And this alternate authority is sometimes classified as empirical.

Well, science says. Okay. Sometimes it's defined as mystical.

I had an experience. But whatever it is, it's an alternate authority.

Trying to inform. This is the authority appropriated is that which informs and insists upon your view of truth, beauty, and goodness.

What's your view of truth? And what's your view of beauty? What's your view of goodness? And then whatever gives them that understanding, that's their alternate authority.

Witchcraft is the demonic appropriation of alternate authority.

Now, talking about the origin of witchcraft, it's not hard to figure out that the origin of devilry is the devil. It's pretty clear.

The father of witchcraft was not Faust or Pythagoras or Janus and Jambres.

The father of all devilry is the devil. Jesus actually accuses the religious leaders of his day of devilry.

By definition, he accuses them of witchcraft. John chapter 8. Let's go to John chapter 8, look at verses 37 and following.

John chapter 8. Don't you just love how that unnamed man confronted

Joab? Wasn't that great? Joab is such a slimeball.

You left him alive. I was going to give you all this money. He's hoping that man turns right around.

He's like, oh, I'm going to go kill Absalom then. He nailed Joab. He's like, yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

You were going to turn me over to David for my own execution. I know who you are. He's like, I don't have time for this.

I got to go. That was great. Calling it what it is.

That's what Jesus does here. John chapter 8. I know that you are Abraham's descendants. Verse 37. I know that you're

Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. Remember the passage in 1

John 4. I speak what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have seen with your father.

They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.

But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this.

You do the deeds of your father. And they said to him, we were not born of fornication.

We have one father, God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me.

For I proceeded forth and came from God, nor have I come of myself, but he sent me.

Why do you not understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen to my word.

Again, think 1 John 4, 4 through 6. You are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin?

And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears God's words. Therefore, you do not hear because you are not of God.

As the devil self -authenticated, as the devil lied and murdered, so his children do the same.

Remember by the end of the rebellious arc of the religious leaders there in Jerusalem, that these Jews in Jerusalem were known as Jezebel.

They were called Jezebel, that whoring witch, 2 Kings 9 .22. And Jerusalem was also called

Babylon in Revelation 18, a great harlot who deceived the nations by her sorceries,

Revelation 18 .23. And she fed on the blood of the saints, Revelation 18 .24,

a liar and a murderer. Jesus called it. Jesus described them just that way.

So, the devilry goes all the way back to the beginning, because the devil compelled the first sin by witchcraft.

So, if you go back into Genesis 3, Genesis chapter 3, let's look at this fall into sin by witchcraft.

Remember that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. Why? Because you have this sustained deception, a defiant deception.

We're not going to use God's words to describe sin. We're going to use other words, and we're going to sustain them even though that they're not true.

So, in Genesis chapter 3, in verses 1 through 7, now, the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the

Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said that you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the tree, eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden,

God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate, and the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

So there are some pertinent features of witchcraft on display here. First of all, we have the displacement of God's authority for alternate authority.

Alternate authority. The devil tempts Eve and says, you don't need

God to define good and evil. You define good and evil. By eating of this, the fruit of this tree, you will define the objective knowledge of what good is and what evil is.

You be your own authority, Eve. You don't need God to define that for you. You need to be a

God unto yourself, determining good and evil for yourself. So they say, you don't need

God anymore. Eve, you don't need God. You be your God. You don't need him.

This denial of the creator. When you deny the creator, you're left with only the worship of the creature. When you reject twoism, there's a creator in creation, but we don't need him anymore.

When you reject twoism, you're left with oneism, which is paganism, which Paul, in chapter one of Romans, calls the lie.

The lie. This is the lie. Let's go over to Romans 1. The whole idea here is that rather than the creator determining good and evil, rather than him being the objective source of knowledge for truth, beauty, and goodness, all of a sudden, everything is up for grabs for every human to determine and define by their very own existence.

This is the lie. So in Romans chapter one, Paul is dealing with the fall, the effects of the fall, and so on.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.

So everybody has all the evidence they need that God exists. They just suppress it in unrighteousness.

Verse 24, since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

Nobody can say, well, God never gave me enough evidence to believe in him. This says everybody has enough evidence to believe in him.

They suppress the truth in unrighteousness. There is a sustained rebellion against God in their sin.

Verse 21, because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Notice what happens, professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible

God into an image made like corruptible men and birds and four -footed animals and creeping things.

Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves.

Here it is, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie. What is it that occurred?

They worship and serve the creature rather than the creator who's blessed forever. Amen. That's the lie. We don't need the creator.

We'll determine for ourselves what is good and right. We will be wise in our own eyes, but they are absolutely foolish.

Now, we've been talking about paganism a lot from the stories of Daniel, but also just from the context in which we live.

How is paganism grown? How is paganism strengthened?

How is paganism established? How is paganism advanced? What is the praxis of paganism?

What makes it go? What makes it enhanced and continue and to keep on?

What is the praxis of paganism? It's witchcraft. Witchcraft is the praxis of paganism.

It's what makes it go. This is not simply the random assertion of some alternative authority.

It's not going to work to just reach outside of our world and grab some sort of different alien objective force.

The whole idea of paganism and what witchcraft does definitionally is to remove distinctions and separations, to get rid of them.

When we look at what happens in Romans 1, what happens? For this reason, God gave them over to their vile passions.

For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lusts for one another.

Men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

Any history of witchcraft will tell you it is connected to sodomy. Every history of witchcraft, the whole background of witchcraft and paganism is full of sodomy, full of sexual perversions, because it is essential in that worldview to eliminate distinctions.

There's not distinctive roles for men and women. No, not at all. There's not distinctions between this married couple and that married couple or this family and that family.

All distinctions must be broken down. Verse 28, and even as they did not like to retain

God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil -mindedness.

They are whispers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful.

Now watch this, who knowing the righteous judgment of God that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.

That's not like, yeah, go fellow rebel. No, that's, I declare you holy approval.

I declare you righteous approval. Why? Because we don't need the creator to have the knowledge of good and evil.

We ourselves are the determiners of the knowledge of good and evil. So there has to be a deconstruction of God's authority so that the alternative authority will emerge, and that is the focus of witchcraft.

The focus of witchcraft is the elevation of the self through the deconstruction of God.

God's authority must be anathematized. You will not surely die. God's wrong.

God's authority has to be anathematized. If man's authority is to be established, you will be like God.

You will be like God. Think about how God made the world. Isn't it beautiful? God made distinctions.

God makes distinctions. He separated light from dark, day from night, land from water, water from air, birds from fish, beasts from men, woman from man, parents from children, work from rest, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from the rest of the trees of the garden.

And God himself is distinct from creation. Wow, all that in just two chapters.

Distinction, distinction, distinction, separation, separation, separation. Setting things apart, setting things apart.

How godly. What happened in the fall? What was the spell that Satan cast upon Eve?

What occurred that was witchcraft? Very simple. Satan helped convince Eve that there was no distinction between her and authority.

Look, Eve, here you are over here. Eve, right up on the whiteboard. Eve, line, authority, authority.

In witchcraft, the world is a whiteboard. Erase the line, erase the line.

Change it up. Make what you want. Witchcraft, in witchcraft, the world is a whiteboard.

Jobood, again, on the worldview of witchcraft. It seeks knowledge of correlations and correspondences rooted in a basic and original unity of everything.

Here's the idea. The presupposition is this. In witchcraft, everything is originally the same, one.

That's paganism. The same thing as Hinduism. The one is Atman. In New Age mysticism, everything is one.

Pantheism, also in witchcraft. And they say everything is one in nature.

And the reason why this is so important is that by realizing this and making everything one, that there's no more distinctions, is that man may find autonomous power.

You hear the word autonomous? It's built up of two words, auto and namas, self -law.

Autonomous means I'm a law to myself. In witchcraft, this elimination of distinctions.

This elimination of distinctions is about bringing together a unity and an all -sufficiency in the self.

Contrasts and distinctions, separations and divisions, keep the world in a place of struggle and conflict.

And so everybody has to be the same. Everybody has to say the same, do the same, be the same, have the same.

That's the goal of paganism, and witchcraft is the praxis of paganism because witchcraft is a sustained deception of determining alternative authority of a demonic origin over and against God.

Linda Harvey, who researched witchcraft, puts together a summation of the basic idea.

And this is the actual practice of Wicca, which is the fastest -growing religion in the United States. Ultimately, the practitioner worships the self, whose instincts and desires are empowered by occult spiritual forces, which is to call them demons.

Worships the self, their instincts and desires are empowered by demons. The focus of witchcraft is to take control of one's own or another person's life.

The enlightened witch invokes the goddess of choice. Choice, that is a religious chant that you hear in the

New York legislature, in the Ohio legislature. That is a ranting of superstitious demonic worship in the pro -choice protests.

This is not about scientific evidence. This is not about how do we best love a neighbor.

This is about a religion, and it's a demonic religion. At the height of the ritual, there is an intense feeling of spiritual power when the priestess believes she becomes one with the goddess or nature.

The godhood of self is a stated pillar of witchcraft. The godhood of self is a stated pillar of witchcraft and various preachers on TBN.

As expressed in the 1974 Principles of Wiccan Belief, adopted by the

Council of American Witches, the introduction states, we are not bound by traditions from other times and other cultures and owe no allegiance to any person or power greater than the divinity manifest through our own being.

So that's more of the nature animistic Wicca witchcraft, but there's very little difference between that and that of materialism.

A Gaia priestess looks a lot different than a materialist philosopher, but the witchcraft is the same.

If you believe everything is one in matter, then you end up in the same place. We'll talk more about that next week.

But the witchcraft of materialism and modernism ends up at the same place as people who worship

Gaia and so on. Abraham Kuyper, over a hundred years ago, said this, modernism, finally modernism, which denies and abolishes every difference, cannot rest until it has made woman man and man woman, and putting every distinction on a common level kills life by placing it under the ban of uniformity.

He made that call over a hundred years ago because the trajectory is clear. The trajectory is clear.

If everything is one, then there's no distinctions. If everything is matter, then what does it matter? It's all the same.

Everything's fungible and transferable. I'm going to conclude with a quote from Jobood again, and this will conclude our first study.

We can say then that the foundation of all devilry is rebellion against God, which seeks knowledge, power, and dominion through a negation of God's word and purpose.

As such, there is no white magic or good magic.

All attempts to deny and overturn God's creative word and divine purpose, and to lawlessly manipulate circumstances to bend to my will by spiritual powers and forces is divination and witchcraft and evil on its face.

At root, witchcraft implicitly involves the attempted remaking of man as a

God with an autonomous source of knowledge and power, which is, in the last analysis, demonic.

Now, since this is God's world and creation and cannot be overturned by the lie, the fiendish parodying of God, meaning we're going to pretend to be

God, the pretending of being God requires endless manipulations.

Have you noticed that? There's no cap. Endless manipulations, deceptions, and the constant defacing of God's image bearer in order to seek to make the devil's illusions a social reality.

This is the world we live in wherein the devil's illusions are trying to be made into social reality.

We live in a world full of witchcraft. I want us to understand it biblically. I want us to understand the prohibitions against it.

I want us to understand the manifestations of it. Will we see it? I want us to understand a Christian opposition to it.

I went way over time, but let's go ahead and close by singing the doxology together.