This Week in Witchcraft - S1:E3

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Welcome to this week in witchcraft The elements have been conquered with intense heat and witchcraft has become more cosmopolitan.

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Can you spot it out in the wild? I'm, dylan hamilton and with me are michael.

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Dear david casson and andrew hudson and I believe uh, super dave has our

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Witchcraft that he's found out in the wild for us this week so for this week

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I watched a News story, this is from los angeles the la district attorney george gascon's policies regarding justice

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We're shown it in stark relief when James tubs was arrested on child molestation charges

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And this is a large bearded man He has a deep voice and he's talking to his father about mocking the da and his policies that he's going to be treated

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As a kid he's going to be in a juvenile facility All he has to do is just basically start calling himself hannah

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And he's going to be able to get off because he is in a different category

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He is now in the trans category and all throughout the news report Initially, they said james and every single newscaster was in referring to this individual as hannah and she uh, he

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Called himself this and you could see him mocking. He's mocking the mocking the district attorney this is not somebody who is you know suffering with the

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Psychological category of gender dysphoria. He's he's not he doesn't actually think he is one way when he is.

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Uh, another he's just Mocking it and the da knows What's going on?

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but his policies Are essentially he wants to end mass incarceration wants to pursue police for misconduct that he he set the tough on crime

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Positions especially for gangs in inflaming and inflating our prisons and they want to move away from this kind of retribution and retaliation and revenge style of justice to restoration rehab and redemption

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So all this individual had to do all james had to do is start calling himself hannah And then he wasn't gonna have to register as a sex offender.

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Now, of course 97 of the da's in los angeles county want george gascon removed

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So they understand they they can see that his policies are not working Not because they are pro or they have some kind of biblical idea of justice

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But with the soaring crime, they are all going to be out of a job So they can see that it is not working.

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So gascon's ideas of justice Seem to be importing new meaning onto this term.

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He's changed the definition of Justice from what we know to be just to his new version of it.

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He is enchanting it with new meaning He's changing it from one to another. So what I put to you guys is is george gascon's

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View of justice definitely anti -biblical, but is he engaging in witchcraft as he's selling this he's saying this justice is going to be

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Restorative it's going to be redemptive. It's going to be rehabilitative

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And that will help solve the problems in our society So is he engaging in injustice or is he engaging in?

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witchcraft right, so gascon obviously is

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Preaching hot gospel and salvation comes through the state. Okay, so restoration redemption.

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Everything comes through the state and What was his name bob? Who became hannah? uh, his name is

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James tubs james tubs, right? So so james tubs hears this hot gospel about salvation through the state and he's in a lot of trouble

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And so he walks down the aisle and asks the state to come into his heart Okay, he just repeats after what the state tells him to say these lines or pray this prayer and guess what?

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You are now going to be saved. You're going to be restored. You're going to be Redeemed your things are going to be made right in you because you repeat after me and say the magic words

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Witchcraft is the praxis of paganism and paganism always puts forth the state as the savior

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So what we have here is something that of course in the name of justice that gascon is going to do what he's going to do but exodus 23 as god deals with moses in the setting up of a state for his people to be organized in says in exodus chapter 23 and verse 2

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Everything around it's great, but i'm just gonna read verse 2. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil

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You should not follow a crowd To do evil, right? So even though there's a whole bunch of people saying something you don't you don't go along with it nor shall you testify in a dispute

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So as to turn aside after many to pervert justice The word pervert means, you know the twist to to bend to To do anything but hold it straight

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Okay, and this is always a temptation it is always a temptation to pervert justice for the sake of the many for the sake of a crowd for the sake of Those that you believe would be pleased with what you are saying but if you have

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Someone who has molested and therefore raped a child if you have somebody who has done wickedness and evil justice is defined not by The saving work of the state

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Because the state was ordained by god as a sword to execute vengeance of god upon evildoers

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Justice would be that justice is defined by god and his holiness usually in our day and age because of uh, what's been going on?

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Whenever you express what justice would be the first expression you get from people is that's not fair but it's exactly

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Fair justice is always fair but not what people want so then what it was the what would be the biblical standard for what should happen to james for the rape of a

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Child according to the law of god, you know, what what case law could we cite?

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What does he owe god? What does he owe the state? What would he owe the families? Is there right?

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What does the bible have to say about true justice if we can agree that what's happening is absolute injustice 100

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Is there what then which should be the model? Well good news for gascon. It would end mass incarceration

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The mass incarceration is also injustice according to the scriptures restoration does need to be made

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But it's supposed to be made according to the law of god rightly applied through christ into the world today

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What would that look like well in this case the bible says that the death penalty is was required in this case and if if if the family desires mercy the state can

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Declare how that's going to happen and provide the way forward but restitution should be made

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But if the family said this was proven, this is the case. Um, this is what happened this man needs to die

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Well, then that's what would be just in the sight of god and god God hasn't changed his character.

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He hasn't changed his will hasn't changed his word He hasn't changed any of that. And so god says this is how states operate

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Uh, we should pay attention He said that mass incarceration Is unjust absolutely so when someone steals then

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They shouldn't be imprisoned According to the biblical standard if someone steals what should they do?

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It depends on what they stole and for how long they had it and what kind of damage it did to the people And there's also it's a case law that says hey, you know, they should they should repay

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Okay, uh proverb says no one despise a man for stealing bread when he gets hungry But if he's caught if he's caught well

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Then he's got to repay that and if he can't guess what you get to go work for that person And make restoration restoration directly where that person doesn't treat him, right?

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Well, the state gets involved and takes care of that. Uh, what if he doesn't do what he's supposed to do? Well, the state gets involved and takes care of that as god's uh agent servant deacon

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To handle those things but god laid it all out mass incarceration is just one more evidence of those who have exchanged the truth for the lie and in worshiping creatures become beasts themselves and And throw humans into cages

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That's not justice according to the scriptures, you know, that's that's man's folly That's uh, please they just they do it in the guise of being the savior, right?

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Like like where we're going to we're going to take them into these Prisons and mass incarceration in order to reform restore dispense

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Justice and mercy and so it's the state overstepping its bounds where those things belong to god

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They are supposed to execute punitive penalties rather than dispense these things like restoration or Some sort of redemption for these men who have committed heinous crimes.

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They can help facilitate it But if someone's you know stolen it really would be restorative

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To have that person work for the people that that they stole from and replace it. It's not going to cost a single tax dollar

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At least not in prison and so that there's just some good examples of Biblical justice so that and we can definitely see the difference between the two

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So what elements of witchcraft had I seen, you know, obviously calling a man a woman who's not

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Calling justice something that is is not so how is that witchcraft?

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How is that the praxis of paganism? well, well what you have here is the demonic appropriation of alternate authority and so we're going to redefine what good and evil are and You know, he redefines the role of the state

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Well, he's an enchanting state with a new definition other than what god said it was he's enchanted the word justice

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Okay, this is what justice is. But again has put a new definition underneath that very

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Honorable and good word, but now he's changed the definition of it this is the most common form that we have but of course there's the the invention of new terms the uh

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The magic and the actual magic of creating new terms When a man dresses up like a woman and pretends to be like a woman

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Even if he's just dressing himself with only the claims that he's making Okay, the bible calls that cross dressing

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Right and completely forbids that okay, but coming with a new term makes it sound better Saying that you know, he's trans or something like that.

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That makes it sound better somehow So that's trying to obscure What that actually is so you have all of that then you have a lot of confusing rhetoric that just kind of muddles everything up And this kind of witchcraft is not is not meant for clarity

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It's not meant for clarity. It's called soothsaying and it just as a bunch of uh, jargon mumble jumbo

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People get accused of word salad Right where it doesn't make any sense what they just said, you know

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They're did you answer the question and then they just kind of give a word salad and what is what is that?

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Well a lot of time that's just soothsaying where he just makes it all as confusing as possible So nobody can figure out what to say about it

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Any other thoughts I was just going to take a moment to to think about maybe even to just audibly lament the state of the state

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Yeah to be talking about restorative justice for someone who harmed a child in such a way and that I That there are those who accept such statements.

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Oh They deny christ Right. They look at jesus of nazareth and they say he's no savior

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Right, they can't leave the child molester or they can't leave the uh, the sodomite who goes and rapes another person

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They can't leave that person to face the law of god and and hear Preaching of the word of god from from the saints from the from the chaplain or from the church who declares

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You know, that is a sin but god Has sent his son jesus christ to die for the likes of you and me

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And many in your case have been redeemed and brought once you deny that jesus christ is savior

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He's no longer savior and sovereign. Well, then the state has to be savior And they can't just do the limited job that god said they had to do now.

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They've got to do god's job, too And they do it really badly And in romans 1 they're the they're provers of evil things and Giving giving hearty approval of those who do and support to those who do evil things

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Talking about inventing new ways of evil Right. All right. Well now that we've had our fill of let's say trying content

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Let's go ahead and suggest some content for our listeners out there that they may be able to listen to during the week Michael we'll start with you.

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Well, I picked up a a new monograph from joe boot for the kingdom monograph monograph as they say and in his weird uk canadian

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Some of the things that he says. Oh my goodness. This makes me laugh Um, but anyway, he he knows he sounds funny and enjoys that so but anyway, i'm i'm still reading through it

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It's very dense as all his writings are but very helpful as it puts into context all the efforts of man to bring about That which only god can through his son jesus christ

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And if we can recognize the effort of the state to displace christ Then we can be forewarned and thus forearmed to to deal with those manifestations.

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So for the kingdom monograph by joe boot David I uh reread a book

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Recently, it's by john currid called against the gods this is a uh

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His thesis is that the old testament has Especially there's large sections of the old testament that are polemical in nature that is they are specifically speaking against the

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Gods of the canaanites or the for example the the way that god chose to do the ten plagues in egypt

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Targeted different aspects of egyptian culture and perhaps even specific gods

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He does not go so far as to say which gods in egypt, although you could make some comparisons

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We're not trying to get that specific but the charge especially in liberal circles is that the l aloha or the uh, the elohim of the old testament is really just the

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Canaanite god l that was just kind of passed along and then israel came in and they incorporated some of that and That's really where you get uh, some of these stories and you get that the noah story is really just a retelling of the epic of gilgamesh and That's the the current, you know thesis and he goes through these

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Amazing stories. I mean if you've never read the epic of gilgamesh do so if you've never read some of these old stories

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I have a book on my shelf of nestorianism that i'm going to go back over as well But as you read the old testament, it is impossible

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Not to See how god is specifically speaking against some of these areas

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And say no, that's not how it happened. This is how we're going to do it This is how it happens.

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For example The epic of gilgamesh and these flood narratives you see throughout the ancient israelite the ancient cultures that surrounded ancient israel

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Give some historical credence to the idea that something happened and they all have these flood narratives

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But there's something different about the one with noah they all have this idea that the gods kind of came in and it was chaotic and And there was sort of a boat involved

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But like in the case of the epic of gilgamesh the gods were so upset that this giant flood had come

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Because they weren't getting their sacrifices. They were not getting The food that they needed so when gilgamesh came out of the boat

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He had a they sacrificed and then these gods and goddesses descended upon it like flies.

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They were dependent And you see those kinds of common ideas in the rest of the canaanites and the rest of these surrounding cultures

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But what was different about the noetic story is when noah gave the sacrifice

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It was a sweet pleasing aroma to the lord he wasn't dependent on it god was completely in control the entire time and that is

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Contrary specifically contrary to all the other stories that currid cites

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So you can take that Multiply that into the exodus accounts and the other various various accounts and that the way god chose to reveal himself

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Oftentimes was in direct contrast to some of the stories surrounding Israel so that they could see that god was very different From the gods of egypt or the gods of canaan or the gods of the assyrians

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And it was written in specifically in a polemic Against those gods.

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So john currid against the gods if you love ancient history as I do It was an interesting take on it one.

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I hadn't really thought of before so I enjoyed that Would you say that he highlights the fact that they may have a few of the facts of the story correct

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But the meaning is completely being repudiated by the meaning in scripture for to all these texts

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Yes He also does a really good job of seeing how cultures that really didn't interact with each other are separated by time and space kind of came to some of those same conclusions because they had the same concepts of These gods who are really just just super super humans

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These guys like the the gods of greece are very much like the gods of egypt They're just really powerful humans, but they're like humans

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As opposed to and the chaos That surrounds all of them The gods are really really powerful, but nothing survives chaos

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The death is the most powerful as opposed to the biblical account The god of the bible is so different from every other ancient culture surrounding it.

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God was in control Start to finish and is not dependent on anything

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In creation is not dependent on any of the humans doing sacrifices and was certainly not surprised

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With chaos of the of the flood or anything else. He is the master of chaos so interesting that you know charts of The gilgamesh story and the new edict story or this story and then the biblical account

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And he shows how some of those things mesh up, but it always comes down to God is god and we are not and god is different from every other story that was was around during that time and his thesis is that The way god chose to reveal himself speaks specifically against that Andrew graham goldsworthy's according to plan currently reading it is a primer primer primer uh on biblical theology

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And a christocentric hermeneutic It's very interesting reading it 10 years 10 years ago.

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I would not have understood what this book was really about But through personal faith journey after reading the scriptures

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More in depth and studying them and coming to a conclusion that I was not Putting christ first in in my life at that time

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It affected also the way I read and so As part of my faith journey, I came to understand things through reading the bible that reinforced the idea that I should be

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Reading the bible with a christocentric hermeneutic. So this book has been a very thorough

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Beginning for me to put my finger on how it all began For myself as where as where I should continue to be going

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With biblical theology All right. Well i'm going to uh recommend the temple by george herbert.

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He was a 17th century, I believe you he was some sort of uh evangelist and pastor in england the temple is a collection of poems that he

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Wrote throughout his time and he was a small -time pastor and a small -time poet Um, even though he was

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I think at least moderately celebrated during his time um, he has a lot of interesting work that Could be considered groundbreaking for structure form and meter to what he did because he was very playful with the english language

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But I recommend it solely just for sitting down and considering things about um, he's got things about the church he's got things about the incarnation and most of his poetry is

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About some sort of biblical doctrine or his thoughts and meditations on the word and on jesus

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So just sitting down with a couple of lines of his is usually enough for a day because there's a lot loaded in there that you can read and then

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Consider and then go back and read it during the day as you should with poetry to see if you got something

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Different on the second go -around, but I recommend this work the temple and I haven't got to look at any of his other works but so far

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I would assume that They are on par and I consider him one of the great english poets, so that's my recommendation for the day

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And that wraps it up for today We're always very thankful for our listeners tuning in every week and for supporting us by rating reviewing and sharing the show