Cultish: Santería - Exposing Demons In Disguise, Pt. 2
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Join us as we continue our conversation with Youtuber Jon Clash about his involvement with the cult of Santería.
What exactly is the practice & what are the spiritual dangers aligned with Santería?
Tune in to find out!
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- 00:02
- All right, welcome back ladies and gentlemen to part two the cultish entering the crazy world of Santeria My name is
- 00:11
- Jeremiah Roberts one of the co -hosts here. I am back with my boy John clash. Good to have you back, man Happy to be here good
- 00:18
- Absolutely, and so just real quickly where people can find you on YouTube primarily John clash
- 00:23
- JN clash Otherwise if you do if you type in John you're gonna get in the clash of clans
- 00:29
- Which hey if you want to play that game, that's great, but you will not find you there you'll find it J Oh and clash so let's just jump right back into it
- 00:37
- So the last part of the podcast you were kind of really talking about how you just came to Christ You wanted to destroy your
- 00:44
- Santeria altar, but then everything started just getting rocked and it's kind of crazy It was almost like the carrot that was being dangling in front of you started getting yanked, but you're still hanging on Yeah, bring us back into that.
- 00:55
- Where did things go from there? Yeah, so after I got rid of the the the altar and destroyed it and and Just made a decision that I'm done with this, you know, cuz
- 01:06
- I I'm somebody who likes truth, you know I really do I seek it out and I've always been that way where I just want to know the truth about things and when
- 01:16
- I'm lied to I'm kind of just like I Don't want any parts in in in anything.
- 01:22
- That's false. You know what I mean? So I made a decision that no matter what happens no matter how bad it gets
- 01:28
- I'm I'm just gonna I'm never gonna You know, I'm not lighting another candle here, you know, yeah, so it got pretty pretty intense
- 01:37
- The you know, my business was starting to go backwards. It was literally instant. It was like the next day
- 01:43
- I'm checking my phone and I lost like 30 customers from my organization And then the the following day another like 20 and it was just like back to back to back right and I chalk some of that up to horrible leadership myself being a you know, egomaniac back then but it just seemed to be so like cause and effect that was that was kind of how
- 02:08
- I was correlating it and Then the relationship that I was in as we discussed, you know, I was living in sin, but at that time
- 02:15
- I'm like well Now my relationships going bad. What the heck is going on? I'm also At that time there was um, there's a lot of competition in the field that seemed to have been
- 02:27
- Beating me when it came to you know business and and everything and they were stealing my customers as well and it just was a whole mess of of my life and then my
- 02:40
- Friendships and relationships like they just seemed distant. It was a very dark period but It was it was the beginning of you know moving into a into a deeper relationship with Christ But that came with you know,
- 02:56
- I was discussing with you on the last episode The sleep paralysis. Yeah was super intense like almost every time
- 03:04
- I went to sleep I would suffer from sleep paralysis and for those of you who may not know what sleep paralysis is it's when you're in this state of being half awake half asleep and Many people experience maybe seeing like a demonic
- 03:20
- Looking figure. Yeah coming towards you or next to you and then in my experience, you know
- 03:26
- They would kind of like choke me and and pin me down and then you can't move so you can't speak you can breathe
- 03:32
- But you can't you can't utter a word. You can't lift your arms. You can't lift your legs and you can't wake up, right?
- 03:40
- So that happened to me Pretty much before I was ever even involved with Santeria that was happening to me a lot, but I chalked it up to Trauma, you know,
- 03:50
- I thought it was a mental thing Like I'm just dealing with trauma that happened to me as a kid and when you look into like, you know
- 03:56
- Scientific studies on this stuff. That's what they say They say that it's it's what any of the appeal to go into Santeria was that related to sleep paralysis because I was happening before and that I Really just thought sleep paralysis was just me having bad dreams.
- 04:10
- I didn't associate it with anything demonic Was there any sort of like what is how often you're when you're having the sleep paralysis?
- 04:17
- Was there a differentiation between prior to getting in a Santeria to one versus after what was that?
- 04:22
- Actually, I got less sleep paralysis when I was involved in Santeria So it lessened and then when
- 04:30
- I was walking away from it it intensified So now I'm kind of doing the whole correlation thing again of like hey, this is pretty bugged out
- 04:38
- So I go down a rabbit hole of searching out other people who had experiences with sleep paralysis and I kept coming across the fact that The only way to stop it was to say the name
- 04:49
- Jesus Yeah, and that's what I kept hearing a lot of people have the same experience. Yep And I just I didn't really believe that it would be that easy, but I'm like,
- 04:59
- I'm ready for it to stop so, you know, I start doing that and It worked right.
- 05:04
- I was able to I would say Jesus and They would flee and so let me give you guys a description of what
- 05:10
- I would see So there were these black figures that literally just looked like like a shadow, right?
- 05:18
- I could see their face, but I could it's like I could feel their face more than I could see it You know that you ever get that feeling somebody's looking at you you turn around is like a little kid staring at you
- 05:26
- It's not like that, right? Yeah so I would have that feeling all the time that some something was looking at me and My mom would say the same thing in her house specifically.
- 05:36
- She would feel like something is is staring at her and So I would be
- 05:42
- I would feel that when I'm awake, but then when I would be going to sleep I would feel it
- 05:47
- Intensify that feeling of somebody's looking at you and then when I would see the figures It's like I couldn't see their faces but I could see where they are looking if that I don't know
- 05:55
- I could feel where they are looking that yeah more than I could see it and Then eventually it's like you see him you see him you see him then boom all of a sudden.
- 06:04
- They're on top of you and Holding you down. Sometimes it's one. Sometimes it's two. Sometimes it's three or four and Like I'm just pinned to the bed.
- 06:13
- And so this would happen a lot And what's crazy is that the more that I started to dig into the word?
- 06:20
- And like really work on my relationship with Christ there came a point in my life where I like fell flat on my face And this was after you know, the law of attraction stuff too, and we'll get into that another time
- 06:30
- But like I felt flat on my face. I really didn't have anything but Jesus and Jesus my mom in a
- 06:36
- BMW You know, that was pretty much it but it was at that time that I found a good church and I was really digging into the word really trying to learn everything and the spiritual attacks became even more intense yeah, and Jim real quickly jumping back just a little bit
- 06:53
- No backtracking hit a couple like 15 -second backtracks. Sorry seconds. No, you're good is
- 06:58
- You're talking about how the sleep paralysis lessened during you're doing like Santeria I don't know.
- 07:05
- This is the exact correct parallel We think about like how the government always exploits a crisis. We're gonna bring politics into a second
- 07:11
- So for example the government during kovat they shut down everything. He's demonetized this whole bunch of yeah a bunch of people a bunch of people got lost their jobs business got destroyed right then all of a sudden and the government initiated that but all of a sudden when they open back up everything people started going back to work and Businesses started being open backed up again
- 07:34
- What was ever left over and then they took it then they started taking credit look at all these jobs. We create. Yeah, right So it's almost like they're the they're the perpetrator, but they're also the savior of that So in the same way, they think we're a spiritual standpoint.
- 07:46
- You're dealing with these Experiences at the time you didn't know they're demonic with sleep paralysis and then all of a sudden so you have
- 07:54
- Dark forces creating a problem then really offering themselves as the solution.
- 07:59
- Well, if I do Santeria, oh, you know, it's kind of background Hey, my sleep paralysis is actually bothering me. I'm actually keep on lighting these candles.
- 08:05
- Yeah, but it's still the same Master the same Yeah, yeah sales 101 they create the problem and then they
- 08:15
- Offer you the solution for a cost, you know, exactly. The cost is your soul, right? but it it so I never really correlated that at the time but when
- 08:26
- I left Santeria and Yeah, and and I started digging into the word more and really learning about this stuff more.
- 08:32
- I Came to the same conclusion as you of like wow Things were cool when I was you know drinking from their cup and then the second that I leave the table now it's like they're they're scrambling to get me back any way that they can because all they care about is your worship if you if If they can get you to worship
- 08:51
- Anything besides Jesus they're gonna do it. They don't care what it is, you know new age you get to worship yourself
- 08:58
- Other cults they get you to worship worship a false Jesus right Santeria. They get you to worship the Saints Voodoo they get you to worship
- 09:06
- You know God's the pan pantheism or pagans get you to worship nature
- 09:11
- You know worship anything but the one true God. Yeah, that's all they care about and they'll get you any way that they can't
- 09:18
- Interesting. And so where did it go from here? Because he mentioned so after this like after you can't give yourself over to Christ and just spiritual attacks like continued
- 09:28
- Like the more you started pursuing Christ and getting into a solid church and all that stuff. That's where That's where you say the enemy came at you guns blazing.
- 09:37
- What does that look like guns blazing in I would say just the I've I got attacked a lot from my friends about my
- 09:46
- Christian walk because you know, I'm one of not anymore but at the time I was one of my only
- 09:51
- Christian friends and I'm my own Christian friend. That makes no sense. I was one of the only Christians I knew yeah, and the only one especially one of the only ones trying to take it serious, you know
- 10:01
- And so I would get a lot of pushback from people like oh, where's your God now? Cuz they knew that my life was going bad and stuff like that.
- 10:08
- Where's your God? Where's your God? I thought he's supposed to take care of you and at the time I was, you know influenced by prosperity preaching
- 10:14
- So I thought so as well So it was kind of shaking my faith a little bit, but I had looked at all the evidence
- 10:19
- And so I knew Christianity was true, but I just I came to a conclusion that I probably
- 10:25
- My view of Christianity might be a little bit distorted. So I really needed to start digging in on The truth of the truth, you know, and so yeah, it got worse in from all angles
- 10:38
- When I really really Excuse me when I really really wanted to start digging into the word and growing my relationship with Christ, but then yeah eventually
- 10:48
- Over time it stopped, you know, I can remember the last time I had sleep paralysis. It was at my mom's house it was two demons and I remember they were holding me down and this was when you know,
- 11:00
- I was really really digging into the word and yeah They were holding me down.
- 11:05
- I remember my one arm Specifically like I remember both of them on this one arm and I knew they were coming that night.
- 11:12
- It was crazy It's like oh man, it's gonna go down tonight. I know it and So I was kind of like pulling my arm up as they were holding me down right and I could feel them look at each other in like this the sense that I got was like they were losing their grip on Me, you know, and I couldn't get out
- 11:32
- Jesus I couldn't like I just couldn't get it and Yeshua came out and Which was super random for me because you know,
- 11:39
- I'm not one of these people who calls Jesus Yeshua Yeah, so like a Hebrew sort of thing like yeah, yeah all that way
- 11:45
- No, that's it's that wasn't the case, but I think it was just all the studying that I was doing, you know Learning all this stuff.
- 11:51
- It's kind of like planted in maybe myself. No, I had a period in college where did that? I was I had a classmate who is
- 11:56
- Jewish and I was trying to understand like how to Witness to her and so I had like a Jewish New Testament and I just thought the name was so cool
- 12:02
- Yeah, so I'd be like Yeshua. Yeah, like saying it's like a beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, but nothing more than that.
- 12:08
- Yeah Yeah, but um, so anyway, I was able to get out the name and that was the last time the sleep paralysis happened to me until My wife left the
- 12:17
- New Age So was your wife into she's into New Age law of attraction, you know crystals all of that stuff
- 12:24
- We were I was friends with her for a long time before we started dating about like three years so When we started talking during kovat, right, so I'm like God why why am
- 12:36
- I interested in this girl? Like, you know, yeah, she's very attractive very awesome chick, but you know me as a believer
- 12:41
- I'm like, why why am I interested like no keep this away and you know, she'll tell you this story, too
- 12:48
- But so we had a FaceTime like relationship during kovat And she eventually became a believer and and I was like, oh now
- 12:55
- I see what you're doing And she wanted to burn all her New Age books and stuff like that. So we eventually got together.
- 13:02
- She lived in Boston I was in New York. So we barely saw each other through the whole beginning of our relationship and My mom has a fire pit and we burned all of her
- 13:13
- New Age books and the next day I got sleep paralysis I actually reached out to Steven bank cars
- 13:19
- Yeah after that happened and I was like, hey man, is this is this normal, you know, yeah
- 13:25
- When you start doing this stuff, he's like, yeah, man, just just keep at it you know, it'll it'll stop and it did you know only have it like once or twice and Now my wife is like, oh my gosh, like if you would have if you would have pictured
- 13:40
- Somebody like gung -ho for Christ like she was not it and now she's like all in all in But well, we could talk about that when we discuss the law of attraction because she was big into that as well
- 13:51
- But anyway, yeah, so yeah when I finally really got my life right with Christ the sleep paralysis and stuff stopped but I did have to learn that God was not a genie in a bottle because I had all these preconceived notions from You know prosperity gospel then also in Santeria here.
- 14:11
- I am thinking You know if I do this I get this if I do this I get this law of attraction as well
- 14:16
- You know it that that whole mentality of if you put out good you get good back And we're just really crazy because it seems that all
- 14:24
- Practices one practice is always a gateway for the next one for some people
- 14:30
- It's Reiki and then I get into yoga or some people they start with tarot The that leads them to start getting aster projection or just you you like mix and match
- 14:38
- It always seems the one thing is always they're all like mix and matching stepping stones. You know what I mean? I call a I call the law of attraction the gateway drug to spiritual heroin
- 14:46
- Because it just it opens it up, and then you're searching for spiritual highs all the time
- 14:52
- But and Santeria is a spiritual high as well You know you think that you're special you think that you have this knowledge that people don't have you think that you're a you know
- 15:01
- Communing with Saints when you're really just spending time with demons. Yeah, you know So when
- 15:08
- I when I got out of it I started looking into it a lot more of like what did I really believe?
- 15:14
- What is this stuff actually about and that's when I discovered the ties to the you know really dug into the ties to the
- 15:21
- African? spirituality and You know I had discovered the origins before but now I wanted to really dig into hey
- 15:27
- What what is this you know really? What is this that we're doing here? Yeah, and you know we only touched that about we only went over it briefly in the yeah first episode
- 15:36
- Expand more on that because I'm sure a lot of people are curious definitely so if you haven't listened to the first episode definitely go
- 15:41
- Back, but just brief cliff note so Santeria is the repackaging of African spirituality, right?
- 15:48
- And when we say African spirituality, that's a that's a broad brush this specific form of African spirituality that Yoruba tribes would practice you know each town would have their own specific deity and then when it was when the slave trade happened they all came over to Cuba and it was kind of all of those deities kind of combined into you know one spiritual practice and that cut that got disguised as Roman Catholicism, you know, they started attributing each one of these deities to a specific saint that had similar quote unquote
- 16:27
- Characteristics, right? So for example I think it's
- 16:32
- Babaloo. I a is one of their deities and they associated him with st Lazarus, right and because they say that both of them are for healing and for You know for good life and health and stuff like that.
- 16:48
- There's actually in Cuba, I believe it's once a year The a bunch of people who practice
- 16:55
- Santeria, they they crawl on their knees for five miles To to a church, you know the
- 17:01
- Church of st Lazarus I guess it's called and they crawl on their hands and knees for five miles to kind of praise st
- 17:09
- Lazarus and there's some people who know that that's attached to an African deity and then there's other people who don't know and they just They just literally crawl on their hands and knees for five miles to go then
- 17:20
- Offer sacrifices to you know, these deities and there'll be animal sacrifices and and stuff like that they they want like blood and it's so crazy, you know looking back on it of Thinking that yeah, this stuff is definitely from God, you know
- 17:36
- Like like really being being so diluted to think that that it's a possibility that this could actually be from God you know and then
- 17:46
- You'll you'll find interesting stories. I came across one where there's a famous speech that Fidel Castro did right and It's a speech where I think it's first recorded speech where this dove like landed on him for For like his whole entire speech the dove sat on his shoulder and The Cuban people since they were, you know, they practice
- 18:11
- Santeria Fidel Castro also practice Santeria Yeah, but they were also very Catholic as well Right and you know, they associated
- 18:19
- I forget which which God the dove is associated to in In the
- 18:26
- Excuse me in the Orisha worshiping, but you know, the dove is associated with the
- 18:31
- Holy Spirit in you know That mindset as well, right, you know descended like a dove.
- 18:37
- So Fidel knew this about his About the people that he was speaking to right?
- 18:45
- So What looked like a sign from God was actually a rehearsed
- 18:51
- Act they practiced that speech for two weeks and they trained these
- 18:57
- Doves to fly on them Wow And so they they trained them and trained this was like, you know hundreds of different doves that they did this and they picked the ones that would land there and they had like bird seed there and So they trained them with the bird seed in order to sit there to the average person, especially
- 19:15
- I'm trying to think of like even like during that time And this is but this would be pre communist
- 19:21
- Yeah, this is when he was, you know, trying to get everybody on his side, right? And so they're just perceptions of just I don't know.
- 19:29
- I don't want to be like speaking away That's like disparaging but just people are probably just not perceiving or aware that there's that type of like manipulation
- 19:38
- Yeah, it's a it's a you know Think about it if if this religion is it is as embedded into the culture as you know as it is
- 19:46
- It's a superstitious religion. You're always looking for a sign. You're looking for you know, a sign from a
- 19:51
- Santo Yeah, you know you're always doing that. So here you have a double confirmation you have you know
- 19:57
- I as I was saying I forget which God is associated with doves in in Santeria But then you have you know, the
- 20:06
- Holy Spirit to sending like a dove So the Cuban people obviously looked at that as a sign from God yet.
- 20:11
- It was just a manipulation on Castro's part. I'll send you the source. Yeah, it's so crazy because you think about okay like the psalm
- 20:19
- That says like the Sarge of those who go after another God shall multiply So here are these people going after other gods, which believes that there's this some special deity assigned to a dove and then you know people all of a sudden then
- 20:32
- Castro comes on the scene and people sort of look to him as this sort of Messianic figure and we all know how things turned out with Castro just real quickly
- 20:43
- I don't know My history is a bit fuzzy who came before or at the same time Che Guevara in regards to Castro were there at the same time before after I have no idea
- 20:51
- You know remember I'd have to I'm sure it's a one. Oh, yeah click away Yeah But either what both of those people mean both of those were in the same
- 20:59
- I don't know two apples falling from the same trip from the same dream and in the sense of what they did what they believed This amount of day.
- 21:05
- It's weird to tell a side note It's like you look at someone even like Che Guevara and look at him and like this great glorifying like Messianic figure but you look at actually who he was and the type of people that he killed and he enjoyed watching like firing squads
- 21:18
- Live like for entertainment, but it just goes to show that like it was someone like Fidel Castro It's like what a mass manipulator.
- 21:25
- It just it goes to show to like everyone people are so easily susceptible
- 21:32
- Yeah, and like you always have to be careful of everything that you have on in front of your screen, it's so easy to be
- 21:39
- Manipulated we're emotional people. We're not logical, you know, we're based on We feed into emotions more than rational thinking, you know
- 21:48
- So instead of somebody watching that speech and being like, yeah, I think I don't know Maybe he planned that they're looking at it from a superstitious superstitious lens of wow
- 21:57
- This person is chosen by God to to save our country, you know and It's it's
- 22:05
- I think it's also a reflection of the the demonic forces behind That religion because it's it's all manipulation, you know, so It's think about what they were doing with me.
- 22:18
- It's up saying like hey if you stop doing this We're gonna take everything from you or the manipulation of hey, we'll give all of this to you
- 22:23
- You know, it's it goes back to the first lie ever recorded which is you know, hey eat from this
- 22:29
- You'll be like God, you know, it's the allure of more. Yeah, it's the it's the wanting to feel special and questioning
- 22:37
- Questioning what you know to be true about God. Yeah and listening to to a twisted version of that and thinking that you can be on the same level or or or At least be something special, you know
- 22:50
- And that being something special and knowing something more than somebody else is very alluring and it's manipulative
- 22:56
- And then once you're in it's difficult to get out Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, so at this time,
- 23:04
- I mean there's so many layers to it and again this is just it's still my mind -boggling to me that you only got into the very very beginning levels and so your wife got out of the
- 23:18
- New Age you started seeing like a lot more of these attacks and like did you was there a certain point where you feel like this is somehow like Maybe like some some sort of like stronghold that's on you
- 23:30
- There wasn't something you'd fully renounced because a lot of people and this is a thing too that you know We have a big broad audience and a lot of times people who are brand new like coming out of the
- 23:41
- New Age like they don't understand like The spiritual attacks or what to do or how to fence that or how to actually counter that I think that's really important too
- 23:49
- Because there's a lot of people out there even people who are Christians who are out there who were Influences just for the sake of time like I don't want to specifically name names
- 23:57
- But there's a lot of people who will charge money believing they have a specific You know three -step course or five -step course that you need to figure out some sort of do
- 24:07
- I have a generational curse? Do I have do I still have some sort of object that I didn't throw out?
- 24:12
- Yeah That somehow is oppressing me or I need to almost go through my own system of work Something it depends on me works to get close with the
- 24:20
- Lord. I guess maybe maybe let's talk about that Like how how do we help someone who is coming out of the
- 24:26
- New Age not only get grounded? but also understand spiritual warfare because I tend to ramble a little bit but So there
- 24:35
- I think there's two dangers and I'll set you up for this is that I think CS Lewis quote This is two dangers. We're saying the devil isn't there at all
- 24:42
- But then saying that the devil isn't everything the majority of people. I think you do get saved out of the New Age It's like cage stage.
- 24:49
- We're literally a devil's everywhere and it's like, oh no, no, and like I've a because there's that You know, you're you have a certain when we're in the
- 24:56
- New Age. It's over correction How do we build to help people to correct properly and then then navigate?
- 25:02
- Spiritual warfare in a healthy way. Yeah, so I can I'll speak from my experience and then We'll dig into what
- 25:09
- I learned, you know Just biblically is that when I was when my life was kind of spiraling out of control
- 25:15
- I'm Like searching for answers, right? I'm like, how do I how do I fix this? How do I fix this?
- 25:21
- You know, I'm Convinced that these demons still have some sort of influence in my life, right?
- 25:27
- So I'm I'm like losing my mind trying to find a way to get out of it. And then I stumble upon one one guy in particular who was involved in Centuria and now he's like this, you know, he's on all these different Big Christian news networks and stuff like that telling his story about about centurion and I'm like, oh my god
- 25:51
- Let me check this guy out and listen to his stuff. And since I'm I'm at this point. I'm still a baby Christian I don't really have any spiritual discernment or theological training to hear through, you know, some messy theology
- 26:03
- So I'm just listening to it and I'm like, oh I gotta buy this guy's book, right? And then here
- 26:09
- I am, you know reciting these prayers and claiming the blood of Jesus over everything and renouncing generational curses
- 26:15
- That great -great -great -great -great -great -great -great -great -great grandfather, you know, who was probably a pagan, you know got me you know,
- 26:23
- I'm so I'm like going down this rabbit hole then I end up on a Derek Prince ministries, right and he's like a older dude and he's got a lot of stuff that I really liked
- 26:32
- But you know, he went through this. I would listen to his stuff listening for what is what is the prayer?
- 26:37
- I got to say what is the thing? I got to do to get to get my life back in order because I'm looking at my financial situation and my
- 26:44
- Relationships and all of this and I'm like these are messed up because of demons. These are messed up because of strongholds
- 26:50
- These are things like literally everything's a demon. Yeah from generational curses Meanwhile it my money was messed up because I was driving around in a 650
- 26:58
- BMW Convertible and my business went backwards, you know, so I have a car note that is above what
- 27:05
- I should be paying, right? So, yeah, it's you're not cursed. You just have a listen to Dave Ramsey. Yeah. Yeah, exactly
- 27:10
- You're right. Exactly a Dave. I need a Dave in the backseat of that Beamer, but um, he's like following you around Actually, you know couples credit cards.
- 27:18
- I always picture picture him like yeah, you know like popping his head out Yeah, but anyway, so then
- 27:25
- I'm I'm into all of this and I I'm listening I remember sitting outside of a church because I was going in there to do a
- 27:31
- Business meeting with a pastor at the church who was interested in in, you know learning about our business that we were working at the time and I remember sitting outside of it listening to a
- 27:43
- Derrick Prince thing just like like It was on how to renounce generational curses how to break strongholds and like I'm just saying the prayers and I'm doing all this stuff
- 27:55
- I'm like release me, you know all of the prayers and Then I go into that church. I do do the presentation and I leave
- 28:03
- And I'm just like this ain't it. Mm -hmm, you know this Something's something's not working here.
- 28:10
- You know, these prayers are not working these you know, these renouncing Things are not working.
- 28:18
- I Need to really just Get really into the word and that it was at that time that I actually was brought to the the church that I went to It's called
- 28:26
- Brookfield first actually a Pentecostal Church after I said, I would never go to another Pentecostal Church ever in my life Yeah, I ended up at a
- 28:31
- Pentecostal Church where they they taught the word like literally verse by verse part by part
- 28:37
- We spent 72 shout out to all the solid Pentecostals out there for real pastor Phil Morgan Brookfield first in Connecticut that guy
- 28:46
- Mm -hmm helped me so much. I thought I just got plugged into a community of people who actually were trying to walk the walk
- 28:52
- It was me by myself for so long then when I got there how they handle spiritual warfare because it just just like I said,
- 28:58
- I'm Like I know a lot of times when you people will look at like Extremes or even abuses in the charismatic church
- 29:06
- There'll be people who over correct and go over to into strict cessation ism like hardcore I've got like hyper cessation ism where it's on that's the danger to but like how did they do it?
- 29:15
- Like I said, you said it was like a healthy Pentecostal Church. What was their approach to it? So the number one thing is when
- 29:21
- I went there, I never saw anything weird Like that was that was like my number one thing. I just don't want any weirdness going on But it was just more and I did an interview with my pastor about you know
- 29:33
- We discussed like deliverance ministries and stuff like that. And his response was very, you know, very grounded
- 29:41
- He says he doesn't doubt that there are times that you can encounter something otherworldly, you know, yeah where somebody may be demonically influenced or and you know, you encounter that and you deal with it and and you know
- 29:55
- You you can pray for the person give that person the gospel and all of that He says but when when everything is so hyper focused on Demons instead of the gospel, you know, the the gospel is what delivers us there's power in the gospel and you know
- 30:13
- Hearing because I was going through this phase where I was really digging into deliverance ministries And and it just wasn't sitting right with me what
- 30:20
- I was discovering And so I had to ask my pastor because I'm like if anybody's gonna tell me I'm wrong.
- 30:25
- It's gonna be my Pentecostal Pastor. Yeah, and he's like no John. You're not wrong hyper focusing on on the superstitious
- 30:35
- Side of like Christianity, you know where where everything is a demon it's no different than Anything New Agers do in thinking that you you can't say the wrong words or you can't you know if you speak this or you think negatively, it's all just superstition and to believe that a
- 30:55
- Holy Spirit a Holy Spirit filled Christian can be Possessed by demons not just once but like multiple times over and over need to be delivered multiple times and you have to like renounce all of the generational curses that came before you and then you have to pay for 1999 for the course in order to how to do it.
- 31:14
- I Just don't see that in the Bible, right? You know, and so when you when you act when you actually want to face spiritual warfare, it's a truth battle
- 31:24
- I read this book by Jim Oswell I think his name is Dorian virtue told me told me to pick up the book and yeah, it's a it's a
- 31:33
- It's a truth battle, you know when Jesus was first confronted In his 40 days of fasting with the devil.
- 31:40
- How did he confront the devil with the word? Yeah, it is written, you know, and that's how you confront spiritual warfare.
- 31:48
- It's not You don't go say these these pagan incantation prayers, you know that they tell you oh you got to renounce
- 31:56
- Anyone who who practiced idolatry renounce anyone who'd in your whole entire lineage anyone who practiced witchcraft anyone who practiced this?
- 32:04
- I renounce all of that and until you pray this prayer, you won't be free. Nah, man. It's you confront the devil with the truth
- 32:11
- It's the only thing that works. Yeah What about this? I mean, there's people as well to hold on I just want to I want to backtrack on there because when
- 32:19
- I say you confront the devil with the truth It's not you having a conversation with the devil, right? Because even the
- 32:25
- Archangel Michael, you know in in Jude when when you know The Archangel Michael was confronting the devil about the body of Moses and having a dispute with him
- 32:34
- He said the Lord rebuke you right so for for us There's a part of the book where it says who do you think you are?
- 32:42
- You know if if Archangel Michael is saying now the Lord rebuke you Who are we to think that you know?
- 32:49
- We go face to face with the devil and have conversations with him and rebuke him to his face and all that also
- 32:55
- How special do you think you are that you think that you are facing the devil one -on -one like he came all the way to you buddy, right to have a fistfight with you know, so spiritual warfare is a mess
- 33:08
- Yeah in in many many parts of the Christian community. Well, what do you think about people who will make an overemphasis on?
- 33:16
- That you know, what is someone like fighting different sins like that when you talk about like this yeah, like right
- 33:23
- The other demon of lust the demon of this the demon of that and there's times where I think there are times we're like There might be when the person was unregenerate
- 33:33
- When there was something specific that they were kind of known for whether it's like cussing like a sailor or doing this
- 33:41
- Where like they got saved they literally like get delivered from that, but that's like unique that yeah for them
- 33:49
- But there's other people who are saved who like might still struggle with that sin
- 33:55
- Yeah, and like that's still a battle for them But people sometimes I know like people who have that experience where God can definitely do that Maybe they assume that should that should be this is the standard
- 34:06
- Like what I have this very unique experience where I got delivered from this this mess and I know it could have been demonic
- 34:12
- But it's like yeah now Mike's if you're not if you're if this wasn't your experience Well, something's wrong with you and you need to go seek deliverance.
- 34:20
- You can be like me. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's a it's a It's a hierarchy of yeah
- 34:26
- Who's who's had who has a better connection with God and who's walking a holier life? And hey, I need to teach you these steps so you know even even when it when it comes to like Specific issues that we have, you know, why doesn't
- 34:42
- Paul tell us to cast the demon of lust out? why doesn't he tell us to cast the demon of Alcoholism out or drunk drunkenness that he doesn't tell us to do that He he tells you that your flesh is your problem.
- 34:54
- Your flesh is your biggest problem, you know, so When it comes to you know a demon of lust
- 35:01
- I I do believe that demons can influence you and kind of align things in your life Yeah to where you know, you're gonna stumble on what they know you can stumble over But yeah, you have to stop looking at this quick fix mentality of let me get rid of this demon of lust and maybe you should just delete your
- 35:20
- Instagram and Maybe you should just stop watching certain things. Maybe you should delete snapchat
- 35:27
- So you don't get those random messages, you know, you have to do some work rely on the
- 35:33
- Holy Spirit obviously But you got to do some work. You can't you can't Think that yeah that that is a quick fix.
- 35:40
- And then what happens when you go back to it? Mm -hmm And it's me if you just if you get released from the demon of alcoholism and then you go to the bar the next day
- 35:49
- That's not a demon. That's you. Yeah, you know, right? Yeah, there's there's some time where you have to realize you know
- 35:55
- This is actually like your responsibility Yeah, right when it says like, you know idolatry like that's it's like out of the heart comes these things
- 36:02
- It's that's what Jesus taught. It's not something that's out there like sometimes there could be like temptation stuff for sure but that that's it comes from within and like a lot of times an
- 36:13
- Unhealthy spiritual war can negate the responsibility you have to like not do those things.
- 36:20
- Yeah, I've had you know, I've had More problems with me than anything else. Yeah, you know many of the things that I would think was like Oh, this is demons, you know making me do this demons make because I had real demonic experiences
- 36:34
- So I can easily go back and say oh, yeah, it's a demons fault. Yeah, you know, no, that's my fault
- 36:39
- I'm the one that's opening that app. I'm the one that's having a drink when I shouldn't have a drink, right?
- 36:44
- I'm the one that's staying out too late. I'm the one that's you know, talking to girls in their DM. That's me, right?
- 36:50
- It's all me Yeah and a lot of times people get kind of defensive sometimes we actually approach this stuff because the people want it
- 36:56
- I've had times where I've had people who follow for example, Bob Larson. Oh, yeah, who is
- 37:01
- I would say it's a charlatan who's a fraud Yeah, 100 % and he charged like $3 .99
- 37:06
- for an exorcism and then $150 over the phone or something Right, and it's just you look at what happened the way that's set up like that is not
- 37:14
- That's not what was going on in the book of Acts Like that that's I have a lot I could say about him and but I had people who literally say like yeah
- 37:22
- Christians can have demons in them. Yeah, like you start Explaining like confronting them a scripture.
- 37:28
- They start getting kind of angry and defensive my so here's my biggest issue With the deliverance ministry thing right doesn't videos in that I want to hear
- 37:38
- So the reason why I'm I'm kind of passionate about it is because of you know my experience with the demonic and and learning how to overcome that correctly, right and You know being lied to that I could somehow claim the blood of Jesus and then boom my life is better You know, and that's also a very short -sighted way of looking at life and thinking that you know
- 38:02
- I got to claim the blood of Jesus over this so my personal life could be better, you know But anyway, my biggest issue is not the whole, you know, you want to go cast out demons cool
- 38:12
- All right, buddy go cast out some demons, you know, you want to Be hyper focused on the gifts.
- 38:18
- All right, cool. Go be hyper focused on the gifts My issue is that you aren't just saying hey, this is the experience that I'm having
- 38:26
- I don't know how to biblically place this, you know I think there's there's a little bit in the Bible that could validate what
- 38:32
- I'm seeing But I can't find much but I can't deny these experiences. Mm -hmm
- 38:37
- So I'm just I'm just gonna continue to cast demons out. I'm gonna continue to do this Instead of just coming from that place
- 38:44
- What they do is they then search the scriptures for things that they can twist in order to validate their position
- 38:50
- Mm -hmm. So my issue is not with yeah, go. All right, cool. Go cast out some demons, buddy My issue is stop twisting scripture to fit your theology
- 39:00
- Yeah Stop because when if we don't nip this in the bud right now If we don't stop people from twisting scripture in order to fit what they wanted to fit ten years down the line
- 39:09
- You got a whole bigger mess to deal with so we have to be vigilant in Paying attention to when people are twisting scripture and you know,
- 39:19
- I've spent Since since I've had confrontations with you know, some of them
- 39:24
- I've spent a lot of time looking into Deliverance ministry and man, they do not go too long without jumping on a scripture that they that they twist
- 39:33
- And that to me is the most dangerous part of it. It's not the demons It's not confronting the devil. The most dangerous part is twisting scripture.
- 39:41
- What are some things of the twist? Yeah, so Prime example, they look for believers in the
- 39:47
- Bible who had demons, right? and so in doing so they'll they'll pull these random things and say like the seraphinitian woman, right who came to Christ and he said, you know, the the
- 40:01
- Why would I give the crumbs to little dogs? I'm paraphrasing You know, they'll twist that into saying because she was begging for her daughter to be delivered from demons
- 40:10
- So they'll say that. Oh see the seraphinitian woman. She was a follower of Christ and And you know, she asked for deliverance and it happened, but that's that's not what happened.
- 40:21
- She asked for deliverance for her daughter Not for herself, right and even if she was a follower of Christ at that time
- 40:29
- The Holy Spirit didn't indwell us until after the resurrection So any places in the
- 40:35
- Bible where you could say, oh, yeah, look at look at this person in the synagogue You know one of Jesus's first times in the synagogue.
- 40:42
- He he cast the demon out of the person in the synagogue, right? He wasn't a believer in Jesus. He was in the synagogue
- 40:48
- So, you know just cuz he's in the synagogue listening to Jesus teach doesn't mean that he was a follower of Jesus Don't forget there were
- 40:53
- Pharisees in the synagogues as well. So they'll take that and twist it and say hey Yeah, look that guy was a believer and they'll find these little points in Scripture that you know
- 41:03
- A demon was cast out and they'll say look see that person was a follower of Jesus and they had a demon
- 41:08
- So that means followers of Jesus they play semantics very well will have demons, right?
- 41:14
- But You cannot find one believer in Scripture who is
- 41:20
- Holy Spirit filled after the day of Pentecost you cannot find one Person even prior but but specifically after the day of Pentecost when they received the
- 41:31
- Holy Spirit You don't see them Having demons cast it out of them. There's also no
- 41:37
- You know in in the epistles where Paul is teaching us how to how to live godly lives and and Run churches.
- 41:45
- There's you don't see him giving you five steps to casting out a stubborn demon, you know in there so they find these little things and they twist them and They just twist them a little bit yeah, and when you twist it a little bit
- 41:57
- That's the most dangerous thing because then you know, that's what the Word of Faith does. That's what the Jehovah's Witness do
- 42:02
- That's what the Mormons do. That's what the law of attraction practitioners do the spiritual gurus that they twist ask and ye shall receive and Whenever you're twisting
- 42:12
- Scripture, it's it if what you believed to be true is true
- 42:17
- You wouldn't have to twist Scripture in order to prove it. Yeah Well, so you've done a couple you've got a quite a bit of content you put out on YouTube on a regular basis
- 42:27
- I'm digging as well to it's all by the way It's always fun when you know, you you meet someone first online that you meet him in person
- 42:33
- Yeah, that's what they're like in real life. You know, there's always that differentiation, but I hope I'm nicer in person
- 42:40
- I'll give you I'll give you a yes on that. Thank you. Yeah, so oh I put in joy
- 42:45
- Joy, oh, yes, you gotta be careful because if you type in join clash, yep a whole thing Yeah, so it's gotta be
- 42:51
- John clash. So on your YouTube you actually had talked about how you had gotten to a little bit of a confrontation with a couple of folk nice guys online here are kind of Believers in this you've gotten they gave some pushback.
- 43:08
- Are they what happened about that? Tell us about that video I'm so I'm supposed to So there was a it all started when one of these guys twisted
- 43:17
- Romans I believe is the Romans 5th might be 15 9. I can't remember the exact scripture, but They twisted it and and this is what what made me hip to this stuff was this person said that that in order for you to preach the gospel you need accompanying signs and wonders, you know, and This was kind of my first time seeing this dude on my radar and You know,
- 43:43
- I'm not mentioning names because I don't want to you know It's kind of when you when yeah, you don't need names, but this is just that mean
- 43:51
- People like this are very part. This is just real quickly. This is just another aspect to of social media where beforehand you would have
- 44:02
- I Think here you would have a you know someone who wants to become an influencer influence a large amount of people you need to have a
- 44:09
- Church or a congregation or something like that? I mean where you need to have a place where people a lot of in order to gather
- 44:16
- Like four or five hundred people like that'd be very very hard to do like just ten years ten fifteen years ago but now with a platform like tik -tok or Instagram where you know,
- 44:27
- I've done a video before where it gets like 50 ,000 people viewed from like all over the world like interacting with a piece of 60 -second content
- 44:33
- I like I made and that can be a blessing but now I mean anyone With a phone who has bad theology or is a little off here can can lead people astray
- 44:43
- Yeah, so in a sense we have to sort of be the counter. We give you the punk rock against all the craziness
- 44:49
- It's not something I necessarily wanted to do But I mean, I I just I care about truth so much
- 44:55
- That when when you twist it, especially like the importance of the Bible, you know When when this dude said that you needed signs and wonders to he said anybody who teaches that you don't need signs and wonders
- 45:07
- Accompanying the gospel is wrong and I was just like and he used
- 45:12
- I believe it was Romans 15 9 to to Validate that and he also he used the
- 45:19
- NLT instead of using, you know Translations where it would be much more difficult to make that case using using more word -for -word translations than the
- 45:29
- NLT. Yeah, and When he did that I was just like yeah, I don't
- 45:34
- I don't think so and that was my first kind of response to this kind of Twisting of Scripture and it just exploded from there and You know now
- 45:45
- I'm supposed to debate one of them He offered to debate me and I have I've given my man
- 45:51
- Ruslan my times and When I'm available to fly out there to to debate But uh, you know pray that that happens because we need these healthy conversations, you know
- 46:02
- Yeah, well good. Yeah, it's always it's always good to have be wary of all those sorts of things But um, but yeah, what do you think are some like other examples?
- 46:11
- He's like what are like other scriptures that people will twist when it comes to like a distorted view of like spiritual warfare so I have a whole bunch of them written down, but they'll
- 46:20
- They'll create this whole hedge of thorns Thing like praying a hedge of thorns.
- 46:27
- Yeah around you and we're just like a hedge of protection Yeah, no, but they'll specifically say like like thorns, right?
- 46:33
- And yeah, and it's like it's like they take two different scriptures and combine them Into one in order to say that we are supposed to you know, pray hedges of thorns around people
- 46:45
- They'll take like Job where he had a hedge, you know where you know, Satan said, uh, you know
- 46:50
- You know you don't let me attack him because he got a hedge around him and then they take that scripture and they build a whole theology On it and saying that see we're supposed to pray that uh that you know
- 46:59
- You can pray a hedge of thorns around this or a pray a hedge of protection around you and this and that and nobody can
- 47:06
- Get in right or you know, they'll take what you what you bind And you know in heaven will be bound on earth
- 47:13
- Yeah, what you loose and heaven will be loosened on earth and they say that we can loosen. Yeah, we can bind Satan like Alright, so if we can bind
- 47:21
- Satan Why is he free and roaming around? Like if why wouldn't we just put perpetually bind him?
- 47:29
- Yeah, we just say hey, let's pray right now me and you Jeremiah Let's let's let's pray a hedge of protection over every believer and let's let's bind
- 47:37
- The devil that he can't touch any believer. Let's let's bind that. He can't touch any politicians let's bind him from this like if If that was possible that we can actually bind it up me and you right if we could bind the devil by our by our specific prayers or bind demons and Specific prayers.
- 47:57
- How come how come we don't use that theology on loosing them, you know, like oh Why do we have to keep binding him?
- 48:04
- Did somebody else come along and loose him? Yeah, you know so they twist things like that as well.
- 48:10
- Yeah, you bring up a lot of good points And I think in all this is that we're not I'm not trying to make this about batching everyone Cuz yeah, none of us are none of us are perfect.
- 48:17
- We always we don't even expect to talk about this stuff Yeah, like I said, I mean there's there's times we're like I'm still learning.
- 48:23
- I'm still figuring out I've been in me too. I mean they came for a long time, but I think you know that you need to realize, you know
- 48:29
- In areas, that's what you what you're doing wrong You'd always be reforming always trying to conform, you know, not pent not over correct and where you do over correct
- 48:37
- You correct you want to like align yourself in a correct way And so like I said, you know, we're talking about incorrect visa deliverances
- 48:44
- I think deliver deliverances do happen my pastor actually did a deliverance on a hundred percent when he was working out addiction recovery center and this lady had a whole
- 48:51
- History of a of being abused and having being involved in the occult and it was part of her conversion to Christ where you know
- 48:59
- My pastor's praying over her and like there was a legitimate angry spiritual forces They were angry when he just he just felt led out of the blue like I this is so weird
- 49:07
- And so you that's the thing too. Is that when you know that you're being led in a conversation like that It's like, you know, it's not you and then like this and all the times like I have had where I'm dealing with something that is demonic or That is you're dealing with someone who might be under a different spirit you see the whole time if you're on the street doing evangelism like I You know the inklings you just have inklings from the spirit, you know, you're given what to say in that moment
- 49:33
- Which is the what Jesus says but like that's not something I can teach
- 49:39
- Someone like in a course like that is something that the Spirit does as far as like He's the one who does the deliverance as he takes out a heart of stone
- 49:48
- But it's in the heart of flesh like that's like that's what happens. Yeah And so yeah,
- 49:53
- I think but in this whole process you don't want to like and get over correct and then say well, okay
- 49:59
- Well, there's extremes. There's people who take it way over the top when it comes to spiritual warfare. Well You need it and all but then you say well,
- 50:08
- I don't want to deal with that room at all Yeah, you can't pretend that Rome doesn't know 100 % man Like then the question would be like, how do we actually then do as we wrap up here?
- 50:16
- Like what are some practical ways you think of how to deal with that given that? You experience a lot of this stuff even prior to coming to Christ How do you deal with it now in a biblical way?
- 50:25
- I just I am Settled in this efficient in the sufficiency of Christ.
- 50:31
- Like I am just in a perpetual state of grace, you know, and just Understanding that there is nothing absolutely nothing that I can do to combat the evil forces of the demonic realm
- 50:44
- You know, there's no prayer that I can say Nothing my full reliance is on Christ and that's it, you know
- 50:52
- When when the Archangel Michael, what did he say? What did he say? He said the
- 50:57
- Lord rebuke you yeah, anytime I feel demonic stuff going on or I which
- 51:03
- I really I don't feel anymore because I'm rooted in Christ now, I'm solid and It's it's that reliance on him and and stop looking for some secret formula
- 51:15
- Don't don't look to me. Don't look to Jeremiah Don't look to a person who's gonna give you some secret formula in order to combat the demonic forces of Satan's army
- 51:26
- Look to Christ. Yeah, you know simple as that trust that he will deliver you now
- 51:32
- There are you know, we we do have tendencies towards certain sins, you know So if you know you have a tendency towards a sin instead of blaming that on a demon
- 51:41
- Work on that Confess that sin get around people who are gonna lift you up dig into the word and rely on Christ Rely on Christ to get you out of this, you know to to deliver you we are the gospel delivers
- 51:54
- Yeah, you know, that's what you got to understand the gospel delivers out one of my friends Corey minor he's got a he's got a
- 52:01
- Christian Channel. He was telling me that he was he was doing I Work in prison, right and there was this one guy who was cutting his face because he wanted to He wanted the demons to come out, right?
- 52:15
- And he that's heartbreaking. Yeah, and he was like Corey told me that He's like, you know,
- 52:21
- I I just shared the gospel with him. Like hey, do you want to be free of that? You know it like like when
- 52:27
- Jesus asked the man do you want to be? Well, you know, do you want to be free of that? Well, there's freedom in Christ.
- 52:33
- He gave him the gospel and The dude changed there was no like, you know, if you watch these deliverance, you know things there's no like puking or Tweaking or or you know falling on the floor rolling around.
- 52:46
- No, he just changed Instantly, you know that if he was scratching his face to get the demons out and he's no longer trying to get these demons out
- 52:55
- He was obviously delivered. So that's how we have to look at this is, you know run to Christ Everything just run to Christ.
- 53:04
- He is all that you need. Hmm. No, that's huge, man I appreciate you sharing that well,
- 53:10
- I appreciate you coming on here. This has been part two talking about Santeria We kind of went down talking a little bit about Solid spiritual warfare.
- 53:19
- We got to talk a little bit about some of the things people actually asked us Are we gonna do to have a sit on that? Well, it kind of came out at the very end of it
- 53:26
- So yeah, we did talk about those are things Yeah real quick in one last time people can find you at John clash j -o -n
- 53:33
- Clash, you'll know if you typed in wrong because you'll end up heading towards that you'll end up if you end up if you download
- 53:38
- As are playing clash of clans. It means that you did not look it up properly. So yeah,
- 53:44
- John j -o -n Clash and people can see you and we're gonna hook you up.
- 53:49
- Usually we're wearing a cool hat So we're gonna hook you up with one of our cultish nice at the LG hurts people hats So you can support that but appreciate coming on man.
- 53:56
- And how long are you in town for I leave tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow night? Okay. Yeah.
- 54:02
- Well sweet. I'm really looking. I'm sure I'm sure you've enjoyed the time here Yeah Some of the American food and I'm sure you enjoy being back to Puerto Rico to get back to your wife and all that fun
- 54:10
- Stuff nice and warm. Alright, so we're gonna take a break and then we are gonna do another series It either will be right after this or it'll be just some time down the road on The law of attraction because you know quite a bit about that and to give a little bit of what do you call a piece of juicy like Hint or whatever whatever to kind of wet people's appetites
- 54:32
- What do you want to call it? Is that really like Santeria all that you learned in Santeria? That was a real catalyst to kind of get into the law of attraction.
- 54:40
- That's what you're saying, right? No, it wasn't a catalyst. It was I got involved in the law of attraction during the time that I was like kind of coming out of Santeria and then after learning about the law of attraction and Santeria if you like just peel everything back it all goes back to the same thing
- 54:58
- Nice. Well, we are gonna jump into that and pack all the meat and potatoes of that excellent jump on All right.
- 55:03
- Thank you all for listening in appreciate you all and as always Cultists cannot continue without your support as we are complete crowdfunded.
- 55:11
- So please consider supporting us to keep our podcast Going strong go to the cultist show calm.
- 55:17
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