Doctrine of Demon Possession

BD21-02

The ministry of the Berean Memorial Church has as its cornerstone the instruction, the teaching, and the communicating of Bible doctrine. One of the ways that we do it is through the ministry of the Berean Youth Clubs, these six clubs that meet all during the week to keep this place operating night and day, as young people are dealt with in the world in which they live, and in which clubs are used as the vehicle for the instruction in Bible doctrine, and to lay a life in a functional way to the living God on into adulthood.

It is only natural for kids who have grown up among us to come to adulthood, and then in time to be out on their own and to look back and to make an evaluation of their own heritage. So, over the years, I have a series of what I call love letters that I have on file of young people who have looked back and then they suddenly come to the place where their hearts are overwhelming in gratitude toward God for the privileged place that they held in a local church that had some insights and some values that have carried them into adulthood in which they, now on their own decision making mechanisms, they’re going to carry them right out into fruitful eternity.

So, I have a letter this week that I want to read to you that I think will be an encouragement to your heart, and will point out in some respect what it is that Satan is trying to resist with all of his demonic hosts. This is the sort of thing he does not want to happen. He does not want people to go out and write letters back of this nature.

This is from Sue Stalman, one of our young women who is now a student at Wheaton College. She says:

“Dear Dr. Danish and Mrs. Danish, I wanted to write and tell you some of the thoughts and realizations that I have been discovering. I guess you really learn so much when you are away from home, and more or less on your own. A lot of my discoveries have concerned Berean. I am so thankful for my background and experience at Berean. The first place that I am going to start is with my working as a guide at Keystone Baptist Church…”

Now, Keystone Baptist Church is a black church on the west side of Chicago. It happens to be in the very section of Chicago in which I was raised. It is now a black community. The church itself, we discovered last summer as we found out where our Wheaton kids were working in their Pioneer Girl’s Clubs, was, of all things, the very church where Mrs. Danish attended years ago. So now it’s a black church. These girls go every Saturday and run Pioneer Girl’s clubs there. So, Sue goes on and says:

“I always thought that Pioneer Girls and Brigade made the Berean Youth Club program, but that was a wrong assumption. I know now that it is the leaders that make a program work, and all of Berean leaders have been top notch as far as my experience goes. This I name as a blessing from God and thank Him for that. Working as a leader, I now see the other side of the coin. What they give of themselves is more than I ever imagined. The little things they did, not so that they’d have fun, but that we would enjoy ourselves, and experience and grow as God’s children.

“The position of leader is humble and selfless. This is extremely opposite of what I pictured when I was a child. Being a leader was authority, and more or less boastful. As a leader and a teacher, you yourself have to know and experience what you’re telling those little minds. If what you are teaching is not real to you, then how can it be real to them? It is a responsibility that demands a lot, and not some Mickey Mouse position.

“Last night, Sarah and I, along with the other three leaders at Keystone, made a presentation to the church about Pioneer Girls. We had the whole evening service. Talk about nervous! This was a pretty big responsibility and task. During the entire program, I wished that you and all the other people at Berean, that had something to do with my learning growing up celebrating and struggling with Christianity (if that is a good term), could see Sarah and me. You would have seen that you did a good job. There is so much that Sarah are thankful for because of Berean, and these things really show through in our work at Keystone. I appreciate the Berean Youth Clubs and realize that Brigade and Pioneer Girls are just programs, only truly successful when there is good leadership and discernment.

“Another point that I thank God for is the Bible teaching. It is so important what you teach a child, even big kids like me. There is so much that I remember hearing and learning that just gels. Right now, certain absolutes, principals that you accepted and now understand why.

“I just wanted you to know that I am still learning and will keep on learning, and am thankful for the part has played, and is playing, in my growing up. One of your Berean kids, Sue Stalman.”

Well, we thank Sue, and I know you appreciate hearing from her. I think her letter illustrates what it is that we are up against in the satanic warfare that we have been studying together. The one thing that demons are seeking to oppose is spiritual growth in depth in grace through the local church. You may be sure that Satan will do all that he can to weaken and to destroy a local church which is producing people with a storage of Bible doctrine in their human spirits which enables them to be victorious in the spiritual combat in the face of the demonic warfare. The Bible spells out for us very clearly the nature of our enemy. This is important if we are to be able to deal successfully in this warfare.

Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood (we’re not wrestling against human beings), but against principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” These are classifications of demonic beings, orders of demonic beings, various ranks of power. This is the nature of our enemy. It is high time that Christians everywhere came to grips with reality that the demons are here. They are seeking to influence your life. Satan has fantastic capacities. The demonic world has super-human powers. They have great information. They work through human beings, and they have fantastic influence upon believers. Some of you are learning this.

However, I’m happy to remind you that 1 John 4:4 tells us that, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He (God the Holy Spirit) than is he (Satan and his demons) that are in the world.

David Hills

We are living in the intensified stage of the demonic warfare. Their time is short. They don’t intend to give up. We have evidence of this mounting demonic activity through the expression of tongues, miracle healers, and through occultism. There are people who have had experiences with this demonic world. My attention was called to one such man named David Hills this past week. It would be nice if we had him here to speak to us, and to share with us from his unsaved days when he had dabbled in the spirit world, in occultism. How real he found that world that we joke about and have glib little expressions like, “The devil made me do it.” All of which make it seem very unreal. But David Hills, who is in his middle twenties now has traveled the world, and he has moved in some fantastic circles, in the high and the mighty of this world; in the casinos of the Riverias.

One of the things that he pursued was people who knew and had contact with the spirit world. The more he got into it, the more fascinated he became. He went to the fabled places of the earth to learn about contact with the spirit world. Finally, for the climax of his life, he who had been involved on close association with evil expressions such as the Mafia, who lived for period of years in the home of the supreme Don of the Mafia, Joe Bonano. He came to a climax in his life and he met some German friends who had from Hitler’s Germany, but who were spiritists. There was a lot of that in Hitler’s Germany. Hitler himself was undoubtedly a fantastically demon possessed genius. And he found from these people some great new insights, means of contacting the demon world and securing these powers.

His pursuit came to a climax one night when he met with his German friends and they sat across the room from one another practicing telepathy, ESP, transferring thoughts without words from one mind to another, which is a demonic activity. I’d like you to listen to him in his own words describe to you what happened to him that night. OK, fella, will you roll the tape?

“I have heard that if one could reach the fabled locations of the Incas in the Andes of South America, there was where the action is at in this hemisphere. One of the cities there had the distinction of being a citadel of the ancient occult knowledge, the secret knowledge, this hidden knowledge, those ancient mysteries. It was like the regions of Tibet and India and a handful of other locations around the world.

“So, I went to South America, and I lost 30 pounds in the process. I was very ill. But I had to know what was beyond the powers that I had now assimilated and had now access to. You can be sure there are such powers as levitation where by will an individual raises the drum from the ground and has it move elsewhere. There are such things as clairvoyance where one can accurately foretell future events before their occurrence. There are such things as boards with alphabets spread across them saying in the French and the German “Ouija,” that one can address a question to and have it accurately answer the question with the pointer moving by itself. You don’t put your finger on it. There are such things as a spiritual séance where a group of minds in collusion with an unseen power grasp hands, calling for this power and spirit from the dead world to come in; and, literally it does come, and it does speak, and it is, lo and behold, the voice of the departed one, or so it seems to be, and it is as tangible of those of us who are here now—very real.

“But, you see, at the time, I didn’t know the Bible. I didn’t know the sixth chapter of Ephesians where Paul says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood.” It’s not a question of you and I. It’s not a question of communism versus capitalism, or morality versus immorality—no, not at all. No, we don’t deal with each other, “but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” We deal with Lucifer. I didn’t know this in the Andes of Peru and the fabled lost city of the Incas.

It just so happened that I came to know a group of Germans—I say so now with amusement, “It just so happens.” Nothing “just so happens.” These German people claimed to have been refugees from the horror of Hitler. Over the next two weeks that I came to know them better I found that indeed they had in the concentration camps, but they weren’t prisoners. No. No, they were there on an entirely different capacity. These were people who were evil in the sense that words would fail me even now. They were not into witchcraft, or occult sciences, which is just a pretty word for witchcraft.

“They knew a great deal, and I found that we had a great many things in common. So, it was one particular evening that we were practicing that power of self-transference, that conversation that knows no words. One looks an individual in the eyes and communicates with the eyes where a thought, or series of thoughts, or an entire train of thoughts is created in the mind and then encased in the rectangle of natural energy that exists within all of us and is transformed by will to the other mind, and it is accurately received, much the same as the lens of a camera receives the object that it is aimed at. And the individual across the way understands only too clearly what’s happening.

“So, I’m practicing this remarkable conversation where words and facial expressions are not necessary, to a German named Ryan Haud. Then a most peculiar thing happened. His face began to alter itself perceptibly. The eyebrows began to draw up about here. The face began to draw in here. The hairline I had seen was long gone. Guess who was sitting across from me at this time. Oh, you’d never believe it. I could never have believed it, but you see I was much too sophisticated to believe in the existence of the devil. After all, I’d been around the world. I knew the highs and the lows of it all. Who was going to tell me about someone as absurd as the devil? Yet, lo and behold, here he was, sitting across from me, telling me in the very same conversation that knows no words and no facial expressions, that, “Now you’ve seen some of the amazing gifts that I’m passing around in these days, and now it’s time for you to pay.” So, there was the price.

“So, to know the moral of it all with Satan always ultimately demands the same thing. You sell out to him. You fix a deal. You make an arrangement. You sell your soul. You sign it in blood. You become a spirit filled with the evil spirit, a walking talking living disciple carrying the gospel of evil to the world. That’s what it’s all about. You’re a soul winner for Satan. He has counterfeited Christianity from the Bible all the way through every aspect of it. There’s not one original aspect to his nature. Everything about him is a counterfeit.

“So, literally we become soul winners for the devil. And this is what I was faced with now. And I began to watch my will to resist leaving me. And Buddha and Muhammad and Confucius and Marx and Lenin and all of these individuals that I knew infinitely more about were nowhere to help me. Oh, I wanted help, to be sure. I wanted help, but these gentlemen could do nothing for me. So, the grim reality of my entire life was now before me. All of my life I had been serving the destroyer who was very real. He was sitting across from me.

“By faith, I uttered a name that I hadn’t mentioned for perhaps fifteen years because I was much too sophisticated for the devil and much too sophisticated for Christianity. I mean, after all, “Christianity, what a joke.” And yet in the grips of terror and facing Lucifer himself, I began to ask Jesus to help me. Then I began to scream, “Jesus help me.” It was in that instant that the evil one was gone. My will was restored. The ground had returned. I went into a coma-like state, completely exhausted by the experience. I had the overwhelming experience that, indeed, the devil is real. He does exist, and he has powers that are not of this world. But there is a greater power. That power goes by one name, and one name only—Jesus Christ.

“So, I did a remarkable thing. I got out of this remote region of South America. Within 48 hours, and believe me it took some fast traveling to get out of South America and on the floor of my room at home praying for more within 48 hours. It’s not an easy thing to do. But by now I needed the more that He had to offer. And believe me, the devil is a funny fellow. He’ll string you along. But when you begin to step out on him, he comes for you in a fantastically horrible way.

“But the Lord knew the needs of my heart, and instead of taking me, when I got the Bible, to ‘in the beginning,’ He took me to ‘greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.’ So now I had a promise that I could claim forever and ever.”

OK, thank you fellas.

Now I hope you were able to follow that. Mr. Hills has been a Christian for something less than a year. Some of you may have seen him on the platform at the Billy Graham meetings here at the crusade. But this is the grim reality of somebody who has actually delved deeply into the spirit world, and who has come up with a real genuine confrontation. So, what we’re talking about is real. And this is the information that you and I are now going to be dealing with relative to yourselves. I remind you again that any act, the Bible says, of negative volition on your part is equated by God to demonism. That’s a fantastic declaration of Scripture. Any negative volition on your part is going to be for three things: You are going to be resistant to teaching, to teacher, or to technique (what the group is doing).

So, let’s learn how Satan operates. Let’s learn how he is related to you as Christians. What I’m trying to say is don’t think we are talking only about unbelievers, the idol worshippers, the sex cults, and the people who are not at all associated with you in the things of the Lord. We’re talking about the believers who come under the dominance of satanic influence.

First of all, believers cannot be possessed by demons, as we’ve already indicated. 1 Corinthians 6:19 say, “What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom ye have of God, and ye are not your own.” A believer can come under varying degrees of demonic influence, but he cannot be indwelt or possessed by a demon. A Christian will come under demonic influence as a result of spiritual callouses which he builds up on the facets of his soul through negative volition. Negative volition is a fantastically frightful thing. This is the first stage to demonic influence on the part of a Christian. If you are negative to teaching, teacher, or technique toward which God is positive, you’ve had it. If you ever move away from a ministry that God is positive toward, and you have become negative toward, God help you. You’ve had it.

Negative volition, God says, is the same as demonism, and demonism carries the death penalty. This influence is a result upon Christian because of negative volition. It creates a spiritual vacuum, and as 1 Timothy 4:1 then indicates, it draws in doctrines of demons which influence the facets of our soul.

So, a Christian can be noted for wide emotional swings, for irrationally resisting the plan of God, and for being attracted to the occult. The Christian is overwhelmed then with restlessness, and he sublimates. He substitutes with drugs, with sex, with alcohol, with ecstatics such as tongues, with ambitions that he pursues in various actions, with legalistic living, and with sweetness and light attitudes. All of these are substitutes. They cover up for the fact the he is engaged in the demonic activity of negative volition, and his soul has become calloused. This kind of a believer is very dangerous in the local church. He’s a troublemaker because he’s under demon influence, and he talks contention. He has a vocabulary and the concepts that convey spirituality even though he’s negative. So, he leads the weak astray. He discourages. He hurts others. There’s a hard quality about him—a heartless quality about the demon influenced believer who’s calloused in his soul through negative volition toward teaching, teacher, or technique.

He is usually a very attractive type. He can even convey a spirit of selfless devotion in the form of human good which is under the demon control operating out of his old sin nature. These are the Christians who are the casualties in the angelic warfare, and these Christians are all around us.

There are two type of demon possession that we want to look at first of all this morning. Type number one is active submission. Deliberate steps are taken to detach the soul from the body, to give the soul to Satan in exchange for some superhuman powers. There are various ways to give your soul to Satan, including the ultimate of signing it in blood. Those who have shared the secrets are those who have entered into pacts of understanding with the spirit world such as you just heard on the tape excerpt.

Demon possession operates on the faculties of the soul, and they are expressed through the body. In active submission, it will hit the mind. What happens to the mind? Well the self-awareness is blanked out. A person who is a believer who is under demon influence by active willingness is a believer conscious of what he does, but he focuses on what he’s doing and on what he wants, and he focuses on those things apart from any sense of morality, from any understanding or relationship or acting upon doctrine, on spirituality, indifferent to its influence upon others or to the plan of God. He focuses on his desires when he’s under demon influence, and nothing else counts. If he’s an unbeliever, he may be conscious, but he’s not aware of the implications of his actions because his mind, his self-awareness has been taken over by Satan.

The will is also affected in active demon submission. The soul operates outside of its own volition, so the person is capable of fantastic atrocities. This is what happens in the tongues movement. Here the vocal cords are taken over by the ventriloquist-type demons who then are able to speak through the believer or through the unbeliever. The emotions are also struck. What happens to the emotions under demonic possession and influence of active submission? The emotions go into ecstatics—tongues, sexual perversion. The same thing occurs whether in primitive societies or in civilized societies. Tongues is an expression again of ecstatics of demonic influence. The conscience is struck with legalism and with human good values.

What we’re talking about here is active submission, a disembodied spirit condition, so that the soul can be projected from the body. There are various ways that the demonic world has of separating the soul from the body. Some of the techniques are: yoga; meditation—into nirvana, to seek to become one with the mind of the universe; and, the fakers of India who can do those fantastic physical feats (who do it because the soul is projected out of the body).

Another technique for separating the soul from the body is through the use of drugs (Since ancient times, drugs have been used to bring about demon possession. Today it’s LSD. LSD produces a fantastic demonic possession, and it can be deliberately done. The man that we listened to on tape has quite a testimony on that. Some 160 times he took LSD trips to get full demonic possession of his being. Marijuana is a big debate, and I will observe in passing that whatever the facts may be concerning the physical effects of marijuana, it is bad on the soul. So, don’t be a fool to think that marijuana is alright, it’s not addictive, and all the other things you’re hearing. It is destructive to the soul as any drug is because it is a technique for satanic possession.

Our bodies house our souls. Our souls are to be the fortresses of our bodies. Unless our souls have a flow of doctrine into them, they cannot be that fortress. Spiritual maturity is the key to demon opposition. That’s why it’s important to know how to grow up spiritually and how to develop the facets of that structure.

There’s another way to become demon possessed, and that is passive submission. You just float into it. In this category comes the influence upon most Christians who just drift into demon influence. This is accomplished, for one thing, through idol worship. Behind every idol is a demon god. Certain kinds of dancing lend themselves to passive submission—the whirling dervish type. The gyrating to a wild beat opposite a partner. Dancing has always been associated with idolatry because it is a step in passively succumbing to the demon power. The body comes under the soul’s control and the demon has control of the soul. When you dance to an idol, it’s an act of worship which indicates submission to the demon. It’s the same with the sex act which is performed in connection with demon idol worship. The modern dance, you can readily see, opens the door to demon influence, if not possessions.

Drugs, mesmerism, is another means of coming under demon influence passively. Mind over matter, self-hypnosis. Hypnosis is another means of coming under demon influence and possession. There are specific means to coming under demon possession—demon possession, actively entered.

Idolatry

Number one (the first means of coming under demon possession) is through idolatry. A person can become demon possessed through idolatry. Idol worshipers are exposed to this. When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek (which is called the Septuagint version), the translators recognized that certain words connoted certain meanings, and the Greek translation reflects this. There is in the Hebrew the word “Elohim” which is translated in the Greek Septuagint (which generally has the symbol the “LXX”—the Roman numeral for 70—as the symbol for the Septuagint version); there this word is translated as the Greek as the word “demonia,” which is the Greek word for demon.

For example, in Psalm 96:5 you get a totally different impact when you read the word translated in its background meaning. Psalm 96:5 says, “For all the gods of the nations are idols. But the Lord made the heavens.” Now this is the word here, “idols,” in Hebrew. The Septuagint reveals what the meaning of the “idols” is, and that is “demon.” So, the verse is saying, “For all the gods (the idol gods) of the nations are demons.” Demons are associated with every idol. All the national gods are therefore demon gods. Idol worship is demon worship. It’s not such an irrational act. When people worship these dumb things of wood and stone that they made, they’re really worshipping in reality the god who is behind it.

When the children of Israel were led out of Egypt, Numbers 33:4 indicates to us that the judgment of the firstborn was also a judgment upon the gods of Egypt—the idol gods. They were real. Numbers 33:4 says, “For the Egyptians buried all their firstborn which the Lord had smitten among them. Upon their gods also the Lord also executed judgment.” Behind all of these national gods are demons in reality. Exodus 12:12 includes the firstborn of animals dying upon judgment of Egypt’s gods. Why? Because demons very often possess animals, and bestiality is expressed through animal possessed by demons.

Leviticus 17:7 speaks about satyrs. If you know your mythology, a satyr was a half-creature—half goat (four-legged or two-legged) and half-man. Images of these were worshipped. What was it that was being worshipped? Leviticus 17:7 says, “And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto demons after whom they have played the harlot. This shall be a statute forever unto them throughout their generations.” The Hebrew word for “demons” there means “the hairy one.” Again, in the Septuagint translation, they put the word “demons” here. When you are worshipping a satyr, you are worshipping a full-blown demon. Isaiah portrays these demon satyrs as dancing in the rooms of Babylon (Isaiah 13:21, 34:14). They’re mythological creatures, half-man and half-goat. You pass them off and you laugh at them. But if you read the stories of mythology, what does the satyr stand for? Another big factor that is involved in idol worship and demon possession. The satyr represented unmitigated expression of unrestrained sex in every perverted bestial expression.

1 Corinthians 10:16-21

So, the gods of mythology are indeed seen to be demon gods. Idol worship is a counterfeit by Satan of the Lord’s communion table. If you’ll turn to 1 Corinthians 10 for a moment, verse 19. 1 Corinthians 10, beginning at verse 19. We see how Satan has produced a false community. Let’s begin reading at verse 16. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Chris?” The word cup here is a symbol of the work of Christ on the cross in His spiritual death for us. Inside this cup were all the sins of the world poured out upon Jesus Christ on the cross. So, the sins of the world were poured out on Him, and they became a part of Jesus Christ. For this reason, the Father imposed spiritual death upon Him on the cross.

“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Chris?” Remember that in the Old Testament, they had animal sacrifices. The blood of the animal was poured out because, instead of the animal, his life was in the blood. Therefore, symbolically to portray that this animal, an unblemished animal—signifying that it as innocent, that this animal was giving his innocent life in behalf of the sinner, his life was poured out by the blood being shed.

This is an analogy which represents the spiritual of death on the cross. It is the spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the cross that is the crucial thing. It is not so much his bleeding. He didn’t die by bleeding to death. He bled a little bit when they put the nails in His hands and into His feet, but the wounds coagulated and the bleeding stopped, obviously, because He was there for six hours on the cross. When He was dead, and it usually several hours if not days for a person by crucifixion to die. They were amazed when they walked up to Jesus to break His legs in order to spur death that He was already dead. In order to verify it, the soldier put the spear into His side, and out came serum and blood. When a person dies, His blood begins turning into water serum. This indicated that Jesus Christ was definitively dead, but His blood was mostly in His body.

So, when it speaks about the blood of Christ, as in 1 John 1:9 (washing away our sins, and so on), it is using that Old Testament analogy of life, innocent life given for guilty life. That is the point of the blood. It is an analogy of the spiritual death of Christ, comparing it to the Old Testament animal sacrifices. When we get here to the upper room, the Lord’s Supper is instituted, and the reference is to our communion to the blood of Christ, which is represented by the wine. (Incidentally, the wind was not alcoholic because they used non-alcoholic wine at the Passover, since it was boiled wine, since fermentation is a process of leaven, and leaven is a symbol of evil. Therefore, as the bread was free of leaven, so the wine was. So, there was no alcoholic wine used in the Lord’s Supper.)

The bread here stands for the person of Jesus Christ, the unique God-man. The blood stands for His spiritual death upon the cross. So, verse 16 says, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ (His spiritual death upon the cross that we’re remembering)? “… and the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” This is the unique God-man that He was, with the emphasis on His humanity. He had to be a member of the human race in order to qualify for us.

Verse 17 says, “For we being man (believers in the church age) are one bread (we’re all in union with Jesus Christ), for we are all partakers of one bread (united to Christ). Behold Israel after the flesh: Are not they who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” The sacrifices here are the Levitical offerings. The priests partook of these offerings that they offered to God. They had a part of it that they ate, and thus were identified by that eating with the God of that altar. The Jews had animal which anticipated what Christ was to do on the cross. Now we have the Lord’s Supper which looks back to that act.

Verse 19 says, “What say I then?” Here’s our idolatry. “… That the idol is anything or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything?” And the implication here is, “No.” That piece of wood, that piece of stone, that piece of metal that is made into an idol is nothing. But notice the line of thought here. When that priest ate of the sacrifices of the Levitical offerings, he was identifying himself with Jehovah God. He could not eat of the sacrifices that had been offered to that God and not identify himself with that God.

By the same token, verse 20 explains the problem with idolatry. “But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God. And I would not that ye should have fellowship with demons. Every time an idol is worshipped with an offering of some kind, it is being offered to the demon behind that idol. The worshipper always comes under the influence of that demon. If he’s an unbeliever, it may be full possession.

So, fellowship with idols is forbidden. The apostle John says specifically, “Little children, avoid the idols. Do not worship the idols.” Verse 21 says, “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.” You cannot be under God’s influence and under demons’ influence at the same time. You cannot be partakers of the Lord’s Table and the table of demons. This is Satan’s false counterfeit communion table. Christians are engaged in demonic practices today. Tongues, healings, occultism, they’re all out of fellowship with God, and it’s because they are worshipping at the demons’ communion table. That’s what led them into that to begin with.

Deuteronomy 32:16-20

There are various systems for contacting demons, but God says you are to have nothing to do with it. Idolatry, you will remember, was a major problem for the Jewish people. Idolatry brought national destruction to the Jews. If you’ll turn for just a moment to Deuteronomy 32:16, you will understand why God looked upon idolatry with such seriousness that he imposed the death penalty upon anybody who was involved with idol worship because it was the same as demon worship. Beginning with verse 16, “They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods.” Strange gods are demons. “With abominations they provoked Him to anger.” The word “abomination” here refers to those phallic cults that we looked at last week with the three objects involved in the groves, around the hills, in the worship of the demonic gods in the process of the phallic cults: the nude Venus, the Baal figure sitting atop a furnace into which the offerings were cast; and, the phallus, the male sex organ for auto-erotism. These three objects were at the center of the phallic cult worship.

This is what he means by abominations. These are the Jewish people who have been given a victorious exit out of Egypt from under the control of the Pharaoh and the demonic gods of Egypt, and this is what they turn around and do to the God who informed them.

Verse 17 says, “They sacrificed unto demons.” Not to God. When they came into Canaan they sacrificed to the idol gods they found there, including the Baal worship. “… to gods they knew not, to new gods who came up newly to whom their fathers knew not.” They were ready to take up these gods as one would take up a fad.

Verse 18 says, “… of the rock that begot thee, thou art unmindful and has forgotten God who formed thee.” Demonism led them away from the God that actually created them. This is what all occult participation does. If you go fooling with the horoscopes and with the astrology and with the séances and with the witchcraft and that which has to do with occultism, it will lead you away from God. It inevitably has that result.

Verse 19 says, “And when the Lord saw it, He abhorred them because of the provoking of His sons and His daughters.” He abhorred the conduct of the Exodus generation and the influence which it had upon their own children.

Verse 20 says, “And He said, ‘I will hide my face from them. I shall see what their end shall be for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faith.’” The result was that God turned from the Jewish people and sent them into destruction.

In Leviticus 20, therefore, verse 27, we have the declaration as to what is to be done to anybody who participates in demon worship or demon contact. Leviticus 20:27 says, “A man also or a woman who hath a familiar spirit (that is, demon possessed), or who is a wizard (a male fortune teller) shall surely be put to death. They shall stone them with stones and their blood shall be upon them.” You will notice that it could be a man or it could be a woman, but it was viewed as worthy of the death penalty. When it says “their blood shall be upon them,” it indicates that there was personal volition involved in the matter.

They personally made this choice, and nobody can come under demon possession, and no Christian can come under demon influence except by your own particular choice. You have to very definitely go negative to the Word of God. You have to go negative toward the sources of communication of God’s Word before demon influence can move in or demon possession can take hold of an unbeliever. It is viewed by God as very dangerous to the spiritual and soulish and physical well-being of the Jewish nation. Why? Because demon influence can lead a nation astray, but demon possession will very quickly destroy the nation.

That’s what the United States faces today. As we go along in this, you will see more and more the techniques for demon possession are being widely practiced in this country today. The evidences of demon possession are fantastically in evidence. It’s one thing for a nation to be influenced by demons. It is the kiss of death for a nation to be possessed and indwelt by a demon.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1971

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