Who's Getting Punk'd?

Introduction

Last week, we began our series “The Hot Topic” and talked about The Nightmare Before Christ: the Six Nightmares that Chris Frees Us From.

This week, we are going to go deeper and talk about something that I feel so burdened to share.

It’s becoming an epidemic in our homs, our schools, and even our churches?

Who’s Getting Punk’d?

The Truth About Astrology, Witchcraft, and the Occult

Introduction

Christianity is under attack.

Nationwide

In our won backyard.

Witchcraft is on the rise in the mainstream.

1990 - 14,000 adults in the US

2001 - 131,000 adults in the US

800,000 worldwide

Astrology in the mainstream

Magazines

Newspapers

Websites

Mediums and Psychics in the mainstream

TV Shows both fiction and “reality”

Medium

Psychic Detectives

Popping up all over town

Ms. Cleo

The Occult is everywhere

Books getting play on Oprah claiming that Jesus isn’t the only way to heaven.

Atheists getting ad campaigns on buses

Jesus Christ is the only way to God.

Yet many people, including Christians, get wound up in the occult.

They think it’s entertainment

They look to it for guidance, satisfaction, or fulfilment.

God tells us to turn to him and renounce the occult.

Text

Deut 18:10-12 “10 For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering. And do not let your people practice fortune-telling, or use sorcery, or interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, 11 or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord. It is because the other nations have done these detestable things that the Lord your God will drive them out ahead of you.”

Transition

God finds these things detestable.

These things are an agent of the enemy who is looking to deceive you.

He is trying to ray your attention and ambitions away

He wants to steal your joy, kill your dreams, destroy your future.

Follow the occult and you’ll get punk’d.

Three Reasons You’ll Get Punk’d by the Occult

The occult leaves you open to spirits other than God’s.

Matt 6:22-23 “22 “Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. 23 But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!”

Jesus tells us that whatever we fix our eyes on will do us good or bad.

Have you ever tried to do something with your eyes closes?

Even if you can, you still visualize it in your mind.

The point is that everything you look at, everything you do infiltrates your mind and affects your entire body.

The Bible says that eyes are like a gateway.

When you open a gateway to an activity that doesn’t honor God, you allow that same spirit inside of you.

You are exposing yourself to spirits other than God’s.

This leaves room for

Oppression

Depression

Affliction

Possession

The occult guides you down the wrong path and will fail you.

Isaiah 47:13-15 “13 All the advice you receive has made you tired. Where are all your astrologers, those stargazers who make predictions each month? Let them stand up and save you from what the future holds. 14 But they are like straw burning in a fire; they cannot save themselves from the flame. You will get no help from them at all; their hearth is no place to sit for warmth. 15 And all your friends, those with whom you’ve done business since childhood, will go their own ways, turning a deaf ear to your cries.”

There is only one true God.

He will never leave you, forsake you, forget you, or let you down.

Witchcraft, astrology, the occult:

These things are the temporary working of the temporary (little G) god of this age.

They won’t last

They won’t deliver

They’ll let you down

And they’ll lead you down the wrong path.

The goal of the enemy isn’t to outright destroy you. It’s to distract you while he chokes the life out of you.

Spirit of Python - Jentezen Franklin

The occult will distance you from the one true God.

Lev 20:6 “6 “I will also turn against those who commit spiritual prostitution by putting their trust in mediums or in those who consult the spirits of the dead. I will cut them off from the community.”

Let me get on the record in saying that nothing you can do will make God stop loving you or love you any less.

Isn’t that awesome?

But your sin and disobedience to the word of God seperates you from Him.

He finds those actions detestable.

He can’t use someone who is trying to serve two masters.

Conclusion

Where is God on your priority list?

Maybe you aren’t struggling with an area of the occult. Maybe you are.

Sometimes people go to the occult because of the supposed “power” it gives you.

As pentecostals, we believe that all who believe are entitled to supernatural power that comes from the Holy Spirit.

More on that next week.

Are you seeking power or do you want the truth?

Where is God on your priority list?