- Forbidden topics is
the name of the series, lessons that'll get you criticized
called daughter canceled. Hopefully not, but you never know. And this is lesson
number two in the series. And the title of this one is, Superstition Astrology and the Occult. Brother, Harold is walking around. Who's got some lesson notes. If you didn't get them on your way in, you can grab some lesson notes
help you to follow along, just raise your hand. And he'll be happy to do that for you. I don't know if I wanted people
to raise their hand or not. You know what? I was going to ask how many people here know what their sign is? You know, anybody know what they're after? I'm not looking, who's saying yes or no. It is between you and God, you know. In 1960s and early seventies
survey that I saw said the 80% of the people, you know,
in the United States 80% of the people knew
what their sign was. If they were a Taurus or a Libra or whatever, you know, 80% that's amazing. And of course, you know, many
years ago back in those days, they were singing. This is the dawning of the
age of Aquarius, right? The dawning of the age of Aquarius. Now, most of us back then, we
didn't know what that meant. We liked the song fifth dimension, right? This is the dawning of
the age of, you know we sing along a nice
wholesome group there, but we didn't know what
Aquarius, you know, that it wasn't just the name
of a constellation of stars. It wasn't only the 11th,
the sign of the Zodiac but it was the code name for those who practice
various forms of occultism. They were Aquarians. They practiced the occult. That was the secret name. Now I use the word occult
because it is a general term meaning a hidden or
mysterious or supernatural. And it includes a variety
of practices and beliefs such as superstition, astrology,
fortune telling, Satanism, witchcraft, magic, demon possession, spiritism just to name the major ones. All of these are under the
umbrella of occultism okay. Or the occult. Now the occult didn't
start in the sixties, obviously with the song
it's as old as Satan. However, it has gained an
unprecedented following here in the United States and Canada in the last half century or so. Where it no longer is
practiced only in secret but it has spread into every
area of our everyday lives. It has gone mainstream Young people know about it. So we need to be able to recognize it and know what do the
scriptures actually teach about this practice so that
we can avoid being influenced by these things. And also that we could teach our children and our grandchildren when
they come out with these ideas you know, that we know
what they're talking about. Now, most persons seek to
have a kind of a spiritual or religious experience in life. Get to a point where they're
looking for something more something beyond what they're experiencing you know, they want more. And for many, it is the
answer to the beckoning finger of death actually, Karl Barth, a famous
theologian, German theologian. He said death is the birth pang of faith Makes a lot of sense, Death
is the birth pang of faith. When you began to think about death and realized the death is
real people actually die and you're going to die. And it actually, you know,
sinks in, you start looking you know, for something
perhaps beyond death. And that's where the
occult many times comes in, and satisfies that need. In our country, this
quote spiritual experience usually takes one of three forms. You know, people are looking
for a spiritual experience, one of three forms. First form for the sake of a better word. They experienced a church
type of spiritual experience formal religion with priests or ministers, a definite set of doctrines, and usually the religion
that they experience supports the social order. In other words, you know, organized religion is
not usually anarchistic. You know, they we're not trying
to tear down the government and blow stuff up, you know, normal religious type
of spiritual experience. And you find most religious
groups within this category including Christianity. Another type of religious experience that people have is the sect type, the sect type voluntarily
rejects any compromise with the world. They usually reject any
church type of religion and they make a point of it. They seek individual perfection and high levels of spiritual
experience on their own. I'll give you an example, the Mennonites and specifically
the Amish, for example they're like a closed society. They reject the world. They reject, you know, modern trends. You know, they're trying to freeze time. It's part of their religion part of their spiritual experience. And there are many different types. And then the third general
type is the cult type. This group is characterized by mysticism in its ritual and mode of thinking, in this group the individual seeks a self fulfilling religious experience usually provided by the mystic element that is within the cult itself. It is within this cult grouping that we find most occult
practices happening, since most are based
on information derived from occult sources. So, you know, if all or
most of your information for your religious experience
come from occult sources, pretty, you know it's pretty sure thing, that you're going to be
practicing occult practices whether you call them that or not. Dr. McMillan, Lynn McMillan. I think we're familiar with him from OC, many years ago he wrote a book
called a doctrines of demons. And in that book he lists some of the main features of cultic type religions. And I'd like to share those with you. Very fascinating. I'm going to go over them quickly though. There they are. So cultic type religious experiences share or groups share these,
you know, these features for example, they usually
center on a strong personality a founder who has a vision
or a mystical ability or he claimed he or she
claims to be able to lead his or her disciples to higher levels. Follow me. I'll bring you to the higher
level, a higher consciousness. One of the features of cultic religions. Secondly, they react very
strongly against orthodoxy. Okay, in other words, any set of doctrines that can be verified and
that remained the same from generation to generation. They reject that idea. They reject normal standards of religion. Truth for them is available to all only a select few of
properly initiated individuals. Truth is a hidden thing. And with the help of the leader and with the help of the,
you know, the rituals and this and that, you
will have it eventually, you know arrive and
learn the hidden truth. Cultic number three, cultic teaching reflects
success orientation. They hold an evolutionary view of man and they teach that adherence
will produce better people super people, superman, super women, all coming through a
retraining of the mind possible through access
to the mystic powers or the mystic system
provided them by the leaders of the cult. You know, you buy and to the
cult, you buy into the system, you buy into the leader and
you reject everything else and they will lead you to
that truth, that hidden thing whatever it is, mystic
fellowship, number four. Mystic fellowship with
super human helpers. They believe that there
are masters, gods, brothers that assist humans in achieving
newer and higher levels of spiritual awareness. The work of the leaders is to be channels or communicators for these, many times that's why the
leaders call themselves prophets. You know, because they're
speaking to the angels they're speaking to the
spirits of the other world and they have the message. They have the information
and they're passing it on to the followers. Number five, they
believe in healing powers power to heal the body and mind is a way of verifying the
total system of belief to the devotee. The ability to heal
confirms the doctrines. Number six, psychic powers, psychic powers often designate
the elite among the group, mastery of secret knowledge
produces psychic powers that are unavailable to the outsiders, not available either to casual members. You know, so there's
encouragement to total devotion so that you can access
more power, more insight. And many times total devotion isn't just attending the meetings. Total devotion is turning
over your bank account and turning over your life
and turning over, you know whatever you have to the group. They also believe in ceremonial magic. The goal of course of
the cultic experience is transformation, transformation to the
highest state of being. And often magic is a means
to gain mental concentration. And I'll discuss magic a
little later on in this lesson. Number eight, syncretism of
religions and philosophy. Syncretism means, you know, taking something from
here, from here, from here, from there, you know kind
of putting it all together if you wish. And so in cultic systems,
these groups include features and teachings from
every kind of philosophy and types of religion. So there are kind of hybrids, you know, they pick the best, you know
they cherry pick what they want from different ideas and
philosophies even religions. And they bring that together and formulate their own
doctrines, their own teachings. And then cultic groups appeal
to individuals, not families. They prey on fragmentation of family to influence those who are lonely and unfulfilled have no direction in life. That's a candidate for,
you know, a cultic group. So we can see that some of
these features have permeated into more church type of
religious organizations, right? I mean, we see churches that
have dynamic strong leaders like one leader is in charge
of the whole, you know the whole church, unlike what
we see in the New Testament where we have a, you
know, a group of of elders who are responsible for the people. And then there are deacons who do this, and the ministers to do that. In cults, usually all of that power is all invested in one dynamic individual. Well, we see that happening
in churches as well. One dynamic individuals in
charge of the entire church. You have a 10,000 member church and the pastor is the boss
because of that church. Well, that doesn't that type of thinking doesn't come from the New Testament. Syncretism in other words, we see a lot of churches
pick and choose stuff from different churches
and different groups to formulate their practice, all right. I mean, the Unitarian church for example, is a good example of that. They also appeal to those who are alone and many churches today have what we call the
success gospel, right? They preached the success gospel, sanctification and
success go hand in hand. The more you become devoted to the Lord the more you should also
be experiencing financial and personal success. So there was a time when, you know here in the United States every major newspaper
carried the daily horoscope. I can remember before
I became a Christian, I mean back in the sixties. And I was in high school
in the early sixties. And I remember, you know, buying
a newspaper in the morning I've always been a newspaper reader and then I'd buy the Montreal Gazette because it was the morning paper. And I bring it to school
with me and in lunch. I'd be, you know, going through
sports and this and that. And I would look every day at my horoscope cause it was there and it
was in the morning Gazette in the evening it was the Montreal Star and it had a horoscope as well. It was amazing. There are 10,000 full-time
astrologers in the United States. There was a time there
were more astrologers here than we had preachers. We also have occult fairs,
conventions organizations with tax-free status are plentiful. I know about these because
I've attended them. Now, I've attended them as a
Christian out of curiosity, because in Montreal,
there's a lot of that. And they had one at, I think
the expo like expo stadium and I went and it was just amazing. My eyes were open. I never saw anything like that. Today of course we've got the internet. So another mode of communication, the Reddit occult site alone. One site has 1.5 million
Facebook followers and 700,000 Twitter followers, one site. And as I was kind of researching
and this particular site the Reddit occult site is only number 19. It's not even in the
top 10, it's number 19 and it's got to million
and a half followers. So comic books, videos,
games, movies, music, books, all of these things feature occult ideas. And a lot of times it's
just that we don't know, we don't realize what we're, you know what we're watching, the most visible marshaling
of all of these things several years ago it was
called the New Age movement brought all of these ideas
together under one movement, New Age movement which was a combination
of Eastern religion, occult philosophy and American marketing. And it was often mixed together under the banner of environmentalism. So it was quite a potent
movement at the time. This movement was the greatest
challenge to Christianity back in the 1990s. And at the beginning of
the second millennium. Mystery, magic astrology,
Satanism are present in every area of our lives. And most of us tolerate some
or a lot of it in our speech in our reading and our thinking without actually realizing it. Interestingly, the occult has only grown again as I mentioned with
the start of the internet providing a platform for
thousands and thousands of sites devoted to its practice. All right. So that's just a bit of an overview just to give you the lay of the land here. I want to talk about the
various types and practices of occultism most common one is astrology. Astrology is the attempt
to know the future, the future course of events by observing and interpreting the heavenly bodies. The ancient art was practiced
almost 2000 years ago in Babylon. It was actually the Greeks
who developed the idea of searching the stars
for individual destinies. Modern astrologers use the
characteristics of each sign in the Zodiac and the
position of the planets in the solar system at
the moment of birth, along with information from the houses, similar to signs and then it charts, which areas of our life will
be influenced by the planets. Horoscopes are the most popular form and practice of the occult. You know it's for amateurs. It's for people who are just curious, you know what's going to happen, I'm going to read my horoscope. Oh, my horoscope says, you know, I mean, it's about as accurate
as a fortune cookie. You know, what I'm saying is
this is about the same thing but there are people who practice this art much more seriously and
having an entire chart made of their lives and they
make no serious decisions in their lives without
consulting their horoscope. Another type is fortune telling the Bible calls it divination. But you know today we don't call it that, you know, divination much fortune telling I think it has a more
pleasant sounding type thing. Divination comes from the
Latin word meaning gift, gift of prophecy. The term implies the ability
to know through some means whether it's a crystal ball or tarot cards or tea leaves or dice or palm reading, whatever but that you have the ability to tell the events of the future it's illegal in the United States. And so most get around
it by simply claiming to give advice spiritism
or a spiritualism, some call it that in this
general area is where a person is used as a medium to speak to the dead. In order to know the secrets of the future another type Satanism,
two forms of Satanism. There's the actual worship of Satan as a powerful spirit God that grew out of a primitive
worldview, Zoroastrianism you know, the idea of they
used fire in their worship and they had the idea of
a good and evil beings, you know, in conflict with each other. And that the earth was a created and dominated by the evil spirit and worship and cult of
evil develop based on that, this one in its many forms includes human and animal sacrifices, all forms of occult
practices, mystic rituals. And it's very secretive. I mean, it's very secretive. That's the first type of Satanism the actual worship of Satan. Then there's the
popularization of Satan worship through what was called
the first church of Satan, which was founded in 1966, by Anton LeVay. This and other groups,
they call them churches such as the church of evil or the church of Satanic brotherhood. They don't actually believe
in the existence of a Satan but they use him as a
symbol for their group that is dedicated to
the worship of the flesh and not any spirit. And this is why their main activities, they've evolved in orgies and all the type of sinful
activity is practiced. This second group here, this is the Hollywood, you know, Satanism. This is the, you know,
the dilettants, you know they don't really believe
in Satan the actual being, you know, they just believe in a worship of a Satan type character. As I said, true Satanism is
very secretive in nature. You won't find ads and you
certainly won't get anybody going on Oprah talking about it. Okay. Because many times
it involves murder. It involves the killing
not only of animals, but even of human beings. So you need to be careful very quickly, witchcraft comes from
the Celtic word Wicca which means wisdom, primitive witchcraft developed
out of early society, worship of nature and
the practice of religion devoted to understanding
and controlling nature through the use of magic. So fertility was a great theme
in these nature religions because, you know fertility was important in an agrarian society. You wanted your crops to grow. You wanted your animals to multiply. You wanted your wife to have many children to manage the farm. And so there were a lot of
fertility gods, you know the prayers and the offerings were to make you know, to
make your flock fertile to make your land fertile, to make your wife fertile same idea. And so since fertility
it was a great theme. The primary god for this was female. And so witches tended to be used. Modern witchcraft is still
steeped in concepts of the past but has taken on a kind of a modern image. And it's more organized
than it was before. Now, don't get me wrong. Halloween, you know, Halloween
quote, witches, you know these are a stereotype
that is far from the truth of what modern witchcraft
is like, you know, that's, again those are Hollywood witches or a story witches, okay. They have true witchcraft. I have a distinct religion with deities. The male deity represents death. The female deity represents life. And you can see why a female deity because she produces children and animals female animals produce other
animals and so on and so forth. And they have churches that
don't call them churches. They call them covens with high priests and priestesses rather,
they have their own rituals. They have a belief system, but remember the goal of witchcraft is spiritual fulfillment interpreted as the full manifestation
of the mystical powers within themselves and nature. And so to achieve this
includes the following of what is called the eightfold path. These are a series of activities that'll help achieve fulfillment. Some of these are
meditation, dance, fellowship the drinking of wine,
flagellation meaning whipping, you know, ceremonial intercourse, the sacrifice of animals, incantations, you know all kinds of
activities such as this, that they participate in and
all of it to reach a goal of spiritual fulfillment. Again, remember what I
said about the occult. A lot of it is to reach a higher plane and each different type
has a different way and a different history, but
it usually revolves around you know, a transformation of some kind and the witches and Satanists
and the fortune tellers. They're the ones who are going to show you how to get to that next level, basically. And then there's of
course as I said magic, magic is the attempt to
control or manipulate higher or unseen powers or beings through the use of objects
incantations and rituals, serious magic and I mean,
not show business magic. You know, I'm going to
make a GM truck disappear. You know, that show business magic, serious magic strive for
harmony between themselves and the mystical powers within nature in order to achieve again, the highest level of self fulfillment. Magic is an element used in
many forms of occult practice. So witchcraft uses magic, okay. A fortune telling uses magic
and so on and so forth. So it's an element used by a
lot of these other practices. All right, let's talk about
my favorite, demon possession the invasion of a human being
by an evil spirit or power. Now the New Testament attests to the reality of demon possession, but most of our concepts
about possession today are derived from superstitions that arose in the middle ages. And of course the popularization
of these through the media in the last 50 years. I mean has anyone not heard
of the movie The Exorcist? I remember not knowing
what that was about, and going to the movies
to see it by myself. And I sat there in the dark theater. Wow. You know, it's the
story of a young girl who's possessed by an evil spirit and can only be driven out by
a priest, a Catholic priest performing the Roman
Catholic right of exorcisms. And that's a true thing
in the Catholic Church. You know, the right of
exorcism is a true thing. Okay. So in the middle ages,
demon possession claims were closely associated
with occult practices and witchcraft. Sociologists report that
so-called demon possession is reported most often in
primitive pagan cultures. However, demon possession
begins to decrease dramatically as the level of civilization
and education increases. Okay. Mostly cited in ancient times
to explain deviant behavior and patterns. Or if someone, you know, 500 years ago if someone was depressed, a lot of times they would say, oh, she has a demon. Or if someone had what
today can be treated some type of mental illness
that could be treated today with medication and counseling, whatever back in those days,
you know, if you were at all, you know dis, you know, disjointed,
mentally and emotionally the first conclusion was, well, this person is possessed by a demon, the state where one believed
that he was possessed often induced through occult rights and the drinking of blood
and the taking of drugs. In other words, a lot of modern people who think that they
were possessed by demons think that because they were participating in occult practices which brought on that, what I call psychosis. We need to be able to tell the difference between demon possession, which is an actual invasion
of the body by a demon and demon obsession which is a persistent and haunting thought or feeling
that can be manufactured. And once produce, acts or
reacts like possession. In other words, you can be so obsessed with the idea that you act like a person who is possessed by a demon
even though in reality you are not. A common symptom among those
who suffer obsessive syndrome is the belief that one's being
is being subdued by an alien or a spirit being a
person's guilt may combined with deep fears of possession and produce a condition which
resembles demon possession. Okay. You can actually treat what's
called demon possession. And I ask you this, what's the difference? Demon possession or you
think you're Abraham Lincoln. You know, we have people
who are in mental hospitals you know, psychiatric
hospitals, you know, who think that they're Jesus or who
think that they're Napoleon. I mean, they really do
believe that they're Napoleon and among them. There's some that think
that they are the devil or the devil possesses them. Well, they have a, you know they have a psychosis they're
obsessed with this idea and this idea manifests itself. Okay. So the question that you get
when you talk about this, is can people be, let me say this again. Can people be possessed today and why? And the answer to that very simply is, no. People cannot be possessed today. They can be obsessed today. Yes. But they cannot be possessed today. And as I'm closing out my lesson here, I want to give you four reasons for that. First of all, Satan, the
greatest of evil spirits has been bound according to
the promise of scriptures, Zechariah chapter 13 verse one and two, the promise there is that
with the establishment of God's kingdom there
would be a curtailing of Satan's power. Then there's Luke 10
verse 18 and 11:21 to 23 and in John, 12:31. All of these, they talk about
Jesus accomplishing this task and proving it by giving
the power to do this to his disciples. You know you have legitimate power when you're able to do something you know, supernatural, and then give that power to somebody else to do that's real power. And so we read about Jesus
casting out spirits from people who truly were possessed. They weren't obsessed. They were possessed as how do we know? Because the Jesus was
speaking to the demon and the demon was speaking to him and Jesus cast these spirits out. And then he gave this
power to his apostles and cast out spirits. Romans 8:38. Paul tells us that nothing
can separate us from God. No evil spirit can possess us. Another reason, demon possession is ceased in the apostolic
era, Acts chapter 5:16; 8:7, 1 Corinthians 12 don't have time to argue and show you the scriptures
for all of these. But I think among ourselves we know these. In the book of Acts we see the apostles using their gifts to confirm the gospel. And one of those gifts
was casting out demons. Persons who were already
possessed by demons during the time of the
crucifixion would remain so, or they could be healed by the apostles and those that the apostles laid hands on. However, because of the victory of Christ that the crossover Satan the
power of possession ceased, there are no new victims. Jesus cast out Satan, the
apostles healed in their time. There's no need for this gift. Since a possession is no longer possible. Now, as I say, there may be obsession but the word can deal with this. The word of encouragement. Another reason why we believe
we cannot be possessed today. Satan now works through
deception, not possession. Second Corinthians, 11:13 and 14. We cannot be possessed,
but we can be tricked. We can be tempted. We can be seduced and we can
be seduced into being obsessed where the suffering is great. I mean, you take some
kid who's 12 years old. And from the age of 12 to
the age of 18, with the, you know earphones on
and his speakers to max is listening to you know,
acid rock, demon rock, Satanic rock. He's got these things
going on in his head. And then all of a sudden,
as a young, 20, 21 year old and he also participates
in drugs, alcohol, lives in extremely sinful life. All of a sudden he starts
thinking, you know what? I think Satan controls me
and starts to believe it. It is possible with God's
help to resist Satan's attack. We have the power to resist. Jesus said he who is in you, is greater than he who is in the world. That's very good news. And then another one, a little
more modern demon possession can be clinically analyzed
as emotional disturbances and they can be treated so obsession. You know, we've described with, you know a compulsive type of hallucination, dissociation is a term for
a psychological condition. One form of dissociation
is a multiple personality. We've heard of that, haven't we? A person thinks, you know
there's several people living within himself or herself. I mean, I've heard of, you know people have 60, 50, 60 different. I remember there was
an individual in Canada and one of our congregations in Canada who actually came to church
and one of his, it was a man. One of his personalities was, he was a faithful member of the church and he came and he took communion. He sang the songs. He knew the lingo brother, how are you? Nice to see you. God bless a great day. Glory be to God. And then something switched over and he was hairy or something, you know? And he was this other guy. He was a burglar. He was a, this. And then he was a woman. Then he was a child. I remember speaking to him, I did not attempt any type
of psychological counseling because obviously I wasn't qualified but I was qualified to do one thing. I was qualified to continually
preach to him the gospel. And when we got together
and he wanted to talk I would tell him, I forget
the name, but I said, I want to talk to John. John was the member of
the church of Christ. I want to talk to John. And then John would show up
and I we'd talk you know, And I would encourage him to stay faithful and keep his nose in the
book and reassure him. And he said, what about these other guys? And I gave him a task and his task was why don't you begin
converting these other people with you? Why not preach the gospel to Harry and preach the gospel to Mary? And why not? You know, I was joining him in his fantasy but to him that made a whole
lot of sense, gave him purpose. Anyways, another type is, I always have trouble
pronouncing this one, somnambulism sleepwalking,
sleepwalking syndrome. And also what's called contagion syndrome. We call it sometimes mob influence ever wonder two people together. They're standing there
watching what's going on. Would never think of running up and trying to jump over the
gate and knock something down or pick up a rock and
throw it through a window. But then those two same
quiet people are surrounded by a hundred other people, all yelling and they get caught up in the
the mob influence if you wish. And they, you know, they get, yeah it's called contagion syndrome. That's why you have a
peaceful march coming along. And there's a thousand
people in the peaceful march. You don't need another thousand anarchists to turn that peaceful march into a riot. You just have to sprinkle people throughout those thousand people. And they'll turn that
thousand people into a riot. There's a term for it. As I said, contagion syndrome. It's the thing that's happening. When people speak in tongues that's what psychologists tell us. It's contagion syndrome. The individual is new. They go to church, there's 200 people. All those people are, you know (speaking in tongues) and they're all speaking
in tongues and everything. And the person sitting in
the second pune and saying, oh, wow, this is unusual. I've never heard about this. And he comes back the next week and the next week and
the next week and the, and everybody is up and
rolling around with their hands up in the air. And all of a sudden he's going, (speaking in tongues) I can do it too. You know? I mean, I've watched it. I mean, with my own eyes,
I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen to me. So we have to be careful. So Christians are positioned
towards the occult. Very simple. It's forbidden by scripture,
Deuteronomy 18:9 to 14, Galatians 5:20, Why very quickly, I've only
got a few minutes left, First it's forbidden because
it's a form of idolatry depending on inanimate
objects to manipulate God or to know the future
is the sin of idolatry. It is degrading to God
when we don't pray to him but rather depend on
things to comfort and us rather than on him and his word. Things like stars, omens,
spirits, rituals and aesthetics, We depend on all those things,
but we don't depend on God. People put much confidence in
telepathic or in spiritists in order to communicate
with their dead relatives. And many are paranoid
that Satan or evil spirits can possess them or talk to them. But Luke 16:26, you know,
Lazarus and the rich man, shows us that no one in the
spirit world can communicate or possess someone in the physical world. The only spirit who can
hear us to respond to us believe it or not is God. When I hear people saying, well, you know grandma's up there and I've been praying to grandma and she's looking
down and taking care of us all very nice and very comforting. It's just not true. The only being who hears our prayers is the Lord Jesus Christ is
the father is the spirit. So the only person hearing our prayer. And so the only spirit who
can hear us to respond is God and the only way to communicate
to him is through prayer. And the only way he communicates
to us is through his word, 2 Timothy 3:16, and the other manipulation or way to know is a form of idolatry. And God will destroy idolaters. Secondly, it's wrong because
it's based on fatalism. Superstition is based on the notion that all things are predetermined and all we can do is find out
in advance, what will happen. And so magic believes that the forces in charge of the universe
can be manipulated to serve human will. If they just press the right
buttons, luck is the belief that circumstances are
predestined to favor you. All of these practices based on the notion of fatalism are vain and useless. And they're useless because
we can change things since we have free will. And we have access to God through prayer who works for our benefit. God knows the future because he is eternal but he doesn't create the future. We do this with our decisions. Fatalism is based on what's
called circular history, movies and books about time
warp and back to the future in time machines are all
based on this false idea. This is an inaccurate view
of the reality of the world. The truth is there's a
beginning and there's an end Genesis 1:1 and 2 Peter 2:10
tell us there's a beginning. And there's an end. History is not circular. You don't find a hole or a worm hole. So you can go from here
back to history over here that's science fiction,
brothers and sisters. History is not circular. That just keeps going round
and round history is linear In the beginning, in the
beginning, that's a start. And then Peter says at
the end, that's the end. Okay. So when good things happen to us they're blessings from God. God blesses all people whether
they recognize this or not the fatalist gets no real joy from, you know from quote "luck". But he who knows the truth
rejoices in his prosperity. And he knows where to go in times of need. One more. If you'll just be patient
with me, that's it. The last one. Occultism and the Bible is a occultism is basically anti-Christian,
witchcraft, astrology, magic create and foster
insecurity, fear, instability. These practices do not bring
peace or joy or assurance. The occult is usually
accompanied by what is unnatural, violent and talks mainly about death. It is against every notion
and teaching of Christ. And its root is in darkness,
mystery and untruth. And what does the Bible say about that? But even if we are an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be a cursed. And then he repeats that same thing. Imagine he says, even if an angel from God give something different,
that's in here you know, nevermind your sister-in-law
who thinks she's the witch. So no matter how slick the presentation or nice looking the people
if you are Antichrist, then you are pro Satan
and therefore dumed. So the basic allure of the occult is that you will find out something which you didn't know about
yourself or the future or the spirit world. And that will give you
power or peace or meaning but in Roman 16, Paul says, "Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and
the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the
revelation of the mystery, which has been kept
secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment
of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to the obedience of faith, to the only wise God through Christ, be the glory forever. Amen." Romans 16, however, tells us that the greatest of all
mysteries has been revealed. The gospel reveals the meaning of life, which is to seek and to find God John 17, the gospel reveals the true self, lost sinners needing
salvation, Romans 3:23. The gospel reveals the person
of God through Jesus Christ. The gospel reveals true spirituality. What it is, the gospel reveals the future and what is the future? Well that Jesus is returning and that we need to be ready for that. And so let's make sure we
kind of get rid of our habits and books and things that have occult protect our children is dangerous and stay with God's
word as your only guide. And it will guide you
not only to peace and joy and satisfaction here on earth,
but it will also direct you to God himself and an
eternal life with him. All right, sorry. I went over time tonight, next week just want to remind you, next week we're going to start, you know, continuing this series. And, but next week, we're going
to start a three-part lesson on addiction, all forms of addiction. We're going to talk about addictions, how they happen? Why they happen? What's actually happening in your brain and so on and so forth? So I encourage you to be there for that. All right. That's our lesson for tonight. Thank you for your time.
