Ron Dunn Podcast - Cult Of The Occult

Episode Date: May 22, 2019

From the sermon series on Exodus

For a starting place, let's read again some verses we read last Sunday night, Exodus chapter 20, verses 3 through 5, verses 3 through 5 of Exodus chapter 20. And this is the occasion of God giving the second commandment, or rather the first commandment to the people and the second commandment. The first and second commandment are closely identified and intertwined. To break one, you break the second. If you break the second, you break the first. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything

that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. And then, of course, with this you have to keep in mind also the passage in 1 Corinthians that reveals that idol worship is nothing more than demon worship and that behind every idol there is a demon. And so when God says in this fourth verse, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them. He is talking initially about idols and reveals later that the dynamic behind every idol is demon or an evil spirit. And so the worship of idols is in reality a worship of demons. Now, if I had a blackboard up here tonight, I would draw three lines. The first line and the third line i would speak to you of first there are three categories of living creatures three categories of living creatures the first line i would have as representing those living creatures that are purely spiritual.

Purely spiritual. And of course angels would fall into that category. The third line, the bottom line, I would label as representing that category of creatures who are purely physical, purely animal. And for simplicity's sake, I would include bugs and insects and fishes and mammoths and elephants, put everything into that. But there is a third category that comes in between the first and the third category. There is one in between. There is a purely spiritual and there is a purely physical. And in between there is man which is both physical and spiritual. And the miracle of human life is that man can communicate,

can live in both worlds. He is a part of the physical world. He must live in the physical world. It is an impossibility of nature for a man not to live in the physical world. He can commune with the physical because he is physical. But not only is man physical, he is also spiritual

and has the unique capacity to communicate him to live without physical natural experiences. Now, the devil, as someone has said, took one step backwards in order to take two steps forward. The devil came along and said, if I am going to accomplish my purpose in the earth, I must first of all get man to believe that there is only one category of life, and that is physical, material, that which you can see, that which you can apprehend with the five senses. And so the age of rationalism was born, in which men said the supernatural does not exist. The spiritual is a fairy tale, a hangover from primitive days.

Man is physical. Man is material. Man is physical. Man is material. Man is rational. And only that which he can taste and touch and smell and hear, only that which comes within the touch of his five senses is real. The age of rationalism dropped on us. The age of secularism, materialism. And so man began to live with the belief there was nothing spiritual. God was a fairy tale, a figment of man's imagination, a myth. Hell did not exist. Heaven was the grave. Man began to live this way. And what's more, it dripped over, it's slimy, dripped over into the churches, into the seminaries. And men begin to say this Bible is a book of propositions, of theological propositions. And begin to delete the deity of Christ and the uniqueness of divine revelation from their teaching and their preaching. And so the devil just done real good.

Just doing real good. Everything is moving right according to schedule. Men now are not living in the spiritual. Men now have accustomed themselves to live without the supernatural. They have settled down to live only on that lower level of human existence, only the material and the animal. But I want you to know, man must have spiritual, supernatural experiences. He must. If he does not, he will go out of his mind. God made him to have communion with that which is invisible.

And man will have communion with that which is invisible. And man will have communion with that which is invisible. And so you make the cycle as you always do. You boomerang as you always do. And we're seeing the evidence, the result today. People are fed up with rationalism. It's not meeting their needs. People are fed up with materialism. They're fed up with secularism. They're fed up with scientific formulas that say and scientific promises that say, you just let us create everything you need. And they realize that there is something within them that reaches out. And man has started to recoil from rationalism and materialism and he's reaching out for something invisible.

You see, reason has taken man just as far as he can go. We have gotten ourselves in such a flat mess that science and education and politics and philosophy cannot solve it, and where reason leaves off man's grasp for the supernatural and the invisible to find the answer. Well, he turns from the material, he turns from the rational to the church, and he finds that the church is just as materialistic and just as secularistic and just as rational and just as dead and boring as anything else. But he must have supernatural

spiritual experiences. And there's the devil waiting for him and saying, look this way. And so you have the rise of the drug culture, which is really a religious experience, whether you know it or not. You'll never understand the drug culture unless you understand it is a spiritual phenomenon. It is the devil filling up the vacuum that the institutional church created. Because when young people recoiled against this materialistic age, they looked for some kind of spiritual experience, and alas, Ichabod was written over the church. It was just like the age in which they lived. It had the stamp of its own character and so it would not look there.

And so you have the rise of occultism. And the devil rushed in. People turned on to drugs. Satan worship was revived. A revival spread among people. They turned to prophetesses, seers, crystal balls, tarot cards, palm reading, horoscopes, and astrologers. And you have today what Time Magazine called the occult revival.

Only one thing wrong with this copy they have down here on the cover, Satan Returns. I felt like writing him a letter and say, fellow, Satan never left. He never left. You see, Satan was willing for people to disbelieve him. You see, I said he took one step backwards and he might take two steps forward. And he knew that when he dropped the bomb of rationalism on human life, that it would also deny his existence.

That's all right. That's all right. He doesn't mind giving up an inch if he can take a mile later on and the only thing wrong with that cover is satan has not returned he never left but there is an occult revival going on there are 68 colleges and universities in our country that are teaching courses on witchcraft and sorcery and Satan worship. New York University had a class on witchcraft, magic, and sorcery, and so many students enrolled in that they had to move out of that classroom into one of the largest lecture halls in that university. Seventy-one percent of all the newspapers in the United States run daily horoscopes.

And one newspaper unconsciously left out, by mistake, a horoscope one day. And you should have read the letters that he received. Hundreds and thousands of people plagued that editor never to do that again. And every day people are living by occult means. There are 10,000 full-time professional astrologers in the United States. They do that full-time.

There are 175,000 part-time astrologers. I mean, the devil is having a fine time. Now, as far as I'm concerned, this revival of occultism is a sign of the last days. If you'll study human history, you'll discover that a healthy society, a society that is healthy in its mind, in its soul, in its spirit, will never welcome what our society is welcoming. It is evidence of absolute moral and spiritual decay. And I am convinced that more people are being brought under satanic subjection through the means of the occult than any other way. And alas, so many of them are Christians.

Even ministers of the gospel have been brought under demonic oppression through the means of the occult. And so tonight I want us to examine and see what the Bible has to say about the cult of the occult. And I'm calling it an occult because millions and millions of people are following it. It has become a religion in and of itself. So I want to ask and answer three or four questions tonight about the cult of the occult. First of all, what is the occult? What do we mean by the occult? The word occult is derived from a Latin word occultus, which means that which is hidden, that which is concealed, that which is dark and mysterious. It is used to describe those phenomena which either transcend or seem to transcend the five senses.

The occult is the effort to obtain knowledge and experiences outside the will of God by means outside the will of God. You know, man has always had trouble with wanting to know more than God wanted him to know. Back in the Garden of Eden, God said of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. God did not want man to have experiential knowledge of good and evil. Man has always been cursed by this craving to want to obtain knowledge that is outside the will of God. And that is basically what the occult is. It is the effort to obtain knowledge and supernatural experiences outside the will of God using means that are outside the will of God. Now what does the Bible have to say about the occult? I'm going to read several passages of scripture tonight that deal with

this matter of the occult and you follow along and jot them down and you can read them in a fuller way later on. The Bible, I was amazed when I began studying this at how much the Bible has to say about fortune tellers and astrology and horoscopes and all of these things that have to do with the occult. Listen first of all in Exodus chapter 22 verses 18 through 20. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death. He that shall sacrifice to any god. Now, let's tie that back in with our verse we read a moment ago in Exodus chapter 20. Seeking supernatural help or seeking supernatural counsel and advice from any other source than from God is worshiping other gods, worshiping demons.

Every person who sits down and plays with a Ouija board trying to gain some kind of counsel or advice, every person who goes to a fortune teller, every person who has his palm read, every person who lives by the astrological charts, every person who follows his horoscope is worshiping other gods, is worshiping demons because he is seeking supernatural help, supernatural advice,

supernatural counsel from some other source other than God. And so he says, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, and he that sacrificeth unto any God, save unto the Lord, only he shall be utterly destroyed. Now over in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy chapter 18, verses 9 through 14. When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination. Now divination is fortune-telling of any form, or an observer of times, that's an astrologer and horoscope, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, that's mediums and seances, or a wizard, or a necromancer, that necromancy is the effort to

communicate with the dead. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Verse 14, For these nations which thou shalt possess hearkened unto observers of times and unto diviners, but as for thee the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do. All right, let's look now in Leviticus chapter 19, verses 26 and 31. Leviticus chapter 19, verse 26 and 31. Ye shall not eat anything with the blood,

neither shall you use enchantment nor observe times. Verse 31, regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards. A wizard is the same thing as a warlock, that's a male witch. Neither seek after wizards to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. Now in chapter 20 and verse 6. Now a familiar spirit is a contact spirit, a medium. You go to a medium and have a seance, he has a familiar spirit. He has a spirit that regularly contacts him. And when you say, I want to know certain facts about the past, or I want to know where I lost a certain item,

or I want to know who committed a certain crime, or I want to know what's going to happen in the future, this medium will contact his spirit. There is a particular spirit that is his contact spirit. And that's what the word of God means when it speaks of a familiar spirit. And after wizards to go a-whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul and will cut him off from among his people. Now one more verse. Leviticus chapter 20 and verse 27. A man also or a woman that hath a familiar spirit or that is a wizard shall surely be put to death.

They shall stone them with stones, their blood shall be upon them. Now in Galatians chapter 5, verse 20 and 21, you have the works of the flesh. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these? Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft. Witchcraft. Now in Revelation chapter 21 and verse 8. But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers. Sorcery is connected with magic. We'll discuss that in a moment.

And sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. One more verse in the New Testament. Revelation 22, verse 15. He's talking now about the holy city, the new Jerusalem, the eternal heaven.

For without, outside this, are dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murderers and idolaters. Now look at the company in which God classifies them. God never puts them in respectable company. Sorcerers and whoremongers and murderers and idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a life. Now what I want to do now is just to give you the four broad areas of occultism. And I can only touch on these just briefly and explain what some of these things are because I want to get to the effects of involvement with the occult and how we get out from under that occult bondage. There are, as I've studied this, I have discovered there are four main categories of the occult.

Number one is spiritism. S-P-I-R-I-T-I-S-M. Spiritism. Some people call it spiritualism. Spiritism has to do with communicating with spirits. In this category would come table lifting, glass moving, speaking in a trance, automatic writing, soul excursion,

or astral projection, levitation. Edgar Cayce would fall into this category. The book about his life is called A Sleeping Prophet. It is a misnomer because he was not asleep, he was in a trance, he's not a prophet, he was a medium. But Edgar Cayce would fall into this category of spiritism, seances, mediums with the contact spirit. You know, a good book for you to read on this subject is I Talk With Spirits by Victor Ernest. I'm not going

to be able to, in any measure tonight, to give you all the facts you need to know about this. Now, most of the mediums you go to in these seances and all of this business, most of it is fake. But not all of it. Not all of it. Not all of it. A great deal of it is real. Levitation, glass moving, visions, necromancy again falls under this category. By the way, necromancy is seeking counsel, advice from a departed spirit, from someone who's dead.

And there's a great deal of this going on. And more and more of it is going on and teenagers just you know playing around get involved in a seance to contact the familiar spirits to contact with someone beyond the dead and the question constantly arises do the dead really appear and the answer of course is no the answer is no when a medium contacts an evil spirit his his familiar spirit, and that spirit of the dead person appears, it is not really him. It is a demon imitating that person because in Luke chapter 16, when Dives, the rich man, died, he looked up into heaven, he saw Abraham, he saw Lazarus in his bosom, and he said, I want you to send Lazarus to me.

And Abraham said, there is a great gulf fixed and they that are there cannot get out of it. And they that are here cannot get out of it. Once you're in one place or another, you're there. You're there. And you say, well, I went to a seance and the spirit of so-and-so appeared to me. And I know it was this person, I know it was this person. Do not believe it. It was a devil.

It was a demon. It was an evil spirit. There's only one exception to that in the word of God and that's 1 Samuel 28. When Saul went to the witch of Endor, man Samuel was his counselor, his prophet. And Samuel was dead and he needed some advice. And so he went to this witch of Endor, and he said,

I want you to conjure up for me Samuel. I want you to bring Samuel back. I've got a few things I want to ask you. And the witch did it. And she got scared out of her wits. You read it. You know why? Because it was really Samuel. Now, she had conjured up a lot of people,

but they were always demons, evil spirits. This was really Samuel, and it scared her. You know why? God allowed Samuel to come back to give a last message to King Saul. And because Saul trafficked with demons and went to a witch, that was one of the reasons God abandoned him as king over Israel.

Spiritism. Listen, when you have contact with any of these things, levitation, table lifting, seances, following after Edgar Cayce and all of these others that I don't have time to name. You are having contact with demons. And the Word of God expressly forbids it. Read Leviticus chapter 19 and Leviticus chapter 20 and Deuteronomy chapter 18. The Bible expressly forbids and condemns such communication with spirits.

Now, a second category is magic, the category of magic and sorcery. Now, magic and sorcery operates through things like charms and music and curses and spells and drugs and does supernatural miracles. Now let me stop here for just a moment and say that there are two categories of miracles. There are divine miracles and there are diabolical miracles. Now the reason I say this is that some of you are not going to believe that some of these fellows can do the things they do. You just don't believe that you can put a glass in a room and lock that door and make that glass come through that room

without changing its solid matter. Now that's against all science. You just don't believe that. You just don't believe that somebody has such supernatural power that they can levitate a person and cause that person or that chair to rise in the air. Now, I'll admit that a great many of those are parlor tricks, but I want you to know the Word of God says it's real.

You remember in Exodus chapter 7 and Exodus chapter 8 when Moses went before Pharaoh and he had the rod of God and he threw down the rod and it became a snake. And Pharaoh's magician said, we can do that.

And they did it. Moses used his rod again and made frogs appear. Pharaoh's magician said, we can do that. And they did it. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 it says that when the Antichrist comes, he will come with lying wonders and miracles.

And it's the same Greek word that is used to describe the miracles of Jesus in the Gospels. God has given the devil supernatural leeway, supernatural leverage, and supernatural power. So when we talk about these things tonight, evil spirits appearing and magic, black magic and white magic, don't you deny it, it's true. It's true. One of these days you'll be a believer. All right, magic. Let me just say this thing.

Magic and sorcery. As I was studying this, I noticed so many of the authors kept going back to the old African witch doctors. African witch doctors practiced magic and sorcery. Now what they would do, they would cast a spell on somebody, dominate somebody, cast a spell using certain things. And here's what kept cropping up all the time,

all the time. They would use herbs, wild music, and dances to cast their spell. I was studying that, and all of a sudden, all of a sudden, I remembered that when I was a teenager, the world at that time, probably the world's most popular and famous drummer,

went to Africa, spent some time with the African witch doctors to learn the drum rhythms, came back to this country, had a mental and emotional breakdown, and was institutionalized. I saw him after he got out. As he played the drums, he was like a man possessed. One of my dearest friends in the pastorate pastors not

too far from here was out in lubbock texas a few months ago and after revival service one night they got to dealing with a boy in the pastor's office come to find out this boy was deeply demon possessed mary and warren was there and nobody really knew what to do and they got scared to death. It became obvious as they were praying to this boy that he was demon possessed. And so they dealt with him and there was one fellow there that knew how to deal with a demon oppressed, demon invaded person. And they cast the demon out of this boy, but he was still not free. He was still in bondage. Do you know what it was that was holding him in bondage? It was a record, The Age of Aquarius.

And that boy had gone through I don't know how many records of that, discs of that record, of that song. That boy was not delivered, he was not liberated, until he went home and broke up every record he had on the age of Aquarius. Now when all of this hard rock and acid rock, this loud and electric music came out a few years ago, I said to myself that is the effort a bunch of lousy musicians make a noise. And I passed it off as some fellows that got together and didn't know anything about music and they just started making some noise. But you know what I've discovered?

They're not lousy musicians. They are great musicians. And you know what a great musician can do? He knows exactly what note to hit, what chord to strike. He knows exactly how to write that music to create in you the mood he wants to create. And, and most of this music is the product of drug culture. The ones that write so much of the music, the ones that play it, the ones that promote it are demon oppressed people because they are products of the drug culture. Culture. Sorcery and magic is a casting a spell upon someone with other means such as drugs and music and dances and so forth. And great many people, I'm convinced, are tonight

oppressed by demonic influences because they feed on this drug culture music. You say, how can that be? Well, it's very simple. Here is a man who has demon-oppressed himself because he's involved in the drugs. He's involved in the occult, and so many of these songs are about the occult, and they exalt the devil and exalt the occult. For instance, Sympathy for the devil and exalt the occult. For instance, sympathy for the devil and such things as that. And when they write this music, they are under the influence and the

direction of Satan himself when they play the music and Satan uses that to cast a spell over you. And there's some of you that'll never get liberation. You will never get liberation until you break with that music. Now you're saying you mean everybody that listens to a record like that's demon oppressed? No, I'm just saying you're laying your head in Delilah's lap. Magic and sorcery. Now there are two kinds of magic. There's black magic and there's white magic. And I want to mention this because this is important. Black magic originally was called black magic because it was the art of producing supernatural effects using the powers of the devil, the powers of

darkness. It has come to mean that magic which is used for vengeance or persecution. Black magic today mainly means magic which is used for evil purposes. But there is a white magic. There is a white magic, and white magic is black magic piously masquerading. White magic, listen to me now, white magic heals. White magic can heal. You say, I don't believe the devil would give somebody the power to relieve the suffering and the affliction of someone else. Listen, the devil is only too glad

to pull off a minor demon if he can enslave you with a major demon. And the devil is only too happy to remove from you an illness, a sickness that was satanically inflicted in order that he might bring you into the oppression of himself through that mediumistic healing. And some of these healers that go all over the land, their healing is not charismatic, it is mediumistic. One of the well-known healers was healed as a child by an Indian witch doctor. And now he's a great healer. But he does not use supernatural, divine methods in healing.

Many of his methods are occult methods. There is such a thing as white magic. And so every time a miracle is performed, someone is healed or some miracle like this occurs, don't immediately jump up and say, man, that's of God. It may not be. It may not be. All right. we're going to have to move on make better time than we're making if we're going to get through with all of this charms by the

way I need to say this which magic and sorcery uses charms and amulets and necklaces and little statues that you put on your car to protect you when you're driving. That's a form of magic. That's a form of sorcery. All right, now let's move on to the third one, witchcraft. We're just going to say a word about this. Witchcraft operates primarily through spells and curses and some forms of hypnosis to bring people under domination, to dominate people. I feel like I ought to say this.

It is never God's will for one person to dominate another. Now, you know I'm talking about something different than submission to authority, don't you? And obedience. I'm talking about domination. Domination. Domination. Where you can't think for yourself, where your personality is squeezed out of the picture, where you

are actually under the absolute domination. You can't think for yourself, you don't act for yourself, you're absolutely under the control of another person. I've seen a lot of sons after they've grown up and become men under the domination of their mother. Now that is a form of witchcraft. I've seen girlfriends dominated by boyfriends. He wants to know where she is all the time. She has to call him three times a day. She has to give an accounting.

She can't think for herself. She can't live for herself. She is absolutely under the domination of a boy. Now I want you to know that is neither healthy nor spiritual. That is unhealthy and demonic. A form of witchcraft is when one person is dominated by another. Now let's move on to the last main area, and this is what I wanted us to spend most of our time with, and that is the area of divination. The area of divination. This is fortune telling. This is getting revelation through supernatural means other than God. This is the most prevalent and the most deceptive. For instance,

a person wants to find out some facts about the past. He wants to discover where he lost something. He wants to discover who committed a certain crime crime or he wants a prediction about the future. That's fortune telling. That's divination. Crystal balls, astrology, horoscopes, card laying, tarot cards, Ouija boards, ESP, clairvoyance, mind transference. All of this falls under the category of divination. And we've already read a number of scriptures where God forbids divination now you know a lot of people are involved in astrology and some of

you've had your horoscopes done and many of you read those horoscopes you mean to say that there's harm in reading that so horoscope listen I'll tell you what'll happen it'll happen every time you listen. You read that horoscope. I'm Scorpio. October the 24th. Well, I'm going to read what it says today. A bunch of foolishness. Nothing to it.

It says a certain thing will happen, a certain thing this. You know what the devil does? Gotcha. Circumstances are bare. That's true. It happens. Why, that happened just like it said it would happen. Tomorrow I'll read it again.

It happened just like it said it would happen. And you're sucked in. Let me say this. Astrology and horoscope, which are Siamese twins, are demonic and no Christian should ever be involved in it. Astrology predicts human character and fate by observation of the fixed stars, sun, moon, and planets. Now, in primitive time, people believed that the sun and the moon and the planets were gods. And they worshipped them as gods.

The gods controlled the fate and so the exact position of the planets, of the elements when a person was born would determine the character and the fate of that person because they were gods. Astrology has its source in idolatry, which is demon worship. It originated in star worship, and this is why it has the touch of demon on it. Deuteronomy chapter 17, the first five verses deals with this. Isaiah chapter 47, verse 13 also deals with it. Now, a great many people who consider it to be a fraud and just play around

with it and just joke with it, bring themselves under demonic oppression, even though they don't believe in it, just by having contact with it. We don't have time to mention Paul's encounter with the fortune teller in Acts chapter 16, but just let me say this much about it. That fortune teller was right. Nobody else in that city, at that area, knew who they were, but she came up, she said, these are the servants of the Most High God. Now, oh, witness the subtlety of the devil to make it easier to later on deceive the people. Why, that girl who is a fortune teller, she must be a godly girl because she's going around promoting, she is the advanced advertising man

for the Paul and Silas evangelistic team. And she's going around saying, these are the men of God and you ought to listen to them. Why, sure the devil would be glad for that because then the whole city would come to believe this fortune teller was of God and he would draw many people

into subjection and oppression and possession through that means. And so Paul spoke to that girl, rather he spoke to the spirit within that girl and said in the name of Jesus I command you to come out of her. Now the world's foremost fortune teller

and diviner today is Jean Dixon and a great many people believe that she is of God and that her gift is of God now there are two reasons why I reject Jean Dixon as having a gift from God. Number one, she received her gift not through a confrontation with God, but through a confrontation with an old witch, a gypsy. When she was a little girl of about eight years old, I believe it was, she met this lovable old gypsy

who read Gene Dixon's palm and who predicted that Gene Dixon had supernatural powers. She gave to Jean Dixon a crystal ball and an old deck of cards that Jean Dixon still has. The old witch, the gypsy witch, blessed those cards and Jean Dixon says, I carry those cards with me because they've got good vibrations. Her gift is not of God because, first of all, she did not receive it through a confrontation with God. Secondly, because she does not exercise it according to the scriptures. She uses occult means. Crystal ball, card laying, trances. She uses occult means. And oh my, so many people, so many people have been sucked into following this prophetess, which she is not really. She

has mediumistic ability. She is not a prophet of God. She does not have the New Testament gift of prophecy. Another reason I know she doesn't is because she's not always accurate. And I look at the Word of God, the Bible says a prophet always is true. You say, well, she's right a lot of the time. Listen, God doesn't grade on the curve. God demands 100% accuracy 1962 she had a vision February she came away and she said this vision

in the east February on a certain day in 1962 a baby was born and this baby is going to bring peace. This is the greatest event. And then later when she came out and wrote her book, My Life and My Prophecies, she revised her prophecy without apologizing, and she said that that was the birth of the Antichrist rather than the birth of a new Jesus.

Well, now, just by the fact that she had to alter the interpretation of her prophecy, just the fact that she was wrong proves to me that she does not have the gift of prophecy from God. Friends, I don't have time to belabor all of this, but listen, some of you are involved in fortune-telling, tarot cards, crystal ball gazing, horoscopes, astrological charts. Let me ask the next question and answer it. What are the effects of occult involvement? Is it real? I mean, is there really anything to all of this? I tell you there must be, or else why did God make such severe penalties for people who practiced it? If all this is is a bunch of hocus-pocus, if all of it is is parlor tricks, then it is beyond me why God should say,

you shall not suffer a witch to live. This is real. It is real. Every form of occultism is a contact with the powers of darkness. And whether you take it seriously or as a joke, or whether you take it consciously or unconsciously, but you have contact with the occult, the devil therefore accepts this as his right to take you captive and will resist strongly. You're getting away from him. Every sin connected with the occult cuts a person off from God and turns him in the devil's direction.

And I promise you, if you go on in that, you will become harassed by the devil himself. There are terrible effects. Some people say, well, I did it just as a joke. Friend, that's like jumping off the Empire State Building as a joke. And I know that a lot of people

are involved in it just as a joke and just as a... They don't think there's anything to it, but listen. When you trespass into Satan's territory, he

takes that as your invitation. And you become subject to him. Now let me mention, I have here five effects. Well, let me say this. That there are effects on the spirit, there are effects on say this, that there are effects on the spirit, there are effects on the soul, and there are effects on the body.

Now, you just stay with me for a minute. You've listened so good tonight, and I'm going to be through in just a few moments. First of all, the effects on the spiritual life of a person. Now, here's something strange. Occultism, involvement in occultism, never bothers people who follow Buddha or Islam or Mormonism or Christian science or Jehovah Witness. You know the only people that it has any adverse effects on their spiritual life are Christians, true Christians.

It affects the spiritual life of true believers. It has not been found to affect the spiritual life of those who are involved in false religions and false cults. But it does affect the believer's spiritual life. Number one, it will cause you to doubt your salvation, cause you to doubt the Word of God, and cause you to doubt the deity of Jesus Christ.

Now you let a fellow stay involved in the occult very long, go to fortune tellers and read a crystal ball and lay out cards, and before long he'll be doubting the Word of God, he'll be doubting the deity of Christ, and he'll be off over in some false cult or false religion. Number two, indifference to spiritual things.

If a fellow gets under the spell of sorcery or magic, gets involved in the occult, he'll lose his desire to pray. He'll lose his desire to read the Bible. He'll become lukewarm. Number three, he will often find it difficult to repeat aloud or write the name Jesus. When we were in Philadelphia, we were eating one night with some people, and there was a young lady there that I suspected might be under the influence of the occult because she was involved in oriental religions such as yoga and such as this. And by the way, that's

demonic. That's all a part of this occultism. I had one of these little cards have you seen one of these little cards we have printed that says what do you see and it's got the name of Jesus it's kind of a puzzle you have to look at it for a long time and your eyes focus and then you see what it says so I gave this card to this person I just wanted to find out and they looked at it for a long time, and finally she said, oh, I see it. And I said, what is it? And she wouldn't say it. I said, well, what does it say? And she wouldn't say it.

I said, just tell me what it says. What does it say there? Tell so-and-so down here. And very quietly and very softly, under her breath, she said, Jesus. Didn't want to say Jesus. Didn't want to say the name of Jesus. When a person becomes oppressed by the occult, he finds it hard to speak the name Jesus in prayer or to write the name Jesus. Number four, he resists spiritual help and counseling.

He resists spiritual help and counseling. It makes him restless and it gets unfriendly if you try to help him spiritually. He resists it. He doesn't want to be talked to. He doesn't want to be counseled. It gets antagonistic. Number five, many times he will begin to revile the things of God, whether openly or just to himself. Sometimes, sitting in church, he often finds it difficult not to laugh at what the preachers say.

To laugh about the blood, to mock it, to be bored. All right, now those are some of the effects spiritually on a person. Secondly, occult oppression affects a man's soul and the soul is made up of the mind, the will, and the emotion. Let me just go through this real quickly. The primary symptom in the soul, the mind, will, or emotion of a cult oppression is personality changes, emotional ups and downs, uneven temperaments, fits of temper, fury, quarrelsomeness, plagued by a continual feeling of restlessness with a lack of peace and depressive moods. It's as though a dark shadow just hangs over them. They may strike out in one moment with anger.

The next moment they may be absolutely changed, be absolutely different. There's anger and resentment. They're driven to do things spitefully, intentionally to hurt, striking out. Feelings of persecution.

Everybody's against me. Thoughts of suicide. Compulsion to do things he knows isn't right or isn't pleasing. And the more I've read, and those that have counseled these for years and years, say that they are more prone to mental illness than any other person. And those are the effects on the emotion, the mind, the will. And last, the effects on the body, the physical. Primarily, they overcome with excessiveness in any realm. Excessive sexual cravings, excessive smoking, excessive drinking, excessive using of drugs.

Just excessiveness. Driven. Compulsion. You see, you can go back and compare the symptoms of demon possession and invasion and influence and you'll find that these just dovetail together. And I've talked with some who even suffer suffered pains in different parts of the body. There's no medical reason. There's no organic cause. They just suffer pain, and usually it comes at night, so they never can get any sleep. I've known, I've talked with people who, when they'll start to read the Word of God, they'll be overcome with a horrible headache. If they start

to pray, if they come to church, all of a sudden they get sick every time they try to come to church. The devil oppressing them. The devil oppressing them. Now let me hasten to say that just because you have one or two or more of these symptoms does not mean that you're demonically oppressed. But these are some of the symptoms. Now let me close with this. How does a person get out from under this demonic oppression? How can I be delivered? If I tonight were involved in the occult, and I wanted to get rid of it,

I would do five things. Number one, I would confess my involvement as a sin, however slight I may think it is. First of all, confess that involvement as a sin. If you've been following a horoscope, that's a sin against God. The Word of God says it's so. If you've been reading after astrological charts, if you've been seeking guidance from a Ouija board, if you have been laying cards,

if you've had any contact with any of this, that's a sin. You need to confess it as a sin. Number two, you need to deliberately renounce it. You need to renounce it and dissociate yourself from it. Absolutely disassociate yourself from it. Third, you need to break every contact with it. In Acts chapter 19, we'll not take the time to read those verses,

but in Acts chapter 19, verses 18 and 19, in the city of Ephesus, when those people were saved, they brought all of their books and all of their artifacts and all of their charms of sorcery and magic and they burned them and the price of those books were 50,000 pieces of silver.

But they had to break contact. And if you've got things of the occult, tarot cards, crystal ball, horoscopes, astrological charts, anything like this in your house, you need to get rid of it and destroy it. Break every contact with it because everything that's left around is an invitation to the devil. Well, it just makes him feel at home is what it does, see. I don't want the devil feeling at home in my house. Brother, I want that house to be so filled with the Spirit and so purged of everything like that

that a demon within a hundred miles will feel uncomfortable. And when the devil walks by and comes by to check on you like he did with Job, and he sees these things of the occult there in these ESP books and Edgar Cayce's books and Gene Dixon's books and all of these things, man he just feels right at home. I mean that's his territory, that's his ground, that's his creation. He takes that as an invitation to come in. Break every contact. Number four, claim by faith your deliverance. That's always important. Once you confess it, once you renounce it by an act of your will, once you break every contact with it, then you say, thank the Lord, I'm delivered from it. But then the last one is

so important. You must continue to stand against the devil. Matthew chapter 12, we saw a few weeks ago, verses 43 through 45, that evil spirit, when he had gone out of a man, he kept coming back. He came back to try to regain possession. When you get home, read chapter 8 of Acts. Simon, the sorcerer, he made a profession of faith, but he couldn't shake off those tendencies to want to do magic. And in dealing with more and more people who are involved in the occult, I find that it is harder to get deliverance from this than any other thing. A person who has been involved with the occult is going to find that when you break off with it and you claim by faith deliverance from it, you're going to have to stand constantly and wage constant spiritual warfare

because the devil, for some reason, I don't understand, for some reason, he does everything he can to regain his victim. And this discourages some of you. It has discouraged some of you because you've been involved in the occult and Satan worship and such as this, and you've been saved, you've gotten right with God, and you've been oppressed, and you've been with God and you've been oppressed and you've been attacked and the devil just stays after you.

Well listen, man the devil will leave you alone as long as you're his submissive servant. But when you try to break away, he's going to do everything he can to discourage you and to bring you back. You must continue to stand in

spiritual warfare against the devil in this area of your life. Now if I were involved with the occult, I would break with it and I'd do it now. John chapter 13 verse 2, the Bible says that Satan put it in the heart of Judas to betray Jesus. Satan just whispered to Judas, why don't you betray him? That's in the second verse. In the 27th verse, it says Satan entered into Judas. The devil never stays right where he is. And when you listen to him, you take his suggestion, you play with it, you get involved with it, that's his invitation just to

move on in, just to move on in. Now let's bow our heads for a moment. The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by Sherwood Baptist Church. If you would like to listen to additional Ron Dunn messages, visit sherwoodbaptist.net slash bookstore and search Ron Dunn. For more Ron Dunn materials, including sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from a study Bible, please visit rondunn.com.