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People trade with evil spirits for knowledge, power or protection and end up in bondage.Learn how to recognize occult bondage and how to set people free,
We’re going to carry on today on a topic – Freedom from the Occult. The pastor’s asked me to share on three specific topics over three days, so we’re able to develop it a bit more. Yesterday we looked at Generational Issues, Iniquity, and Curses – recognising their impact, and how to deal with them.
Today we want to talk about the occult. We want you to understand what it is, and what it’s doing to young people today. I want you to understand what divination and sorcery are, and to understand how you set people free from these things. I’m not claiming to be an expert at it, but I have some understanding because we’ve dealt with a lot of people in this area. So, we’re going to share today about this whole area, and give you an understanding of it.
The first thing to realise is that God has created us to be bonded. God’s design has created us to be bonded - to be attached. We are a spirit being, with a soul living in the body; and we have the capacity, by God, to attach. We have yearnings inside our heart that only really God can meet. So God’s design is that we become attached to Him; and that out of that attachment to Him, His nature, His life, flows.
For example, in 1 Corinthians 6:17, the Bible says: “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” So, God has designed us to become attached to Him, bonded spirit to spirit; and from that bonding, a life would flow into the world. In other words, we’re designed to bring His kingdom into the world. So God’s design includes: 1) Relationship – intimate connection and bonding to Him; and 2) to Exercise Authority as His Representative - to advance His kingdom.
His original mandate to Adam and Eve, one part of the assignment He gave them was, He gave them a garden and He said: “I want you to guard and keep the garden”. So He gave them a Territory to rule over. He gave them Authority in that territory. So Adam was given Spiritual Authority to represent God.
He was given two commands related to the Garden of Eden. 1) Cultivate it; develop it, so it produces fruit. So God has called us to cultivate our territory - make it fruit-bearing for the kingdom. 2) Also to guard the territory - to protect it from an invader with destructive intent. So right at the very beginning, God designed us for relationship, for bonding with Him; and gave man authority to represent Him, and advance His kingdom in the earth. He gave a mandate to cultivate the garden, and protect it from invaders. We know what happened – Adam broke his relationship with God, and then lost his authority.
When he broke his relationship with God, he became vulnerable to living differently. We won’t track all of this, but we’ll just say this: that over the course of the first century or so of human history, demonic spirits began to invade the Earth and corrupt the culture. I won’t go into how this has happened, and how it affected the nations of the Earth. We’ll just focus on the occult, and what that’s about.
You need to understand that Jesus came to restore intimacy with God, and to give us back our authority; and give us a mandate again – be fruitful and go advance in the Earth. So becoming a Christian is actually about the connection to Christ and following Him; and it’s about being able to bring kingdom influence back into the Earth again. To act as God’s ambassador, and have authority over demonic spirits, and over the creation. We see that when we look at Jesus’ ministry, that He trained His disciples for authority over the demonic. Let me give you a couple of scriptures on that, and then we’ll start teaching about the occult.
First of all, we see in Mark 3:14-15 – “Then He appointed the twelve, that they might be with Him, and that He might send them out to: preach; and to have power to heal sicknesses; and to cast out demons.” So the great commission includes preaching the gospel, healing the sick, and authority over the evil spirits.
Have a look in Luke 10:17 - Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” Verse 19, notice this: “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” So, that word ‘Authority’, is the word ‘Exusia’ in Greek. It means: a legal delegated right to speak and act on behalf of God. Notice that Jesus is saying: I give you authority. He has the authority; we just act as His representative. The authority is not yours; it’s yours as a delegated authority. So we have an authority to represent Christ. Our authority comes out of connection with Christ.
Notice what He gives authority: He says: authority to trample, or literally crush under your feet, serpents and scorpions, and all the power of the enemy. So He uses two pictures to describe demonic spirits: the serpent; and the scorpion. They both inhabit the wilderness. The serpent bites, it releases toxins into the body to poison it. The scorpion has a sting that causes tremendous torment. It’s not clear, but it’s possible that He’s referring to two specific types of demonic entity. The serpent - demonic spirits; and the scorpions – angels, or angelic beings.
He says He gives you authority over all the power – that’s the word ‘Dunamis’. So, ‘Dunamis’ is the same word that’s used when it says “you shall receive power”. That word means ‘supernatural ability’. I think it’s important to realise this: that you have legal right over the supernatural ability and demonstrations of the devil; and nothing shall by any means hurt you. That’s a very good scripture to memorise - if you ever get into a deliverance situation which is a little bit intimidating, always remember – nothing shall in any way harm me.
We’re going to look now at the Occult. We’re going to refer to Deuteronomy 18. The Bible is not exactly clear where demonic spirits come from. So, it’s a little bit open to ideas or opinions about this. Some people think that they may be angels who fell. I’m not so sure about that, there’s nothing quite clear on it. The Bible’s not clear where they originate. They’re called ‘evil spirits’. So they’re definitely spirit beings, and they’re definitely evil in their intention.
As an aside, the Bible does tell us, it refers that in Genesis 6, that a certain group of angels abandoned the positioning God gave them, took on a human form, had sexual relationships with women, and that there were offspring off that called Nephilim. The Nephilim were extremely wild and fierce beings. It would seem that they corrupted the Earth. You may wish to search on the internet and find more information about these. Eventually, the destruction was so great that God destroyed the Earth with the flood. If these beings were part angel and part human, it’s quite possible these are the evil spirits that are actually in the Earth now, continuing to attack humans. So, I won’t go down that, it’s a very interesting area to explore. It helps you understand the whole number of things that remain otherwise hidden. So, we won’t worry about that, we’ll just say: there are evil spirits called demons.
What happens is that people in every culture are aware of the spirit world. It appears when you read books apart from the Bible, for example the book of Enoch, that there were a group of angels called watcher-angels who were assigned to instruct men. But the whole group of them abandoned their positions, corrupted the role God gave them, had sexual relationships with women, and began to teach people about the whole occult spirit dimension.
These angels God has held in judgment until the last days. It seems that it’s from the influence of these angels, that all of this teaching around the occult came into the nations, and spread through the Earth. One particular nation that had been filled with all this Occult activity was the land of Canaan. The nations that were in the land of Canaan were deeply involved in the occult; and with it, a whole range of perverse practices.
So in Deuteronomy 18:9, it says: “When you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations.” So God is warning the people that the nation they’re about to go into, the nation of Canaan, was full of activities God calls ‘an abomination’. He’s referring to occult activities. The word occult means this: secret, covered, hidden.
So occult activity is: seeking knowledge or information from the spirit world; or seeking power from the spirit world; or protection from the spirit world. The two main streams of the occult are what’s called divination – seeking information from the spirit world; and sorcery – seeking power from the spirit world. Connected to this, of course, is idolatry. They are all integrated together, although each one is quite distinct.
The problem that people of God had was: the whole of the nations they came into were perverted by this demonic activity. In those days, there was no deliverance. So they needed to destroy the nations, because the people were demonically filled. So the word occult means to be covered or hidden; because usually, the power is secret. The source of the information or power is hidden.
People involved in the occult may be aware that they’re connecting with evil spirits. But they are deceived – they think they have power over the spirit, but the spirit has power over them. When people engage in the occult, they think the spirits are helping them; but in fact, now they’re gaining power over them. Eventually, they extract a price - all magic exacts a price - there is a price to be paid!
In the kingdom of God, the price is always upfront: pay first, benefits later. In the kingdom of darkness, it’s the other way round: benefit now, pay later - and you pay more than you think! That’s how the system works.
We see here that God lists a whole number of practices. These are associated either with idolatry or with the occult. One of the problems with the occult is that it is progressive, and it is addictive; and once people are in it, they find it extremely difficult to get out of it. It’s progressive; and it’s addictive.
Let’s have a look at some of the things that are in here. When the people of God went into the nations, they found them involved in idolatry and Spiritism. Let’s have a look at what it says (Deuteronomy 18:10 - 14): “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, nor one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations, the LORD your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God. For these nations, which you will dispossess, listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not appointed such for you.”
This list here is not comprehensive; it’s just a list of some of the things they were doing. Every culture has their own variations of this, and every one of them has a spirit power behind it. As we look at these, we see a number of things. The first one they talk about was offering their children to idols. There was a particular god called Molech. He was a big brass god with arms reaching out. They would ignite fire on it, and heat it up until it was very hot. Then there would be drums playing and people shouting, and they would throw their children into Molech, where they’d be burned up. You’d understand this is a horrendous thing in God’s eyes. It indicates the nature of the demonic spirit that operates behind it. The desire is to steal the children. The activity today most like that is abortion - the same spirit operates behind it.
Notice there’ll not be anyone who practises witchcraft, soothsayer, interprets omens, or a sorcerer. So people were involved in a number or range of activities. For example, many of them were into astrology – looking at star signs. Let me give you just a brief explanation of that. There’s a book that explains the background to this: The Witness of the Stars by E. W. Bullinger. Let me just explain the whole issue of astrology.
The Bible says: the heavens declare his glory. So in Psalm 19 it talks about the heavens, and it talks about the word of God. Before the word of God was written, God revealed or spoke to... maybe it was Enoch, and He showed him a pattern for recording God’s history by looking at the stars. So they divided the stars into 12 different constellations or groups. And they ascribed to various star groups, a particular picture so it’s easier to remember. The stars were all given names, and each section of this described a part of God’s redemptive plan.
Starting with the woman; and the serpent; and then the fall of man, going right through to the coming of Jesus Christ overcoming the serpent, and establishing a rule. So each of the constellations, and even the names of the stars in it, were given as a message of encouragement; and a way of understanding the bigger picture - from creation to the return of Christ. The question is, where do you start? You notice the Sphinx has a picture of the woman’s head, and lion’s body. The story starts with the woman, starts with Virgo, and goes right through to Leo. It describes in the stars, God’s story of history, and the coming of the Son of man to redeem His death on the cross - everything is in that story.
So the stars have no power over people. It’s just God gave a way for people to pass on to their generations, the hope of the coming redeemer. Of course, over time, it became corrupted; and people began to believe that stars influenced the course of our lives - it’s a corruption of the truth. The truth is: God laid out some patterns, so people could know His plan for redemption. The message of the stars is the most amazing message! Many of the names of the stars have been forgotten. But those that have remained, all in them have a message - the heavens declare.
So, the whole area of astrology opens the door for people into the occult realm. It becomes addictive, because people are looking to some spiritual source in order to direct their lives. They are attaching to the wrong thing. God directs our lives. It’s God who has a plan for our lives, not the stars. I encourage you to read up on that and become equipped, because it will quite stun you how the message of the gospel is in the stars. At Psalm 19, it starts off ‘the heavens’, now we have the Bible, ‘the Word’. So the Word now gives us the plan of salvation.
You notice here that it talks about the whole realm of all of these areas. Notice divination or fortune telling, and magic - various kinds of magic. Overall, you can summarise the occult activity into two groups. The first one is divination.
Let’s have a look in Acts 16:16-18. We read here an example of a woman involved in divination. “Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” - and he came out that very hour.”
So here is a woman who has a spirit of divination. Today you would call her a psychic – a person who tells things about your life, and foretells your future. Psychics are extremely popular today, but they operate in way counterfeit to the word of knowledge. The second thing you realise, is that this woman extracted money, in order for doing the fortune-telling; meaning that people paid to get their fortune told. When people paid to get their fortune told, they were entering into an agreement to trade with a demon - they were prostituting themselves.
The Bible tells us in Leviticus 20:2-6, God warns his people not to prostitute themselves with these demonic spirits. Let me read it for you, Leviticus 20:5-6, He said: “I will set My face against that man and against his family; and I will cut him off from his people, and all who prostitute themselves with him to commit harlotry with Molech. ‘And the person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute themselves with them, I will set My face against that person and cut him off from his people.”
Notice what God says in this verse: that anyone who’s involved with a medium or familiar spirits is prostituting themselves with them. What does that mean? They are paying money; and they are becoming bonded or attached. He uses the imagery of a prostitute, just as Paul did in 1 Corinthian 6. What it means is that you are selling yourself. You think you’re buying information; but actually you’re selling yourself! You’re being sold into bondage to the demonic spirit. So you need to understand then, that all involvement with the occult realm is a form of prostitution; and the person becomes joined to the demonic spirit. It has a right to access their lives.
A medium is someone who is a channel for a spirit. They usually go into a trance, and then spirit speaks through them, and gives information. In Leviticus 20:27, the Bible is very clear that a person who is involved with these demonic powers, there’s a death penalty for them.
Let’s go back to Acts 16 and now there’s a woman who has a spirit of divination. The region was a place known for divination and fortune-telling. It was a region where people came to get their fortune told – the whole area was filled with this. It was in a place in Greece, where what was called an oracle, was situated at Delphi. An oracle is a psychic. People would go and consult her to get information, and they would pay money. So the whole area was filled with psychic activity – divination.
It said this woman, a slave girl, was possessed with a spirit of divination. Again, the word possessed is a very bad translation. If you look up the original meaning, it means “to wear like a garment”. She was wearing the spirit like a garment. In other words, instead of being filled or clothed with the Holy Spirit, she’s clothed with the demonic spirit. The word there – spirit of divination - the word divination means literally ‘python’. That was the name of the area where the people worked – Putho I think it was called. So there was a spirit of a python wrapped around her, whispering in her ear. That spirit is called a familiar spirit. So a person operating as a medium or in fortune-telling or divination has a familiar spirit - a spirit that communicates with the person, speaks into their ear.
So what do these spirits know? Do they know your future? Again, the Bible’s not clear, but my conclusion is that they do not know your future - your future is hidden in God’s hands. I do believe they see what God is bringing to you - because they operate in the spirit world, they can see things. For example, when Daniel in Daniel 10 prayed, the angel was sent to him, but demonic spirits resisted it.
So demonic spirits are aware of you; they observe you and watch you. I believe it’s like a demonic internet, where everything is all connected. A familiar spirit can communicate information about you, because spirits have been watching you, and watching your family. It’s hard for us to get a hold of that, but we are under observation all the time. The spirits observe your behaviour and notice how predictable you are; and a demonic spirit can pass on information to the psychic, which may be quite correct, and counterfeit of the word of knowledge.
Many of these psychics operate in quite a strong and accurate word of knowledge, but the source of the information is a demonic spirit. I believe they give you information so you start to believe in them; and then when they begin to ascribe a future to you, if you agree with it, they are now empowered to bring or manipulate your life for that to happen. So involvement with the demonic realm will open the doorway for spirits to enter you. You literally give a legal right for the demon to control your life.
Notice there that the girl had a spirit of divination. Notice in verse 17, she cried out saying: these men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaimed to us the way of salvation. Was this correct? Yes it was. Did most people realise that? No they didn’t.
So she’s calling this out, and the effect of it was that Paul felt quite grieved, or irritated, or there was a struggle in his ministry because of her. So this spirit was actually creating difficulties for him. It said: she did this for many days, until finally he confronted the spirit. Once he confronted the spirit, it triggered off a riot in the area, and he was thrown in jail!
So divination means: consulting evil spirits for hidden knowledge. There are a whole range of practices of divination. It seems that Chinese people are addicted to it - just want to know about the future; and rather than walk by faith with God and trust him, they try to find out information from evil spirits. Now I know there are heaps of different activities, so I’ll just give a few of them: Consulting the fortune-telling or a psychic; Consulting an Ouija board, where they have letters around and they put a glass in the centre and they ask questions - that’s consulting a familiar spirit. Going to a medium – that’s a person who goes into a trance, and the spirit begins to speak through them. Astrology; Tarot cards; Numerology; Horoscopes; some people go into pendulum-swinging. Every culture has their own forms of these things - the water divination.
The key question to ask is: what is the source of the power. If a spiritual power is operating, there’s a spiritual source. What is the source of the power? Another type of divination is séances – calling up spirits. I’m sure that in your culture, you’ve got all manner of different kinds of ways this is done; but in the end, the key question is this – what is the source of the information?
If the source is evil, the influence will be evil also, and God forbids us to be involved in these things. So sometimes people reach out into this realm of divination - just curious, but then that opens up a whole realm. Unfortunately, many of the movies recently, have been filled with all kinds of things of divination. The Harry Potter movies, for example, are full of divination – all kinds of different forms of it. I think you’ll find, when you look, that many of these are drawn from some things which actually exist; and they can be very seductive, because you have the thought of getting secret information- find out about your future – will I be blessed, will I prosper? People want to know those things; but if we consult with the demon, he has a legal right to access our lives.
The Bible says: when you’re involved in divination, you prostitute yourself with an evil spirit, and you defile yourself. So any person involved in fortune-telling has become defiled; and they would need to renounce the words spoken over them, and the evil spirits behind them. You can’t walk with God, and hold on to what the demons have been saying.
So core foundations to being set free from divination would be: Repentance – turning away from it; Confession of sin – because it’s a sin, an abomination to God. It would also involved renouncing attachment to the spirit, and any words they had been given from these demonic spirits. You can’t serve two masters. There’s no ground for holding on. We’re either going to put our life in the Lord’s hands, and respond to His leadership, and His promise of guiding us; or we consult these others. If we consult the demonic realm, we’re slowly drawn into darkness. People get quite addicted, and they can’t make decisions, or begin a day, without consulting their horoscope, or reaching out to these diviners.
The last thing you notice is that, when the demon came out, the girl had no power to do this again - the source of the information was an evil spirit. I remember someone coming up to me after church one day, and they said: can you pray for my friend? I said: “Why’s that?” She said “Well, he’s in a bit of a mess, and he’s going to see a fortune-teller”. I said, “Yes, bring him to me”. I said, “I understand you’re going to see a fortune-teller”. He said: “Yes”. I said: “Well, God knows your future. You should learn to look to Him.” I said, “Let me pray for you”, and I asked God to give me a clear, sharp, accurate prophetic word, and I delivered this to him. And he left, saying thank you. I knew he was going to go to the fortune-teller, so I prayed a simple prayer: “Lord I know he’s going to the fortune-teller - turn her counsel to confusion.” So he comes back a week later, came up, and gave his heart to Christ. He said, “Oh you know, I went to that fortune-teller”. I said: “Yeah, how did it go?” He said: “That was a waste of money”. I said: “How much did you pay?” He said: “I paid 50 dollars! What she told me was a lot of nonsense - very confusing.” And he came to Christ.
So, you must learn to lean into the flow of revelation yourself. We cannot abandon the supernatural realm, and leave it for the psychics. We need to press in, and develop the flow of revelation in our own life - words of knowledge and prophetic flow. These are gifts God has given the church. The psychics are substitutes. The real thing, is the gift of the Holy Spirit. It’s a reproach to the church that some of these psychics have become so good, and so influential; but the church struggles to just embrace simple things of the spirit world.
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The next area we want to look into is the area of Sorcery. Sorcery is a major aspect of the whole occult dimension. Let’s have a look in the Old Testament – Exodus 7:11. Sorcery is the pursuit of power - power obtained from evil spirits. Sorcery is the pursuit of power from evil spirits - power over people or circumstances. So it’s a pursuit of power; and sorcery involves engaging evil spirits, and drawing supernatural power into the Earth. We’re going to look at an example in the Old Testament, then in the New Testament.
Exodus 7:10: “So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh; and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.”
Now that is pretty spectacular! Imagine if I brought a stick in here, threw it on the ground, and it turned into a snake - you’d all be screaming and yelling and jumping for that door. That is really scary! But look at what these sorcerers did - Exodus 7:11 – “But Pharaoh also called the wise men and the Sorcerers, the magicians of Egypt, and they also did the same with their rods.” It says: they did in the same manner with their enchantments, or their secret arts. Notice that term for the occult: Secret Arts.
Exodus 7:12 – “For every man threw down his rod and they became serpents.” So, you notice now, Aaron has thrown down Moses’ rod, and now there’s a serpent. The Pharaoh isn’t fazed, he says: “Hey”, brings in his own sorcerers, and they threw down their rods, which turned into serpents. Now that is really scary stuff. Now we’ve got God’s serpent, and the other serpents. I think at this stage, we’d all be running out the door, but Moses’ serpent ate up the other serpents. Then he picked it up, and it became a stick again.
Now this is a display of supernatural power. Notice that God’s power in this area was copied - the Sorcerers were also able to do this. They did it because of the connection they had to the occult realm. So when we’re talking about sorcerers, we’re talking about real power, demonic power. People connected to evil spirits, who have a range of powers. When you go to many cultures, you will experience and see those things. Especially if you go to primitive areas, because you’ll see in a moment, sorcerers want power; not only over people, but also control over areas.
So there are three times when the magicians of Egypt copied the miracles of God. Verse 22: The magicians of Egypt did the same with their enchantments or secret arts; they caused the water to become blood. Verse 7 of chapter 8, the magicians did so with their secret arts, and brought up frogs on the lands of Egypt.
I want you to get the picture here, what they did. God’s battle was with the gods of Egypt. The real conflict was between who the real God is; and who are the false gods. All of these plagues were to confront the gods the Egyptians worshipped. These sorcerers were able to copy the first three miracles. Notice what they were able to do – change a stick into a snake - that’s quite scary. They were able to change water into blood - that’s scary. They were able to call frogs up onto the land. So they had power over objects; and over animals - they could transform them.
So when you begin to look at what goes on in the occult realm in many parts of the world, you find in cultures, people are terrified of the sorcerers, because of the power that they have; which is not their power, it is demonic power. So in some cultures, they can make themselves invisible. They can change their shape – turn into an animal.
Now you start to look at some of these movies that are coming out – this is all putting into a Hollywood-form, what actually is just sorcery. So many of the t