WITCHCRAFT—THE FASTEST GROWING RELIGION

Interest in witchcraft has been ballooning in the last couple of decades along with its rejection of traditional values and the Christian faith, which they blame for their persecution and banning. One indication of this is the proliferation of many hundreds of such groups, and maybe even thousands, on Facebook alone. Other indications come from studies:

•    Women, too, are more likely to buy in [to witchcraft], with 30% of women and 25% of men citing their earnest belief [in witchcraft].

•    According to YouGov’s 2022 poll, more than 1 in 4 Americans says the stars influence their lives, including 37% of adults under 30.

Witchcraft, which is one expression of paganism, has been packaged in many different and appealing ways:

•    Leda Beluche…says it’s not a sinister inclination. It’s simply borne out of feminine interest in self-knowledge.

•    Professor Helen A. Berger…said in an interview with Brandeis Stories. “For centuries, women have been told to focus on families. Focusing on the self is a radical act. It’s empowering. ”https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/oct/29/young-women-gravitate-toward-modern-witchcraft-psy/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=email_link&utm_source=email

Many are attracted by the opportunity to practice white magic, casting spells to help others. However, eventually they gravitate into black magic—casting spells against others. Why? They have no defense against evil. According to them, both “evil and good” are equally valid aspects of life to be embraced.

However, there are those practitioners who call themselves “Christian.” Therefore, it is doubly important that genuine Christians arm themselves with the many verses warning against witchcraft. Here are just a few of them:

•    Leviticus 19:31 “ ‘Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.”

•    Leviticus 20:6 “‘I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people.”

•    Leviticus 20:27 “ ‘A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.’ ”

•    Deuteronomy 18:10-14 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD; because of these same detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the LORD your God. The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so.

•    1 Chronicles 10:13 [King] Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance,

•    1 Samuel 15:23 “For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.”

•    Isaiah 8:19-22 When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.

•    Jeremiah 27:9 “So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers, your fortune-tellers, or your sorcerers, who are saying to you, ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylon.’”

•    Micah 5:10-12 “In that day,” declares the LORD, “I will destroy your horses from among you and demolish your chariots. I will destroy the cities of your land and tear down all your strongholds. I will destroy your witchcraft and you will no longer cast spells.”

•    Acts 19:19-20 A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.

•    Galatians 5:19-20 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions

•    Revelation 18:23 The light of a lamp will never shine in you again. The voice of bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you again. Your merchants were the world’s important people. By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.

•    Revelation 21:8 “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

If you are mature enough to stand against their many delusions, you might consider shining your light in opposition their hopes and practices. While they believe in spirit guides and even “negative spirit entities,” they naively believe that the combination of their intuition and herbs can protect them against these negative entities (They refrain from using Biblical terminology such as “demons.”)

I would advise against witchcraft groups that are simply pandering their services, selling products and spells. Instead, I would advise joining groups where the younger witches are hungering for friendships to take the place of their own shattered and demonized relationships so that you can speak into their hurts. Perhaps have a trusted friend accompany you into this darkness.

WHEN TO TAKE A STAND

 

 

Here is an account of valor that will make us modern Westerners shudder. It raises the question of how far we should go to defend the truth—our faith. Should we openly oppose a pastor while he is preaching a false Gospel? Phinehas took it a giant step further.

King Balak of Moab had shrewdly led the feared Israel into sin so that their God would curse them, eliminating their threat to Moab. Consequently, Moab enticed Israel into sexual immorality and pagan worship. Consequently, many Israelites mourned and wept but seemingly didn’t take stronger action. Therefore, the Israelite offenses became more blatant:

·       Numbers 25:6 And indeed, one of the children of Israel came and presented to his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

It is shocking that Moses hadn’t taken any further action than weeping. Had the sin become so acceptable and widespread that he felt that He could do little to stem the apostasy? However, Phinehas would not merely weep over Israel’s rebellion and the God-sent plague that had already killed 24,000 Israelites:

·       Verses 25:7-9 Now when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. And those who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand.

After this unauthorized act of violence, God stopped the plague. Clearly, God had been satisfied by Phinehas’ faithfulness:

·       Verses 25:10-12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: "Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the children of Israel, because he was zealous with My zeal among them, so that I did not consume the children of Israel in My zeal. Therefore say, 'Behold, I give to him My covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.' "

Had Moses failed to be a Phinehas? Has a plague decimated many churches and Christian institutions today? Do we need another Phinehas, and even many? And what kind of Phinehas must we be?

Clearly a plague of apostasy and rebellion against the Word of God has been ravishing today’s Church. We can cite many instances of this today. For instance, the bowing before the LGBTQ goddess.

Andy Stanley’s LGBT-friendly Drive Conference in 2022 has been taken offline by his North Point church. However, from YouTube snippets and published notes Pastor J.D. Greear had collected some of Stanley’s statements:

·       A gay person who still wants to attend church after the way the church has treated them . . . I’m telling you . . . they have more faith than I do. . . . They still love God.

·       I know the “clobber passages,” alright? We’ve got to figure this out. And if you don’t . . . you can say goodbye to the next generation.

·       Pastors who declare they are affirming or not affirming are taking the church away from someone unnecessarily. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/downplay-homosexual-sin-generation/

In essence, Stanley demands that we have to reinterpret that Bible’s teachings against homosexuality to make them more gay-friendly. He also claimed that LGBTQs have more faith than the rest of us when they have faithfully endured the Bible’s teachings against homosexuality and have continued to seek God through a Church that has been antagonistic to them and their lifestyle choice.

Sadly, it seems that out of the hundreds of pastors who came to this conference, none spoke up against Stanley, at least at that time. In another of his conferences in 2023, Stanley suggested that faith can be a faith without repentance:

·       The most controversial conference speakers were Justin Lee and Brian Nietzel, whom Stanley described as “two married gay men” who are also “Christ-followers today.” They were invited to speak—and had spoken at previous North Point gatherings—he said, because their stories of growing up in church environments while experiencing same-sex attraction would be “instructive and inspiring.” https://www.christianitytoday.com/2023/10/andy-stanley-unconditional-conference-theology-lgbt/

What can be Biblically inspiring about un-repented sin! Besides, how can this couple be regarded as “Christ-followers today,” since they continue to refuse to repent of their sin! 

·       1 John 1:6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

If Stanley had only been preaching specifically against demonizing LGBTQ rather than loving them and telling them that we are all sinners who need to continually repent, the Church could have no Biblical objections. However, Stanley goes much further. Had there been a Phinehas among them to expose Stanley and to stop the plague? I am not aware of one.

Are our Beliefs merely Subjective, just a Matter of our Biases?

 

 

Dr. Joseph Mattera has written (October 22, 2024) that all reason and truth claims are just a matter of faith:

·       It is my objective to illustrate that all human reasoning is founded on basic beliefs or presuppositions that are taken on faith. Hence, there are no “neutral” assumptions; one’s presuppositions are either for or against the Christian faith.

·       At first glance, this may seem like circular reasoning — basing our belief in Scripture on Scripture itself. However, this is unavoidable for any belief system. Every worldview, whether secular or religious, operates from certain presuppositions. The key difference is that the Christian worldview is rooted in the revelation of the only objective and omniscient Being in the universe, the Triune Godhead. In contrast, all other systems are based on finite human reasoning, making them fundamentally incapable of providing the certainty and coherence God’s revelation affords. Therefore, we are called to trust in His Word rather than relying on the limited scope of human reason. https://www.christianpost.com/voices/no-neutral-assumptions-either-for-or-against-christian-faith.html

However, the Bible is filled with proofs, objective evidences, and reasons to believe. While imprisoned, John the Baptist sent out his disciples to ascertain whether Jesus is really the promised Messiah. Jesus didn’t send them back to tell John, “Just believe.” Instead, He instructed them to convey to John the evidences they had witnessed. (Matthew 11)

Likewise, when Moses protested that the Israelites would not believe him if he merely claimed that God had sent him back to Egypt to free them from slavery. However, God gave them proofs so that they would believe:

·       Exodus 4:2–5 The LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. But the LORD said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand—“that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”

He then equipped Moses with other miraculous proofs so that Israel would believe. Therefore, they would not be able to claim as Mattera that “It’s all just a matter of faith.”

Jesus purposely waited and allowed Lazarus to die when called for Him to come to heal him.

·       John 11:14–15 Then Jesus told [His disciples] plainly, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

Such examples are plentiful. Jesus even cautioned that He shouldn’t be believed without proofs:

·       John 10:37–38 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

Jesus provides both objective and subjective evidences (like the witness of the Spirit) the reality of the Christian faith. They are both necessary. If it’s all just a matter of faith, why then should we be Christians rather than Hindus or Muslims? Mattera reasons:

·       Therefore, when analyzing any theological, philosophical, or ideological system, the question is not whether it aligns with human wisdom but whether it conforms to the biblical worldview. As the self-attesting Word of God, Scripture is the ultimate standard against which all claims to truth must be measured. To reject this foundation is to embrace intellectual chaos, for only in Christ do we find the “wisdom and knowledge” necessary to make sense of the world.

I agree with Mattera. However, according to his understanding, whatever reasoning we use is biased and just a matter of pure subjective unprovable faith. He therefore contradicts himself.

Egotism

 

 

Egotism is expressed by many associated terms: self-righteousness, self-promotion, narcissism, pride, arrogance, conceit, and even self-deception. In any case, it is about trying to prove ourselves superior, both to ourself and to others. Many studies have clearly pointed out the universality of this tendency. One study found that 98% claimed the they are morally superior to others.

Why are we so egotistical? The Bible reveals that we are subliminally aware that there is something radically wrong with us, which needs to be addressed lest we succumb to crippling feelings of guilt and shame. The accusations from our conscience are so powerful that they continue to accuse us of wrongdoing:

·       Romans 2:15 (NLT) They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.

Since God’s laws are written into our DNA, unless we find His mercy, we will continue to experience inner turmoil. Therefore, we resort to self-justifications:

·       Proverbs 21:2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart.

We suppress the truth about ourselves and cannot tolerate exposure by the One who judges us:

·       Romans 1:18–20 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

After Adam and Eve disobeyed God and eat the forbidden fruit. Once sin entered, it took control. They could no longer tolerate the presence of God and hid from Him. Nor would they confess their sin once God gave them a chance. Instead, they covered their shame with fig leaves, half-truths, and blame-shifting. When God pronounced His verdict upon them and cast them out of the Garden, they seemed relieved. Adam was in denial and named his wife Eve (life), even though their God and Creator had just condemned them to eventual death.

We have been running from God and His terrifying and revealing light ever since, covering ourselves with the fig leaves of money, power, attainments, and sexual conquests, whatever might make us feel self-righteous and entitled, while our conscience has been declaring the opposite. In view of this, Christ pronounced His condemnation upon humanity:

·       John 3:19–20 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

We are condemned by what we love—the darkness of self-deception—and we know it:

·       Romans 1:32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

We either try to cover this awareness over with the fig leaves of self-righteousness or shake a defiant fist at heaven. Some will even maim themselves to experience a brief reprieve from the punishment they know they deserve.

The Remedy

We suffer from alienation from the Creator and need to be reconciled with Him. None of us can be good enough to earn anything good from Him but death. Our only hope is in His undeserved mercy. What then does He want from us?

·       1 John 1:8–9 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

We just need to be real with God and acknowledge our sins, trusting in His mercy through Jesus’ atonement. Solid relationships must all be built on truth:

·       John 8:31–33 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

The self-righteous Israelite leadership were blinded. Their pride had to be broken for the Lord to begin to let light in through their hard shell. Hence, Jesus’ strong denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees!   He had to also break me so that my eyes would see my horrible bondage. However, I could not have endured without the miraculous assurances of His love.

Every day, I am comforted by these assurances. Only in the light of His love can I face myself and even boast in my failures and weaknesses, as He had revealed to Paul amid his disease and God’s unwillingness to heal Paul:

·       2 Corinthians 12:9–10 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Consequently, I can now accept my many weaknesses and even laugh at them, because my true identity is in Jesus, where I rest safe and secure.