How Idolatry and Occult Objects Open Doors to Demonic Spirits | Steven Bancarz | Episode 100

[Music] so there are different conditions under which demons are granted access to oppress us um they don't have free reign in this world they don't have free reign in our lives otherwise we'd all be dead and everyone who's and everyone who's an unbeliever would have been killed before they had a chance to repent and believe so if he had free reign we wouldn't be able to have this kind of conversation right now but if i go and sacrifice a chicken in my backyard to molech will satan have some more uh leeway in my life than right now yeah absolutely why because sin is one of the conditions under which god will relax his leash of restraint over the powers of darkness in our direction because we've invited them into our into our life into um you know our home if we're talking about objects in the home by virtue of the fact that we're participating in sin transgressing the commandments of god and the commandments of god are meant to keep us under the protective covering of the father so you see in scripture instances where you know it will say things like don't let the sun go down on your anger don't give the devil a foothold or an opportunity so you see unforgiveness gives satan an opportunity a place a region a district in the greek the words tophouse there where he didn't have that before because sin is present right you see resist the devil or submit to god resist the devil he will flee from you which means if you aren't submitting to god and you aren't resisting the devil he won't flee from you right you see the breastplate of righteousness right if you're not walking in righteousness your breastplate your spiritual armor is disabled right so righteousness is how you protect yourself against the attacks of the enemy you know it's not magical spells or incantations or special formulas righteousness is a major weapon of our warfare and so when it comes to legal ground i'm not saying that sin is the only condition under which god would permit a demon to attack someone perhaps perhaps god would say you know what this person i want to elevate this person i want to test their faith so i'm going to allow a demon to you know give them a nightmare or attack them or something because i want them to draw closer to me yeah like an example would be false like paul's born in the flesh yeah keep him from god to yourself because it's an incredible revelation right so god's not causing the satanic activity but he's permitting it to occur for his purposes but he's not the effectual consummate satan at a very clear example of this um well first of all you do see in scripture there's really four categories of god's exercising of his sovereignty over the powers of darkness one would be god does not permit satan and demons to do certain things right so when you see the demons for example they're crying out in the streets i know who you are the holy one of god and he did not permit them to speak right or when he finds satan for a thousand years he's restricting he's not allowing satan to do something but then you see instances like in job for example where he's allowed to do some things but not anything he wants right destroy all his all he has but stretching out your hand against him right so god allows satanic activity but restricts it that's the second court category and the third one would be he just allows it all together he allows demons to you know do what they want to do for example in luke chapter 8 when the legion gets cast out of the man and they he says don't send us into the abyss where the fallen angels are chained and awaiting their final judgment according to jude ii peter and the book of enoch you know permit us to go into the pigs we can maintain and satan we can maintain existence in satan's air kingdom and not get cast down to the abyss which isn't hell awaiting our final judgment in the lake of fire and it says jesus gave them permission yep and then when he gave them a cliff though that god let him run off a cliff right and that's where we get the first instance of deviled ham that's but that's interesting because what the bible teaches us is that um everything is ruled over by god god is totally sovereign over everything doesn't mean he's causing everything but everything that comes into being that comes to pass supernaturally or naturally must first pass through the siphon of god's permissive will god has to allow or permit something so the question then becomes under what conditions will will god allow satan or demons to attack or oppress the life or the living environment of a christian and one of the crystal clear examples given in scripture is the sin of idolatry sin in general which we've covered verses about sin in general but the sin of idolatry is the most demon-infested sin in all of scripture it's spoken more than any other sin in scripture and there's a very interesting passage here and i'll turn back over you guys kind of ranting but first corinthians chapter 10 verses 20 to 22 um paul says this he says i imply what pagans offering to idols they offer unto demons you can't sit at the table of the lord in the table of demons you can't drink of the cup of the lord and the cup of demons are we going to provoke the lord to jealousy so what paul is doing there is he's saying you are participating with demons by partaking and pagan temple ceremony right that's causing you to participate with demons now corinth what they were doing at that time was in pagan temples they would go and they would have an altar set up for the god whoever would have been athena or zeus who knows there would have been worshipping prometheus whatever and then you would have food set around the altar as an offering to the god and then you would have christians coming around and sitting out sitting down and fellowship and eating food off of the table off of the altar that was meant to go to act as worship unto these pagan deities in the old testament the old testament sacrifice system you would have the priest eat from the offering off of the altar unto yahweh and the eating off of the temple altar was meant to be an act of participation it was part of the the worship and the reverence and the sacrifice that was given to yahweh so paul's saying you guys aren't realizing this you're not going in with conscious intent and you're not you're not motivated you know you don't wake up one day and say i'm gonna go participate with demons today i'm going to start worshipping demon to participate with demon spike eating off of the table of pagan deities but he was saying this has gone farther than you realize and even though your motive and your intention isn't there that's not a necessary condition for demonic interference this idolatry is you can be thinking something else your motive can be somewhere else you might have a clear conscience you might not have evil intent and the idolatry itself might not be or look very evil but you're participating with demons and then he says are we going to provoke the lord to jealousy look at places like leviticus 17 7 in the old testament and there's another verse in deuteronomy and in the psalms where it tells us that when the nation of israel went apostate and started sacrificing unto foreign gods unto other you know elohim that they had not known it says that they were sacrificing unto demons you know leviticus 17 7 says specifically they were sacrificing their children unto go demons and so you have this relationship old and new testament where behind the idol and behind the practice of idolatry there are demonic powers right and by tacitly complying with the sin of idolatry you're inviting participation with those spiritual powers that's what paul's telling the church in corinth right your motive's not there you're not consciously worshiping them but you're tacitly complying and tacitly involved in idolatry right and so the question is and if you look at second temple literature as well like first enoch and baruch and stuff and even the early church justin martyr and to julian and all these guys they understood that idolatry was demon-centric it was always revolving around demons and as this relates to occult objects we would have to understand things like i don't know a mask that we got from our trip to mexico or peru that we think looks really cool or some statue or trinket of some little funny-looking man that we got when we were in the caribbean that what these objects really meant what they really represent even hinduism buddha buddha heads in our garden what they really act as are interfaces between the natural world and the spiritual world right the these are meant to be the contact point between satan's air kingdom ephesians 2 2 and the natural realm how does he gain access to poke through the supernatural realm into our natural realm and influence the natural realm with his with his power with his energies with his presence it's through the medium of sin and these are these objects these statues these tools of sorcery that the average american household is decked out in and might be yeah people have buddha for decoration just because i think jade buddha looks cool you know yep right and so they were meant to be um a medium and they acted as sort of like a medium between the the pagan and the deity itself and if you look at certain cultures as well like ancient babylon like ancient egypt like ancient india and native american spirituality they didn't just believe that these objects represented deities in the spirit world who we would understand to be demons these are demons that they represent they they understood the deity itself to come and live it inside and inhabit the object so they believed that the god would live in the object and the god would travel where the object would travel and you know some of these cultures they would believe that the deity what they would do if they would fashion the deity make it out of stone make it out of wood whatever they would wash it with holy water they would sing an incantation to the deity to try and get him to come and live inside the object and then they would normally put different substances in the statue's mouth to try and feed the statue to feed the god so that the statue would be enlivened these were called enlivening rituals and ancient babylon was called the mizp ritual and then they would believe okay now tammuz is in the in the idol now and wherever the statue goes thomas is going and you see this leak through in the biblical text in different places where um i can't remember i think it's in second samuel where when the object is destroyed the idolater says you have destroyed my god right and there's this identification happening between the object itself and the deity in the spirit world we would understand to be demons now in and of itself it's just wood it's just stone all of this stuff but can there be a demonic demonic power attached to the object by virtue of the fact that we're offering it blood by virtue of the fact that it represents a demon by virtue of the fact that it refers to a power in the spirit world right and then the question is this if i'm bringing these things into my home these things that the bible calls images of jealousy in ezekiel 8 verse 3 because they provoke the lord to jealousy you know is god under any obligation to protect me against reaping the spiritual consequences of decking my house out with tools of sorcery and demon gods images of demon gods right does not the bible say he's not a respecter of persons and whoever shows to the flesh will reap from the flesh destruction right that's not galatians 5 list idolatry as a work of the flesh right the images themselves the objects themselves at least two dozen times in scripture are banned not just the worshipping of them that's different that's the first commandment so what would you say to that person as you've heard this many times well i have the buddha but that means nothing to me it's just decoration can you kind of unpack how just because you don't believe in it because right we have we talked about early off camera how you have to have faith but a demon doesn't need you to believe in it especially if there's an object dedicated to demonic right you they prayed for that that spirit to be on it what jay would say god but really it's a demonic spirit there's only one god so tell ex unpack that where someone says oh i just have like for us have you heard of kachina dolls the indian kachina dolls a lot of people have that on their walls and they just say oh i just you know i just like it's really pretty it's kind of indian art for arizona but that has a that's a god that's a that's a that's a false deity so what do you say to someone like that he just says okay stephen i hear you but i'm not a pagan i'm not a new ager i just like artwork and i'm just really hip you know well i would say what what they're essentially saying translated would be i hear what you're saying but i don't want to obey god yeah it's true right so having these images in your house it goes against the second commandment right god says you shall not make any graven image or a god of cast iron for i am a jealous god and deuteronomy chapter 7 i would refer them to deuteronomy chapter 7 where god puts a ban on occult objects and pagan statues when he says when you go in to dispossess these people um i believe it was the jebusites i don't know if the canaanites were one of those the jebusites the amorites was another group he's like you're gonna go in them you're gonna destroy everything everything everything is devoted to destruction the word used in hebrew is harem h-e-r-e-m and it meant complete and total annihilation of everything so they would basically what was supposed to happen in deuteronomy chapter 7 was the nations were devoted to destruction and the objects that they possessed idols pagan statues these were also devoted to destruction in the king james bible in the new king james the word for devoted to destruction which is haram and hebrew is actually accursed and he says this you need to destroy these things because they are accursed things and do not bring them into your midst lest you become an accursed thing like it so what he's saying is that these things are banned devoted to destruction and if you bring them into your midst when i tell you not to since since my condemnation and judgment are on those objects when you bring them into your midst that condemnation general is going to pass on to you and you see in joshua chapter 7 king aachen disobeyed this and he brought some of these statues into his midst and i forget what which might have been joshua he woke him up in the middle of the sleep of his sleep the lord did and says there's objects over there you're not going to win the battle if you go to war king ochen disobeyed this you need to go wake him up and tell him you have objects in your mid that you stole from these pagan nations and he ended up getting stoned to death and i believe it was his whole family yeah very graphic scene people need to go read joshua chapter seven now later on in the bible it was supposed to be capital punishment having these devoted objects in your house these false gods false idols tools of sorcery in the torah in the pentateuch death was the proper penalty and it wasn't just death prior to death god would cut you off from the people you would basically be rendered dead to him before you were dead you were cut off from the covenant promises and you should if you want to read the the penalty for idolatry in scripture i forget the direct passages there's some of the most severe graphic descriptions of penal justice we have in all the bible are against the objects what happens when you bring the objects into your midst right and so later on in scripture they would cause people who wanted to worship these false deities to be outside of the city right outside of the walls and often to represent death to represent separation from the people of god and the covenant of god but now these same objects that god used to put the death penalty on that he calls a curse that he calls devoted to destruction or like no i want them on my wall i want them on my bookshelf i want them in my garden they represent demons if if not if they don't represent demons they're tools used to contact demons right or they're at the very least they're part of demonic spirituality here's the question if the lord presses on you and your conscience you need to tell that person something right you need to give them a loving rebuke a loving correction he brings something to mind he brings something to light to you and you don't act on it you suppress the voice of god you suppress your own conscience the law of god written on your heart working through your soul you suppress that over and over and over again that's a sin and any sin if you remain in it long enough or for some sin immediately it's going to open up the doorway to the demonic in your life it can i have had the worst demonic attack i've ever had since i got saved was because i was i was not obeying my conscience i wasn't involved in sin but i knew people around me christians were involved in sin and um i needed to bring correction in that area i had a responsibility from god to bring correction in that area we're talking about like supernatural spiritual sins things that i couldn't sit right with in my own conscience and because i allowed myself to be in fellowship and just kind of push that under the rug i was getting attacked multiple times in one night the attacks were lasting 10 minutes at a time i was praying rebuking doing all the saying all the right things doing all the right things and then i was like okay lord i know there must be an open door here show me where the doors open where is there an open door in my life and immediately he brought to mind what it was i needed to address some things with three different people and i needed to close those doors because what they were involved in was allowed to pass on to me because god brought it to my mind and my conscience and i wasn't responsible with the information i was given given from the lord and that i had gathered from what i had witnessed right and him to him who knows much much is expected right so if your conscience is telling you hey you know i need to warn you brother that what you have in your bedroom right now but that's new age and that goes against god and you know you playing with the ouija board i know you're professing christian you think it's just a board game or dungeons and dragons or something i know you think it's just a board game and you know if your conscience starts telling you need to rebuke him and do that and you suppress it no i'm not gonna know i'm not gonna you're gonna grieve the spirit firstly you're gonna sear your conscience potentially secondly but i do believe in that instance where the co where the spirit tells you and your conscience tells you rebuke them give them correction give them loving direction and you say no no no then you can start inviting that into your life as well i've had it i think we all agree that that's an instance i want to say one more thing and i'll turn back of you guys the fact that there are gray areas that require a little bit more thought and a little bit more nuances proves that there's black and white areas the only reason we can call an area gray is because we know there's clearly defined black areas and clearly defined white areas and we're not sure how far on the gradient scale does it fall in terms of severity of sin but the gray area doesn't prove that there's no black and white it proves that there's black and white so people might be able to think of an instance where it's kind of cloudy will this spread oppression to other members of my household or not but that doesn't mean that we can't say with 100 certainty that you bring them into your midst you buying them you put them on your bookshelf you put them in your garden you hang them on your wall are you wearing them on a necklace you having them on a tapestry you having them on an artwork on your your hall your on your wall anything that represents false spirituality pagan spirituality which is demonic spirituality it doesn't mean we can't say with certainty that you're going to invite demons into your life under those instances just because we don't know if that will pass on to your daughter who's a believer unbeliever before or after conviction comes it doesn't mean that there's not black and white areas and these black and white areas are clearly defined old testament new testament and are always linked to demonic involvement as a consequence and it can um first of all if it represents a false spiritual system we should expect it to grieve the spirit grieve the spirit's presence in our and our house we want our house to be a temple unto the lord right and we want our body to be a temple unto the lord and just like you know the bible tells us very clearly how to handle our body as a living sacrifice unto god you know our houses should be temples i wanted to be a temple unto the lord i want to i wanted to facilitate the manifest presence of god and i don't i don't want some demon god and quetzalcoatl on my on a mayan calendar and some other flying serpent deity on my culture or on my wall because it's part of some culture i think that's cool and historical i don't want to grieve the spirit of god i think it can weaken our faith as well because the spirit is the one who empowers the christian worldview in us right nobody says jesus is lord but by the holy holy spirit the ministry of the spirit is the only reason you and i are believers the only reason anybody is a believer is because the holy spirit lives in us and is a self-authenticating self-verifying witness to christ to the person and work of christ and we have that inner witness of the holy spirit and i don't want to grieve the spirit because i'm not gonna be able to discern good from evil i'm not gonna be able to discern the spiritual things of god because they're revealed to our spirit by the spirit first corinthian uh first corinthians chapter two is a big verse on that when paul talks about the natural man versus the spiritual man the things of the spirit are revealed to our spirit by god so if i'm grieving the spirit in my life naturally will that weaken my faith and my confidence in christ yeah especially when we read in verses like in first and second john where it says and this is how we know we are children of god by the spirit that he's given to us the spirit is meant to act as assurance as well not just the one who testifies to christ and strengthens us in our um christian walk in the christian worldview he's the one that gives us assurance that we're children of god right as many as receive the spirit of god he gave right to be called the children of god all right many as many believe on his name so i was thinking about another verse about the spirit the spirit uh bears witness that we are children of god right so basically i don't want to i don't want to fear my conscience i don't want to disturb my conscience um that there's consequences for that spiritually i don't want to grieve the spirit there's lots of spiritual consequences for that and like you said i don't want to be dipping into old memory streams as well that are provoking feelings of nostalgia flashbacks old memories right and psychology there's a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity where through conditioning being exposed to the same stimuli over and over and over again let me use an object here okay here's a pair of glasses um i hate wearing that i want to get my eyes fixed but the point is so let's say these glasses let's say this was actually a tool of sorcery sorcery or idolatry and that i used this pair of glasses 200 times when i was at the new age movement to try to invoke i don't know some spiritual power in the universe or to clean my chakras or to contact extraterrestrials from the pleiadian constellation or something like that now if i have this in my midst after i come to christ what's going to happen when my brain isn't used to producing a certain response immediately after seeing this it's going to snap back my my neural firings my brain it's going to engage in that way preparing to respond neurochemically to what this object has been used for over and over and over again so like mariah said if you have something in your life even from an ex-partner of yours it can create an emotional attachment there because your brain associates that with a certain outcome and your brain kind of gets molded around that outcome through conditioning time after time after time again you see this you associate with an outcome over and over again and so people come out of the new age movement and their house is still decked out with the crystals they used and the tapestries that they used to hang up and the clothing they used to wear and i'm saying that that's going to be dangerous for you from a purely psychological perspective even where your brain is not designed to look at these things that for years and years and years were associated with a certain outcome and all of a sudden you're going to see it now in your living environment and produce a totally different response that's not how god has designed the brain right you need to get these things out of your living environment they're not feeding old memory streams giving your self you know an ability to be tempted when it comes to christianity paul says i count everything in my life prior to christ as loss why to gain christ right so on the other side of self-denial is intimacy with a person and in intimacy with a person is everything that's what we're built for we're built for fellowship with god and so i know every time god is telling me to do something to give something up to lay something down i'm going to get more of his presence more of his power more fellowship with him more of an anointing in my daily life for ministry or to lead my family or to carry out his will in the world i'm gaining christ i'm gaining a person right i'm not doing it for nothing and so self-denial when i started to realize like that's really satan's primary deception is that obedience won't bring you happiness won't bring you joy but it does because obedience leads you into the presence of god and everything we're looking for is in the presence of god right times of refreshment come from the presence of the lord acts three in the presence of lord there's fullness of joy so immediately when i started to make these decisions and they were hard and i would fight tooth and nail for some of them but immediately as soon as i made it bam the presence of the lord would rush in and i'd sense this presence like oh my gosh this is what i was missing out on that's nothing i'm gonna you know quickly do everything i know i'm going to have to do eventually right everything that we know we're going to have to do is like do it now otherwise it's just going to continue compiling causing stress anxiety um you know weaken the presence of god in your life the spirit of god in your life silence his voice over and over gradually just get it over with now and trust there's going to be blessing favor more of his presence on the other side of that now when it came to like destroying artwork and stuff it kind of yeah it was kind of tough because you know some of these artworks you know were worth thousands of dollars and i couldn't sell them because i didn't want to redistribute them back into satan's kingdom so that he can use them as ammunition to destroy someone else's life and i didn't want to you know paint over them because i didn't think that's right knowing that underneath that coat of paint is occult symbolism and so i was like i'm just going to trash it and count it as loss but you don't count it as loss for nothing you count as a loss to gain christ right and when you do these things you're ministering unto the heart of the lord and that that's your primary ministry is unto the lord do everything as unto the lord right unto the glory of god in the name of jesus and you have to understand too even if you're purely selfishly motivated in these decisions which as a christian you shouldn't be but even if you're only self-interested you need to keep in mind the lord has rewards stored up in the in heaven for those who love him and obey him why does jesus say store treasure for yourself in heaven not on earth where you know moth and dust corrupt but in heaven right we want to be rich toward god so what is the inheritance that he's kept in store for me right if i'm giving this up does that increase my inheritance and glory does jesus not say i'll reap 100 fold on houses i give up thank you so much for joining us on calgary conversations if you haven't already please make sure to like subscribe and share this video if you like to listen to us wherever you get your podcast just type in calgary conversations you can also follow us on instagram at calvary conversations thank you so much to our sponsors mission heating and cooling please check out their website in the description below you can also support calvary conversations a one-time gift or a monthly gift down in the description below thanks so much guys and god bless [Music]

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Keywords: Jesus, jesus christ, pastor, craig roters, pastor craig, pastor craig roters, jeremiah, bible, Holy, Spirit, Arizona, Gospel, calvary, calvary chapel, calvary oro valley, oro valley, calvary chapel oro valley, tucson, Praise, Hurts, Bless, Lord, Ministry, Holy Spirit (Deity), Word, Salvation, Truth, Preaching, Ministries, Sermon (Literature Subject), America, Youtube, Prophecy, Prophet, Grace, Study, Popular, Jacob, Hebrew, Revival, Messiah, God (Deity)

Id: 7YtWLeAgBuY

Length: 28min 50sec (1730 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 13 2022