Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 666 ｜ Confronting the Occult, Demonic Symbolism & Witchcraft ｜ Guests： Jeremiah Roberts & Andrew Soncrant (Cultish)

00:00:00.000 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities,

00:00:06.040 against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of

00:00:12.820 evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to

00:00:18.820 withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. That's Ephesians 6, 12 through 13.

00:00:26.000 Well, what are these cosmic powers? What does this present darkness look like? Who are the

00:00:33.040 spiritual forces of evil? Is it obvious demonic possession? Is it in the signs and symbols

00:00:39.620 covertly shown in shows, on children's toys, by celebrities, in music videos? What about the

00:00:46.000 seemingly innocent things? Yoga, Enneagram, self-help? What role do the new age and modern day

00:00:52.660 witchcraft play here? And how focused should Christians be on this? Is it possible to be

00:00:59.060 too careful, too paranoid? How does the goodness of God, the gospel of Christ, help us discern in

00:01:06.080 a healthy way between good and evil, the things of God and the things of Satan? Well, we will get

00:01:13.020 into all of this today, episode 666 of Relatable, with the hosts of Cultish, Jeremiah Roberts and

00:01:19.520 Andrew Sondkrant. Their podcast explores the impacts of cults from a theological, sociological,

00:01:26.660 and psychological perspective. If you haven't listened to their podcast, I highly recommend it.

00:01:31.420 They've got a lot of insight into this realm today. You are going to love it. As always,

00:01:36.740 this episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com

00:01:41.680 slash alley for a discount. That's goodranchers.com slash alley.

00:01:55.340 Jeremiah, Andrew, thank you so much for joining us. Jeremiah, if you could tell us a little bit

00:02:00.340 about Cultish and why you guys started this podcast. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you so much for having

00:02:06.980 us on. So Cultish started roughly about four years ago, and it came as a byproduct of the church that

00:02:13.720 we attend. You've had Jeff Durbin on your show before. He is our pastor, and he also oversees

00:02:19.400 the studio that we are a part of. We've had a long extended history of just doing outreach and

00:02:24.500 ministry to the world of the cults. And so Jeff had the idea a couple of years ago about having a

00:02:29.540 ministry section of our church that was strictly focused on outreach to the cults,

00:02:34.600 and Cultish came out as a byproduct of that. And it's been amazing. We've covered a lot of

00:02:39.440 broad variety of topics, everything from different aspects of the New Age, the occult that we're going

00:02:45.100 to talk about today, everything from Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientology, Mormonism, just a broad

00:02:52.100 variety of topics. So it's been a real, it's just been amazing so far, all the people we've been able

00:02:57.260 to talk to. Andrew, tell me a little bit about Cultish. What have you loved about it as it has

00:03:04.120 developed as a podcast, as all podcasts do? Is there anything that you have learned in your time

00:03:09.080 of studying and talking about cults? Yeah, what I love most about Cultish is when we get those

00:03:14.700 messages from people who tell us that they have come out of a cult or that Cultish in some way has

00:03:21.720 helped them actually notice that they're in a cult and then they get out. Because as the late and

00:03:25.600 great Dr. Walter Martin said, he says, I love you, you're in a cult, I want you out of it and with

00:03:30.780 Christ. So that's the main purpose is for people to come out of these false assemblies and come into

00:03:35.320 a relationship with the true and living God, who is Jesus Christ, the eternal God who took on flesh

00:03:39.720 and died on the cross for our sins. So within all the research that I've done for Cultish, what I find

00:03:44.720 the most amazing is the fact that the Bible, right, is our sole infallible rule of faith and practice.

00:03:50.240 We have it all in the word of God. And when you look in research and go to cults or many other false

00:03:57.020 beliefs is that there's always some type of external standard that they have to rely on other

00:04:02.120 than the Bible, but they always, these standards always fall short, right? Like the Bible has all

00:04:06.960 the answers that we need in order to have peace with God through our relationship with Jesus Christ.

00:04:11.880 So I think that's the most beautiful thing for me is actually through Cultish, I've even developed a

00:04:15.960 more personal relationship with the Lord throughout Cultish. So I think that's an amazing thing.

00:04:20.960 And Andrew, is that the technical definition of a cult, what you just described, or there's

00:04:26.760 some other aspects of it that people could kind of look at and recognize, oh yeah, those are the

00:04:32.400 telltale signs of a cult? Absolutely. So there's two different ways to look at it. We like to go

00:04:39.760 through Dr. Walter Martin's definition of a cult, which is any group or person, central leader who has

00:04:46.120 a misinterpretation of Jesus Christ and the Bible, but there's also other ways to look at it in terms

00:04:52.180 of, we can go to secular people like Steve Hassan or Hassan, however you want to pronounce his last

00:04:57.380 name, but we can think of the bite model, behavior control, information control, thought control,

00:05:02.780 and emotional control. So we can look at certain groups and situations to how information is being

00:05:09.080 fed to them, whether it be through one central leader or organization that is controlling those

00:05:15.100 aspects of their lives, which is typically a manipulation for a person to not think for

00:05:19.700 themselves, but to actually replace their personal identity with the identity of their leader.

00:05:24.360 Whereas with Christianity, biblical Christianity, we can actually know truly who ourselves are through

00:05:30.580 the right relationship of Jesus Christ, because it takes us from a fallen state in Adam to a

00:05:35.080 relationship with God, in which now that we can actually understand what it means to be human and

00:05:39.680 how to think biblically and to think critically about the world around us. Whereas cults don't allow you

00:05:44.580 to think critically, you actually just have to, you know, obey without question.

00:05:50.020 And Jeremiah, what is the difference between a cult and a cult? O-C-C-U-L-T.

00:05:57.060 Right. So Walter Martin, we mentioned he was the original Bible answer man. He was somebody that

00:06:02.260 really laid a pioneer. He really pioneered Christian apologetics in regards to cult,

00:06:07.180 the cults and the occult. So two of his books I'd recommend, one is Kingdom of the Cults,

00:06:12.080 and there's another book, Kingdom of the Occult. And so again, Andrew's definition is the one that

00:06:18.820 we would write to, just usually you would have a charismatic figure or an organization centralized

00:06:24.220 around a misinterpretation of the Bible and ultimately a misinterpretation of who Jesus Christ

00:06:30.760 is. But as far as the occult goes, that really comes from the Latin definition occultus, which

00:06:36.580 really just means secret, hidden things. And so when you look at the world of the occult,

00:06:41.400 what you're looking at is really ancient, the mythology of the ancient world. And so a lot

00:06:47.320 of times when it's repackaged, that's the definition for the new age. But usually it's different

00:06:52.060 spiritual practices, whether it's transcendental meditation, practicing with tarot cards, yoga,

00:06:58.720 playing with Ouija boards. It's a lot of broad variety of spiritual practice. But the purpose

00:07:03.200 of the occult is to be able to access or tap into spiritual dimensions to be able to attain secret,

00:07:10.320 esoteric, hidden knowledge. And there's a, the God is very explicit about saying, do not answer

00:07:17.260 into those dimensions because it's spiritually dangerous, one for yourself, but you don't have

00:07:21.420 control over what comes out from the other side. And if we've been able to interview extensive people

00:07:27.140 who have, people with extensive backgrounds in the new age, people like Doreen Virtue. We've had other

00:07:32.320 people who are involved in Burning Man and a lot of other strange spiritual practices, and they've

00:07:37.940 been able to share their experiences that really affirm what scripture says about the heavenly places,

00:07:44.680 because the Bible is a dimensional book, both physical and spiritual.

00:07:49.000 Yeah. Andrew, do you have anything to add to that?

00:07:51.920 Oh, no. Yeah, absolutely. I'd have to just second with Jeremiah here is that we have

00:07:56.460 magic divination, sorcery condemned in the Bible in Deuteronomy chapter 18. It says,

00:08:01.800 there shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering,

00:08:06.500 anyone who practice divination or tells fortunes or interpret omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or

00:08:11.040 a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead. Whoever does these things is an

00:08:15.440 abomination to the Lord. See how God actually puts this on the same level as child sacrifice,

00:08:20.120 which is extremely interesting. But we can also think of sorcery, divination, magic, the occult in

00:08:26.140 a way to manipulate or get a one uppance in the world through supernatural means,

00:08:29.920 typically through objects and tools like incantations, spells, rites, rituals, etc. Just

00:08:36.360 add on to that a little bit. So there's this interesting article from Vice, and it's not

00:08:41.760 brand new, but it's still recent. And it's titled Manifesting is Gen Z's Answer to New Age Spirituality.

00:08:50.660 And apparently this is a trend on TikTok. And so there are a lot of videos about conjuring up

00:08:55.720 someone from your past, or making money, you know, manifesting a certain type of success,

00:09:01.540 manifesting in the shower, because water is a powerful medium to help you shift your timeline.

00:09:08.020 And they mostly focus on having everything. And then there was another report very similar from

00:09:14.180 the National Catholic Reporter saying that they are, or Gen Z is really embracing things like tarot cards

00:09:21.620 in exchange for traditional faith. And you know, I think a lot of people see that and they're like,

00:09:26.720 oh, yeah, that's witchcraft, that's bad. But it really reminds me also of a lot of what is in kind

00:09:32.840 of self help for women kind of manifesting the life that you want, and like thinking and believing

00:09:39.640 something to be true so that it comes true in your life, whether it's a relationship, losing weight,

00:09:46.040 health, wealth, those kinds of things. And so it seems like this is a little bit more ubiquitous than

00:09:52.420 maybe what we've traditionally thought of when we think about the occult, like just crazy kind of

00:09:57.420 witches in their, you know, in in their little, what is it a coven, you know, casting spells on

00:10:05.020 people. It's kind of like within pop culture. Now it's all over TikTok. I mean, Jeremiah, what do you

00:10:10.320 think about that? Yeah, so first of all, if you when you just think about the world of TikTok, so one of

00:10:15.920 the trending hashtags on TikTok is witch talk, and the amount of views, individual pieces of content

00:10:22.660 just under the hashtag witch talk is just a little over 30 billion. That's how much content just in that

00:10:29.760 one hashtag alone. So what I want to just do real quickly is that a lot of times when we're looking at

00:10:35.620 something like the occult, the new age, it's very easy to sensationalize it. We're usually we're usually

00:10:41.700 viewing that through the lens of a television show like stranger things, or you're looking at these

00:10:45.860 articles or these extreme examples. And we tend to look at all these issues separately, when they're

00:10:51.020 really symptoms of something a lot larger. So I believe that right now, given where we are, and I

00:10:56.500 think it's related to a lot of what you talk about on your show, Allie, is that we are kind of we're

00:11:02.880 currently transitioning, sort of going through a spiritual great reset of sorts, going from a Judeo-Christian

00:11:10.020 society to a neo-paganism, a neo-pagan post-modern society. And when the Apostle Paul, he was dealing with a

00:11:18.680 very similar environment when he was going out, talking to all and administering to all of the different

00:11:24.340 pagan worlds of his time and pagan worldviews. And he gives something that's very specific. He talks about the

00:11:31.360 contrast of two worldviews. There's one-ism, and then there's two-ism. And so one-ism is a worldview

00:11:38.320 that says that all is one, all is self. There's no distinction between creator and creation. Then

00:11:44.920 you versus the biblical worldview, which is two-ism, where there's a distinction between the creator

00:11:50.640 and the creation. And so in Romans chapter one, Paul is giving his whole thesis on paganism in the

00:11:56.980 ancient world. And one of the things that he talks about is that once this happens, there's a whole

00:12:03.260 process. People exchange the truth of God for a lie, and then they end up worshiping the creator.

00:12:09.320 I'm sorry, they end up worshiping the creation rather than the creator. And then as an immediate

00:12:14.500 byproduct of that, God gives them over to a debased mind. And then you see an immediate distortion

00:12:20.880 of God's created order of the masculine and feminine. And so what you're really looking at

00:12:26.320 is just a conflict of worldviews between one-ism, two-ism, as we look into all of that. So I think

00:12:34.020 that's very, very important to unravel because that actually ties right in with the conversation

00:12:40.820 too, just about feminism, the cultural zeitgeist, and what the appeal is of the new ways, because

00:12:45.600 we're in the middle of that right now. Andrew, did you have anything you wanted to add to that?

00:12:49.940 Yeah, I think the most important thing to understand is that there's nothing new under

00:12:55.120 the sun, right? When we think of self-help, self-care, or even time to understand yourself

00:13:01.180 or this type of manifestation that goes on. I mean, I came out of corporate America. I'm full-time

00:13:05.800 ministry right now. I mean, it's even in our corporations. There's been this idea that you can

00:13:10.300 separate these things from worldview. I think it's a very atheistic form of thinking, thinking that

00:13:16.560 there is no God in general, but you can do these practices without understanding the worldview that's

00:13:21.400 behind them. Of course, we have people who come into these practices coming from, maybe coming from

00:13:27.120 abused situations in churches or people who have atheistic parents now searching for spirituality.

00:13:33.860 But what's really important to understand is there is actually a worldview behind this whole self-help

00:13:41.280 manifestation culture. And it's nothing new under the sun. It goes back to even ancient Egyptian

00:13:46.960 religion, Babylonian religion. It's hermetic philosophy in general. But most people who

00:13:52.800 practice these things don't actually understand the history behind it.

00:13:57.020 Andrew, I got a lot of questions from people when I asked, what questions do you have about the

00:14:14.040 occult and even demonic activity? And one question that I got over and over again was how much stock

00:14:21.400 should we give to symbols and to signs that seem to be secretly portrayed in music videos or by certain

00:14:30.480 celebrities or politicians? I mean, I know this. I think this typically happens more on the right

00:14:36.720 than the left. I mean, I know people whose whole Instagram accounts are dedicated to kind of seeking

00:14:44.620 out these different symbols, whether it's the seeing eye or whether it's an owl. I mean, things I've never

00:14:50.600 heard of before, or they'll claim that certain color combinations are demonic and kind of signal

00:14:57.260 like worship of Satan. So like how concerned should people be about these certain signs, whether it's

00:15:04.440 on their children's toys or like the people they follow? Is there any credibility to that whatsoever?

00:15:11.420 Is there any truth to it?

00:15:13.420 Right, right. So this is the way I would like to think about it. First, I would like to say if you're

00:15:18.740 a Christian, regardless if you're a Christian or not, Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of

00:15:23.480 Lords. So your first actual thought should be on Jesus and who he is. So Colossians chapter two says

00:15:28.460 this, and I'm going to read this chapter two, verses eight through 15. It says, see to it that

00:15:32.420 no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to

00:15:36.340 the elemental spirits of the world, not according to Christ. For in him, the fullness of DD dwells bodily

00:15:41.640 and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority in him. Also, you were

00:15:45.900 circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. Continuing on, it states, and you who

00:15:51.180 were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him,

00:15:55.580 having forgiven us all of our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against

00:15:59.680 us with its legal demands. This he set aside nearly to the cross. And here's the clincher.

00:16:03.380 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

00:16:08.680 So first you need to set your relationship on Christ, not focus too much on signs and symbols.

00:16:13.820 Christ has already conquered over them. If these things take you away from your relationship

00:16:18.840 with Christ, you are falling prey to the elemental spirits of the world. None of these things can

00:16:23.640 stop Christ and his kingdom from continuing to grow, number one. But there are things that people

00:16:30.040 dwell on specifically when looking at signs and symbols. I would say don't focus too much on those

00:16:36.160 things, but look at the worldview that's being propagated from these sources. If the music that

00:16:40.660 your children is listening to is leading them to debauchery, there's a reason why, right? Take them

00:16:46.060 away from it. I try not to find meaning in signs and symbols through the things around me, but instead

00:16:51.900 focus on Christ and what God's word says, how we can separate the bad from the good with regards to

00:16:59.200 morality being, you know, an objective standard that we have through the word of God, really.

00:17:03.340 Right, right. And Jeremiah, do you have anything to add to that about signs and symbols?

00:17:09.820 Yeah. I mean, I think when you look at the world of the occult, I mean, you look, you have all the

00:17:14.320 different sides. You have the all seeing eye, you have people that are covering one eye to doing some

00:17:18.740 sort of Illuminati sign. And I think there is a lot of shortcomings when it comes to trying to use

00:17:25.840 discernment, when it's pin the Masonic sign or pin the symbol on somebody and to say, oh, this is—like,

00:17:33.880 they're believing this or teaching this, because what you're actually doing is those symbols come

00:17:39.300 from a worldview where it's all looking into secret, esoteric, hidden knowledge. And so I think

00:17:45.860 there is a danger when you try and mirror that exact worldview of esoteric, secretive knowledge,

00:17:52.220 because when you look at the Christian worldview, it's an open ministry. That was the contrast

00:17:59.240 between Christianity and even all the Gnostic religions of the earlier days. People were always

00:18:03.200 trying to say, no, I have the secret, hidden knowledge that you need to look to me to, where

00:18:08.780 in contrast, Jesus said, everything I've done openly, I've always taught openly in public in the

00:18:14.200 synagogues. In synagogues, I've done nothing in secret. And that's what every single cult does.

00:18:19.000 That's what the realm of the occult does. They always revel in secret, hidden, private,

00:18:24.360 esoteric revelation. So when you actually are looking at the world around you, for example,

00:18:29.280 I just had—there's a friend of mine, Miss Titus. She's a YouTube influencer. She did a video

00:18:33.860 critiquing Beyonce's church girl. Now, there are people who would talk about Jay-Z and Beyonce and

00:18:40.540 their affiliations when they're doing the Illuminati and talking about those affiliations. But at the end of

00:18:45.780 day, the best way to critique people like that is to compare what they are contrasting with

00:18:51.280 Scripture. So my friend, Miss Titus, what she did is she took Beyonce's lyrics line by line

00:18:58.200 and critiqued it against Scripture. And I think that's ultimately the lens in which we should view

00:19:03.400 everything, the world and medium, how we talk to each other, how we relate to each other,

00:19:07.700 how we love our neighbor. But even how we deal with the spiritual realm, the lens that we have,

00:19:14.300 because we can't see the unseen realm with our naked eye, the realm—the lens that we have as

00:19:18.800 Christians is the lens of Scripture. And that's the measuring point to judge all things in all

00:19:24.100 worldviews, whether it's the cult, whether it's the occult, or even any of the entertainment shows

00:19:28.400 that you see as well, too, things like Stranger Things, Doctor Strange. You need to be able to

00:19:32.640 understand what are they depicting in that worldview, and how do we measure that by Scripture?

00:19:36.460 Yeah, that's a really good point. And y'all are kind of making me realize that even though I think

00:19:40.780 a lot of the people who are trying to look for those hidden messages and music videos and different

00:19:45.980 brands and things, they probably mean well, and maybe they feel like they are trying to help people

00:19:50.760 be discerning. But as both of you pointed out, the really obvious contradictions between God's Word

00:19:56.660 and what a lot of these celebrities and brands and musicians are doing are already there. They're

00:20:02.100 already observable, and they're also more important. So I think that symbol-seeking can be a distraction

00:20:09.420 also from actually just discerning between what the world is doing and what God's Word says,

00:20:16.340 which is both of you are saying that is far more important. People can kind of get themselves all

00:20:22.320 wound up looking for different, you know, possibly demonic color combinations and, you know, the different

00:20:28.840 influencers that they follow and miss that they need to be discerning between what is harmful or

00:20:35.840 what is sinful and what is actually glorifying to God, which is the much more important mission.

00:20:41.700 Now, if you have anything to add to that, feel free, Andrew or Jeremiah, but I was going to also

00:20:46.960 transition to demonic oppression, but go ahead.

00:20:49.280 Yeah, but I was just going to also add to that one of the most important things to consider when you're

00:20:54.780 looking at the world of the occult, and especially when it comes to people who try and practice

00:21:00.980 quote-unquote discernment but using symbolism, because it's very subjective, it's very arbitrary,

00:21:08.380 when in fact as Christians' biblical law and God's standards of accusations that you have to have two

00:21:14.440 to three independent lines of testimony and witness in order to formulate an accusation. And so there are a

00:21:21.140 lot of times where people have made accusations against our podcast just saying that somehow

00:21:26.360 we're secretly Freemasons just because of, you know, there's one angle where I turn my head left

00:21:32.460 and there's a slight shadow that went over my eye and so therefore that's how people believe that

00:21:37.460 somehow we're Illuminati. And there are people who live in that world, but I think it's also something

00:21:43.020 just to understand that people who do come out of the new age, they tend to have that mindset just

00:21:50.580 because when you're in the new age, you have this level of confidence that you know so much that

00:21:55.800 you are in the know. And all of a sudden, when someone who's heavily into the new age, whatever

00:22:01.980 it is, when they come to Christ, they come to this realization that, no, what I was into, and there's

00:22:08.560 things that I saw that I should not have seen, this was all satanic deception. And so I think what

00:22:15.060 happens as a byproduct, they tend to swing over to the other, to do a heavy pendulum swing, where

00:22:21.920 it's, it's almost a level of reverse pantheism, where they think the devil is in everything.

00:22:27.220 And this is not, this is not to mock or to write them. This is just, it's just my experience.

00:22:33.280 I want to be able to help these people and help disciple these people. And we want, and that's part of

00:22:37.980 our ministry too, is that we want to be able to help resources for, so people who come out of the

00:22:42.940 new age or any cult, you want to also help them get solid planting as well too. But it is very,

00:22:49.420 you need to be very, very careful with how, when you look at the different, whether it's a Masonic

00:22:55.000 symbol, a pentagram, it's a lot of those things do have meaning, but they have their place and you

00:23:00.680 have to be careful not to leave the cart before the horse. Yeah. And some of them are obvious. I think

00:23:05.220 like Converse was one who did like a very obviously satanic symbol and that was clearly like their

00:23:13.560 motivation behind it. They weren't hiding it. But I think I, I, or a conference I was a part of was

00:23:19.500 accused of something like that, that you were talking about, you know, you were accused of being

00:23:23.480 the Illuminati because of a shadow, because we were, a lot of us wore pink and black because we kind

00:23:29.560 of all decided it was a women's conference. And we thought that that was, and you know, some people

00:23:33.740 thought that that's satanic when really it's just like, Oh, that color combination is cute.

00:23:38.380 There's nothing beyond that. So it can also distract you from, again, who is in Christ and

00:23:43.800 who is not a tree is known by its fruit, not these kinds of secret symbols. Um, super interesting. I

00:23:49.760 think that's really important for people to know. I think conservatives especially can kind of get

00:23:53.900 caught up in that because we are so naturally mistrusting of the powers that be probably for a good

00:23:58.580 reason, but we should be using discernment and trying to figure out what is actual fruit

00:24:03.700 and what is not. Now, Andrew, I do want to talk about, um, we're talking about this kind of

00:24:19.920 already, but specifically demonic possession or demonic oppression. I got a lot of questions about

00:24:26.640 what does that actually look like? Some people asked, okay, depression and anxiety,

00:24:32.260 is that demonic oppression? Is sickness, demonic oppression, psychotic episodes? Are people

00:24:38.000 actually possessed by demons today? Is all of what we're talking about witchcraft, is that demonic

00:24:43.340 possession? So what exactly is it? What should the Christian know about it? What should we be looking

00:24:48.580 for? Yeah. Wow. That's a, those are a lot of really, yeah, they're big questions and they're great

00:24:54.020 questions. I'd say with sickness or in health, I mean, uh, the Bible says it can be two, one of,

00:25:00.180 it could be, you know, multiple things. Jesus was healing people, healing people and people were

00:25:04.500 like, Hey, was it because their parents sinned and things of that nature? And Jesus said, no,

00:25:07.640 it's just so the works of God may be manifested in me today. So we know that sickness can also be

00:25:12.720 demonic as well. I mean, we live in a world that, uh, that, that sin is a sin is a real thing. It can

00:25:18.740 affect us spiritually and physically and, uh, demonic possession oppression. What does it even look like

00:25:24.540 today? I mean, we know when, uh, we all heard about the reverse Wade reversal, there was many

00:25:29.500 people with massive outcries and, uh, that are, let's say they're for a murder of babies in the

00:25:37.020 womb. And it looks very much so like demonic possession or maybe oppression happening where

00:25:41.800 it's being manifest through people's actions. But what I find most interesting about the Bible is

00:25:45.800 it actually talks about how wicked we are, right? A lot of the times we like to take the focus off of

00:25:50.340 ourselves and say, Oh, it must be demonic or this person might be influenced. But it says in Romans

00:25:55.820 that we're inventors of evil, right? No one seeks God. No one understands God. Our throats are an open

00:26:00.340 grave. Uh, the venom of asps is under our lips. So I think the, the main focus that we should have in

00:26:05.460 this situation is actually looking at ourselves. I think the human tendency, right? Is that of Satan,

00:26:10.760 uh, in the garden we fell because what we say, we said, we don't want to listen to the words of God

00:26:15.500 and said, we want to do what we want to do. Try to essentially dethrone God. The very same thing,

00:26:19.400 Satan did. So humans have the tendency as well to be extremely evil. I don't think, uh, demonic

00:26:25.260 oppression and possession looks the same as it did in Jesus's time. I think there was a very specific

00:26:30.380 reason for it and why Jesus showed up at the time that he did and why demonic possession was so

00:26:35.580 rampant. Then I think Jesus actually changed that in his death, burial and resurrection. I believe that

00:26:41.120 Satan is bound, uh, today because the strong man is bound while the kingdom of God plunders through,

00:26:46.420 uh, was once the kingdom of Satan. So, uh, it's, it's, it's an interesting dynamic to think about,

00:26:52.720 but I think we lose focus when we look too much at things looking for the demonic. I think we need

00:26:57.360 to look at ourselves first in our relationship with God in order to truly love neighbor. We need to be

00:27:02.780 focused and captivated on Christ in order to actually live as Christians should live. If, does that make

00:27:09.620 sense a little bit? Yeah, it does. Jeremiah, do you have anything to add to that?

00:27:12.640 Well, yeah, I think it's also a very important when you look at the world of the demonic realm,

00:27:18.740 especially when it comes to demonic, uh, possession versus oppression is that first of all,

00:27:23.520 we tend to view that through the lens of Hollywood. I mean, there's usually several movies that come

00:27:29.520 out a year that have to do something, some sort of horror movie about someone being demonically

00:27:33.340 possessed. And it happens all the time. It goes all the way back to the film, the exorcist.

00:27:37.540 And so a lot of times there, what you actually, actual exorcisms and how they take place are

00:27:43.700 stark contrast to, uh, what happens in real life. So for example, there was somebody that we had

00:27:50.260 actually on the podcast. It's one of our episodes we did about a year and a half ago called the

00:27:54.560 exorcism of Christian Bellamy. And so we had a pastor that was on along with this lady that was

00:28:00.220 attending his congregation. Uh, this lady came from a very, a background of witches. She, her, uh,

00:28:06.900 her genealogy traced all the way back to the set, to the Salem witch trial, to the, to, uh, Salem,

00:28:12.000 Massachusetts. And so, but when this deliverance happened, the pastor wasn't even looking for it.

00:28:19.160 He, uh, really preached the gospel to her. They went to, uh, baptize her and in this river in West

00:28:27.820 Virginia. And there were some very strange things that happened. When you actually look at the video

00:28:33.920 that took place, uh, of this, of when this happened, it does not look at all. I mean, it looks

00:28:40.260 like she's being baptized. It looks like she kind of stumbles a little bit as she's going into the

00:28:44.040 water. However, we know that there's a spiritual realm, but there's also a physical realm.

00:28:48.960 I mean, there's a physical realm, but there's also spiritual truth being told behind that.

00:28:53.220 And so you have three multiple independent lines of testimony coming together independently to say

00:28:58.840 there was something weird going on that happened there. And at the end of the day, we know that

00:29:04.780 scripture talks about, about Christ who rescues those from the domain of darkness and transfers

00:29:10.540 them into the kingdom of his beloved son. And so that's ultimately, uh, what you see there.

00:29:16.120 And I think also, there's also a danger as well, too, to be able to say there's a demon

00:29:21.200 behind everything where there's the demon, there's the demon of gluttony. There's the demon

00:29:25.740 of lust. There's the demon of this, the demon of that. When the reality is, is that that's your

00:29:30.680 own sin. That's, that's your responsibility. There's a danger as well, too. And the fact that

00:29:36.160 the devil made me do it. And also I think there's a danger as well, too, in people who do

00:29:41.040 at quote unquote exorcism ministries for a living, because I think that is dangerous as well, too,

00:29:48.060 because the most, I mean, our past, Pastor Jeff, he did a deliverance once as well, too. And he

00:29:53.120 wasn't looking to do it. He felt led to pray for this lady. And there's some, some unique supernatural

00:29:57.680 events that happened. I think there's a, there's a, it's always important as we look at anything

00:30:02.820 to view it through, uh, the lens of scripture as well, too.

00:30:06.140 Yeah, definitely. Now, Jeremiah, you mentioned something earlier, you mentioned a couple things

00:30:11.720 that we kind of went past that I'm sure people who are listening are like, wait, what? One was

00:30:16.500 yoga. The other one was stranger things. And we've talked with Doreen Virtue as well. And so we've talked

00:30:22.300 about, um, yoga, you know, she actually changed my mind about yoga because I was of the belief, okay,

00:30:29.500 how, how can it be all that different from Pilates or from stretching? I'm not thinking of anything

00:30:34.920 spiritual about it. Um, and so Jeremiah, what did you mean when you mentioned that yoga kind of was

00:30:41.800 part of this occult world of trying to access another spiritual realm?

00:30:47.340 Yeah. Well, it's interesting. You asked that because whenever we make a post about it,

00:30:52.000 it gets fiery. There's a fiery comment section right away becomes, it comes a little bit of a

00:30:56.680 free for all in the comment section. I think the question to ask when you look at the conversation

00:31:01.360 regarding yoga is not to get super paranoid to sensationalize it, but just to ask a simple

00:31:07.380 question. What is yoga? Is it just a stretching practice that just so happens to have some ancient

00:31:14.400 spiritual, spiritual components that you can separate yourself self from, or is it fundamentally

00:31:20.240 a spiritual practice that just so happens to have physical elements as a by-product in the same way

00:31:26.860 you would ask, is there, are there physical components? Are there things that happen to

00:31:31.700 your body physiologically? If you're a Muslim and you bow towards Mecca when you're in that,

00:31:36.640 when you're in that position, probably yes. And so when you look at yoga as a whole, we would argue

00:31:42.860 that it is inherently a spiritual practice that just so happens to have physical components with it.

00:31:49.800 The word yoga really means yoke and it's really, uh, yielding yourself really to different,

00:31:55.680 uh, ancient, uh, Hindu deities. In fact, a lot of Christians over in India look at Americans in the

00:32:03.680 West who are trying to make these justifications. And they're honestly asking, what are you doing?

00:32:08.540 What are you doing? Because they, they know what it is. And I know for me that when I started doing

00:32:14.700 my own research and just started asking, started really being honest with myself, I remember just

00:32:20.180 seeing videos of people who are in the new age doing yoga. I knew what they were doing. And I came

00:32:26.980 to a point of conviction saying, I can't do this anymore. So I would just say for anyone who is

00:32:33.000 trying to justify using yoga, maybe you're not liking that we're having this conversation. I would just

00:32:38.120 say, really do your own research. We have a series called exploring the spiritual dangers of yoga,

00:32:43.100 look into it and just ask yourself, can I fundamentally do this and be consistent with

00:32:50.080 what we're called to be as a Christian when it says, present your bias as a living sacrifice.

00:32:53.640 And just ask yourself the question. We want people to come to their own conclusions, but at the same

00:32:58.420 time, uh, do their own research. And we do have a lot of resources where people can find out about

00:33:03.300 that. And Andrew, I'm wondering if you can kind of respond to this because when I kind of would

00:33:09.920 defend it, although I've never been someone who has really done yoga, I just didn't see

00:33:14.000 the harm in it. I guess because of what Jeremiah just described, I thought that it's, you know,

00:33:18.000 mostly a physical practice with physical benefits and the spiritual is just kind of a component of it,

00:33:23.360 but you can do away with that if you don't want to. I've even seen some people say, well,

00:33:27.340 we'll replace the kind of Hindu spiritualism of it with Christian spiritualism. And then we've

00:33:32.120 redeemed the practice of yoga. And a lot of people use first Corinthians eight, four through 13

00:33:38.160 about meat sacrifice to idols. So therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols,

00:33:43.180 we know that an idol has no real existence and that there is no God, but one for, although there

00:33:49.140 may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many Lords yet for

00:33:54.440 us, there is one God, the father from whom all things and for whom we exist and one Lord Jesus

00:33:59.180 Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist. And so, you know, it goes on to talk

00:34:05.080 about not tempting your weaker brother, but really it's fine if your conscience doesn't

00:34:10.180 convict you eating meat sacrifice to idols. So some people kind of use this passage to try to

00:34:15.280 defend yoga and say, okay, but we know that the Hindu gods are not real. We know that we're not

00:34:20.140 really worshiping them. We know that there is one God. Why can't I practice the physical,

00:34:25.660 you know, why can't I reap the physical benefits of yoga and still worship the one God? What would your

00:34:31.400 response be to that? Yeah, I'd say we as Christians have the tendency to fall prey to the same

00:34:38.380 syncretism as Israel, right? Like it's just something that's, we want to innately so hard

00:34:45.960 to justify within ourselves. With Corinthians, I'd say specifically yoga is not a meat, right? This

00:34:53.880 isn't a food. This isn't a sustenance. This is the idol itself. These are the poses of the idol.

00:34:59.680 This is a spiritual practice with spiritual ramifications. You can't just take something

00:35:04.980 and syncretize it into your Christian beliefs, right? If you're going to do that, you must ask

00:35:10.080 yourself the same with other things that are practiced by people of Eastern religions, right?

00:35:17.220 So we have to be consistent as Christians and apply that same standard to other things. Like,

00:35:22.620 do you think it's okay then as well to synchronize the Enneagram, right? That has ancient occultic

00:35:29.120 origins. It's the same question. How consistent are you going to be in that standard then? Is it then

00:35:38.060 okay to reclaim child sacrifice in the name of Yahweh, right? Is it just purely a physical thing

00:35:44.840 without any spiritual ramifications? We have to be consistent as Christians and yoga in itself is

00:35:51.900 innately spiritual as a practice. There are other things that can be done instead of these poses

00:35:57.060 that represent deities of the Hindu religion.

00:36:12.640 Jeremiah, I do want to get you mentioned Stranger Things. Now, I don't know what you guys have talked

00:36:17.620 about in regard to Stranger Things. My husband and I watch Stranger Things. We were fans of it. This

00:36:24.740 last season was a lot darker and scarier than the other seasons. So, I mean, tell me about it. Why

00:36:31.500 did you bring it up earlier? Yeah, well, it's interesting. I'm also a fan of the show and I

00:36:38.880 really enjoyed season four. And I think there are people who even watch our show who might be surprised

00:36:45.860 and ask us, well, why are you watching a show like that? Well, again, it's up to people's convictions,

00:36:51.860 what they do and don't want to watch. I mean, that's a matter of individual conscience. In this

00:36:57.160 case, I think that... To a certain degree, of course.

00:37:00.760 Yeah, exactly. And I think that when you look at good story, when you look at storytelling,

00:37:06.620 good storytelling also mirrors other good storytelling. And I think at the end of the day,

00:37:11.000 it's important to really understand the worldview that's becoming behind a show like Stranger Things.

00:37:16.380 So, when you even look at Stranger Things 4, you look at one of the primary characters,

00:37:22.280 Eddie Munson, and he's part of the Hellfire Club. And this is a group that's playing Dungeons and

00:37:27.260 Dragons. And all of a sudden, when there's this murder that takes place, spoiler alert if anyone

00:37:32.700 hasn't seen the show, there all of a sudden there starts being these accusations that Eddie Munson was

00:37:37.980 the person that committed this murder. Well, that idea didn't come out of a vacuum. What they're

00:37:43.060 referring, because the show's obviously based in the 80s, is the satanic panic. And at that time,

00:37:49.180 there were real legitimate cases where there was satanic ritual abuse. I've had conversations in

00:37:56.220 private of people who have experienced that sort of horrific abuse and the trauma that comes with that.

00:38:01.980 But there's also examples where people sensationalize things. And as that, false accusations

00:38:07.540 come about. And that's a big part of what happened in the 1980s. There was a book that came out, for

00:38:14.820 example, in the 80s called Michelle Remembers, that was talking about this case of satanic ritual abuse,

00:38:20.440 that book created a firestorm. You had people that were women who were going into therapy, who were

00:38:26.920 trying to uncover what was wrong with them. And all these people were uncovering memories of horrific

00:38:32.200 things that happened to them. Many times you had people who were thrown into jail and thrown into

00:38:38.360 prison wrongfully, because of the fact that it was one person's witness against another. So they're

00:38:45.400 talking about like a real, real issue. And also in the same way, in the worldview of Stranger Things,

00:38:51.640 I mean, you're looking at the upside down world, where there's these other entities, dimensions and

00:38:57.340 powers. And so I think that's a catalyst for me to be able to have conversations with people about

00:39:03.920 the true reality, ultimately, of what the Bible talks about. Because we might look at someone that,

00:39:10.420 like the character 11, or somebody who's been in the upside down world, and they're trying to explain

00:39:16.920 to people in the real world what happened and about this upside down world. And people look at them

00:39:21.700 like they're crazy. I think there is a good parallel when we've had conversations with people who are

00:39:27.040 in it, who were in the new age and have come out of it. We know they've been in the upside,

00:39:32.360 this upside down world, they've been in places they're not supposed to be. So when they're talking

00:39:36.760 about being abducted at 3am in the morning and being tortured by little green men, and they don't

00:39:43.060 know what's happening to them, they're terrified, or their astral body is going out of their physical

00:39:47.260 body, and all of a sudden they call out and they're being demonically oppressed, and they have these

00:39:51.340 entities attached to them, and they call out to the name of Jesus. And all of a sudden that stops,

00:39:56.800 and that leads them to grab a Bible and all of a sudden realize that Jesus is who Jesus is.

00:40:03.460 That's a real reality. And a couple of years ago, I would have heard someone telling me that,

00:40:07.740 and I would have thought that they were crazy. Maybe this is all in their head. Maybe they just

00:40:11.620 need to just calm down a little bit. But when you actually understand about what scripture talks

00:40:17.200 about, the unseen realm and the dangers that come behind it, there's a reality that's being told to

00:40:22.620 that. And I think Stranger Things actually does a really good job of depicting a lot of those true

00:40:27.880 realities, and there's a lot of ways you can have conversations with your fellow person,

00:40:33.560 your friend, or whoever, the way that we are having a conversation about it now. Andrew,

00:40:37.340 what are your thoughts? Because you watch the show too.

00:40:40.120 Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I think essentially is that we have a zeitgeist, right? A spirit of the age

00:40:44.860 essentially now with this new neo-paganism and spirituality that is being brought to the

00:40:51.180 Americas. And I think what it is is really a rebounding of the most prolific, like Thomas Paine

00:40:56.300 atheistic thought, right? We have society of people that have been told for so long that God

00:41:00.440 doesn't exist. There's only the material world around us. And now there's this re-embracing of

00:41:06.000 paganism because the offspring of these people who were taught that there is no God now are searching

00:41:11.180 for truth somewhere else, right? But the beautiful thing I find within this is actually showing a

00:41:16.860 longing in the human heart to understand something that is outside the material. But Christianity is

00:41:21.800 the only thing with a reasonable answer for it, right? These people who are going to neo-paganism

00:41:26.820 in Stranger Things shows that this is something popular in our society. This is what the Bible

00:41:31.220 says about people that do this. In Isaiah 47, 8 through 15, it says,

00:41:36.240 Now therefore hear this, you lovers of pleasure who sit securely, who say in your heart,

00:41:40.080 I am, and there is no one beside me. So this is Isaiah's condemnation on Babylon, which is going

00:41:46.300 on, or God's condemnation. But there's two key things happening here, is that the people that are

00:41:51.740 going after other gods, they're usually lovers of self, and they sit and they say, I am, right?

00:41:58.440 Well, who is God? God is I am that I am. He is the eternal one. But these people want to do that

00:42:04.040 and take that for themselves. So that's one thing that we must understand. So the zeitgeist of the age

00:42:08.880 is showing that there is a longing, but they're looking at themselves to be gods, to give themselves

00:42:13.140 a peace with God that they know part of them is broken, and it's not obtainable through their

00:42:18.500 worldview. Christianity is the only reasonable answer to what is going on in the world today.

00:42:23.580 So what I see when I'm looking at our society with this neo-paganism is actually a beautiful

00:42:29.460 chance for the light of the gospel to penetrate that much stronger in the world. I pray that there's

00:42:36.000 a revival in a sense or a reformation in a sense, because if we look back in time, especially

00:42:40.600 in America's history, we have the first great awakening. And then after the first great awakening

00:42:44.200 with Jonathan Edwards, we have the influence of Thomas Paine and atheism. And on top of that,

00:42:49.500 a renaissance thought with alchemy and spiritualism that influenced the Americas where farmers were

00:42:56.940 doing the farmer's almanac and things of that nature to try to find ancient hidden gold within

00:43:02.820 their, within their land. But then,

00:43:06.000 what we're, what we're seeing is there's, there's a rebirth essentially of this magical

00:43:11.240 worldview that is being influenced in our world today. Christianity is the only way to have an

00:43:16.520 answer for that.

00:43:17.800 Yeah. Yeah. One, just one last thing too, when it comes to the world of entertainment, it's just,

00:43:22.660 it's important to understand that whatever you're watching, that these ideas don't come out of a

00:43:27.840 vacuum. So just real quickly as well, on top of Stranger Things, Marvel's character,

00:43:31.940 Doctor Strange, the most recent movie that came out, I think it was the Multiverse of Madness.

00:43:38.380 That whole movie is just a carnival of occultism. You see one of the powers that he ends up accessing

00:43:46.500 later on the film, you see there's an eye that opens up right above his forehead. Now that doesn't

00:43:52.560 happen in real life, but that's symbolic of what happens in the new age where you believe that you

00:43:56.460 can open up your third eye by doing certain things to activate your pineal gland. And that

00:44:01.900 accesses dimensions that are spiritually dangerous. We have plenty of conversations about that.

00:44:06.880 What you also see depicted in the film, you have really rituals that are done in a temple up on a

00:44:15.980 mountain. That idea is not, it's not just, oh, that's a really cool set that'll look really cool.

00:44:21.500 They're depicting a real spiritual reality that in the ancient world and in ancient paganism,

00:44:26.660 the temples in which the priests would always get esoteric revelations from, there are always

00:44:33.520 these temples up in the high places. And that was really, really in every ancient pagan nation that

00:44:38.960 you would really see that would happen many a times. So what is being depicted as well in Doctor

00:44:43.780 Strange, everything from the rituals to having, you know, having candles in the circle and doing this

00:44:49.900 ritualistic magic. It's important to understand the worldview being depicted behind it and how to

00:44:55.000 engage it scripturally. But I think there is a real danger into going into a movie like that

00:44:59.920 and thinking that everything being depicted in a film like Doctor Strange is just fantasy because they

00:45:05.260 are depicting things that are real and we have to be able to give answers to.

00:45:19.900 Well, there's so much more I want to talk about and we'll have to do a part two to talk about the

00:45:24.740 many other things that I have in my outline that we didn't have time to address. But just to close

00:45:29.440 this out, I do want to read some numbers from a Pew Research study from 2018 and then just get

00:45:36.560 both of your encouragement to Christians who are navigating this world of the new age, of the occult,

00:45:42.680 because as we've talked about many times, it really is ubiquitous and it's often camouflaged

00:45:47.680 in Christian-like language and in language that seems neutral, especially when it comes to the

00:45:53.340 world of self-help for women and crystals and yoga and different parts of entertainment. And this is

00:46:00.080 disturbing because Pew Research says that new age beliefs are common among both religious and

00:46:05.520 non-religious Americans. So about 60 percent of American adults, Pew Research says, accept at least

00:46:11.380 one of these new age beliefs. Reincarnation, astrology, psychics, spiritual energy and physical

00:46:18.220 objects. I'm guessing that's like crystals. 47 percent of evangelicals, which that is disturbing, but

00:46:26.680 that's actually the lowest percentage if you're looking at the particular categories that they break this

00:46:31.180 down into. 70 percent of Catholics. That does not surprise me. 70 percent of Protestants in the

00:46:37.540 historically black tradition. 56 percent of agnostics. 80 percent of people whose religion is nothing in

00:46:44.800 particular. Adults under the age of 65, those who have not graduated from college, racial and ethnic

00:46:50.840 minorities and Democrats are more likely to hold at least one new age belief. So we're really swimming

00:46:57.980 in this stuff. Even as Christians, even in the church, almost half of evangelicals believe in one of

00:47:03.480 these things. I mean, I had someone who was a part of my book club, and it's a Christian women's book

00:47:08.120 club, and she said that she can absolutely be a witch and be a Christian at the same time. She

00:47:13.680 believes that God has gifted her these tarot cards and, you know, ability as a medium and, you know,

00:47:19.380 rejects even the Old Testament warnings against that. So all of what we're talking about, it really

00:47:24.660 is ubiquitous in so many ways. Give Christians who want to arm themselves against this without being the

00:47:30.120 paranoid people that are constantly looking for signs. Like, what should their attitude be? What

00:47:34.620 should their focus be? Andrew, we can start with you, and then Jeremiah, if you'll close us out.

00:47:39.580 Sure. Yeah. I'd say Christianity in a nutshell, in order to think about these things biblically,

00:47:46.080 number one, it's not about self-help, right? It's about dying to yourself. Jesus says,

00:47:51.280 pick up your cross and follow me. So the first thing we must understand as humans is we must be humble.

00:47:56.160 We must first and foremost submit to God's word. And I think if you submit to God's word as the

00:48:02.160 sole rule of faith and practice in your life, there's no way that you will fall prey to these

00:48:06.880 practices because they are thoroughly condemned in the Old Testament. Even if you, when you try to

00:48:12.360 reject the Old Testament, for example, you're not using the Bible as your sole rule of faith

00:48:18.180 in practice. So what we need to do is we need to put God and his word first before ourselves.

00:48:24.500 We need to die to ourselves in order to actually even truly understand ourselves. We must be

00:48:28.640 regenerated. God must put his spirit within us. And it says when he does that, he'll cause us to

00:48:33.760 observe his statutes. What are his statutes? The law of God, that we're not perfect in every single

00:48:38.280 way. What we would be is convicted when we do things that are contrary to his law. Leviticus 17,

00:48:45.180 Deuteronomy 18, condemn witchcraft, sorcery, divination, things of that nature. But

00:48:50.660 what we need to do first and foremost, as well as Christians, is we want to follow Christ. We need

00:48:56.140 to understand who he is and what he has done for us. We need to be thankful for our salvation. When

00:49:02.620 we're not thankful for our salvation, remembering what God has brought us from spiritually dead into

00:49:07.840 life, that we will look for that peace and that care in other things, right? We'll fall prey to the

00:49:14.880 elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ. So be content with who you are in the

00:49:20.400 situation that you're at. Look to be more sanctified, conformed to the image of Christ and

00:49:24.560 not to the elemental spirits of the world with empty philosophy and deceit. Christ has conquered

00:49:30.620 it all. He's a Lord, not only of the nations, but he's Lord of your hearts. And you must remember that

00:49:36.540 as Christians, be humble, die to yourself, pick up the cross, follow Christ, and submit to his word.

00:49:42.760 Hmm. Jeremiah, now, I don't know, not everyone can see this because I wasn't on camera at the time.

00:49:49.880 But interestingly enough, we just had our lights go out for a second in the middle of you sharing

00:49:55.960 the gospel. But we were able to keep rolling. So thank God for that and just pray that we continue.

00:50:02.460 So Jeremiah, if you could share your final thoughts. Yeah, I think when you're looking at the world,

00:50:07.520 the New Age, is to understand, I think, also, like, how did this come about? You know, I think when

00:50:13.640 you're looking at, for example, the deconstruction movement that's happening right now, all the

00:50:19.040 ex-evangelicals, you've had episodes where you've talked about that yourself. There's people, I'm 41

00:50:23.520 years old, there's people I know who I've done Bible studies with, who I've done ministry with,

00:50:28.100 who have now gone to the wayside. And I think also, there are a lot of people in that world,

00:50:33.860 even in the evangelical world, have delved into the New Age, really as a byproduct of just

00:50:38.560 evangelicalism as a whole, where Walter Martin said that the cults are the unpaid bills of the

00:50:43.600 church, where we didn't really confront these groups when they were up and coming. And now

00:50:48.920 groups like Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, all these different groups have started. And because of

00:50:54.660 that, now they have these giant organizations with millions and millions of members, I think,

00:50:59.840 in the same way that the occult and the explosion of the occult is also an unpaid bill of the Christian

00:51:06.260 church, just because we've had all these very watered-down, wishy-washy gospel. When you're

00:51:14.920 looking at discipleship a lot, there's not really discipleship with kids growing up. There's not

00:51:19.700 really a centralized, the father isn't spiritually leading in the home. And so there's a spiritual

00:51:26.680 vacuum that people are longing for true spiritual answers, and they're not giving it with an

00:51:31.980 evangelical, wishy-washy gospel. So what you need to understand is it's very easy to look at

00:51:40.160 everything that we've talked about in the New Age, whether it's the occult, whether it's seances,

00:51:45.620 whether it's witchcraft, all those things. It's very easy to get fearful and even get angry at those

00:51:51.660 very people on witch talk. But it's important to understand that in Ephesians 6, it says that our

00:51:57.360 battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the forces of darkness, against the principalities

00:52:03.380 and powers that be. In fact, it also says that the God of this age has blinded those from seeing the

00:52:10.480 light of the glory of the gospel of Christ. So we need to understand that these people, they are

00:52:15.600 looking, they have a Jesus-shaped hole, and they're trying to find really wholeness and fulfillment

00:52:21.720 in which they can only find in Christ. And that's why the late Dr. Walton, I would recommend you get

00:52:25.420 a copy especially of this book, Kingdom of the Occult. It's a very, I mean, it's a thick book,

00:52:30.380 and it goes to show that there has to be better, you have to give good answers that are bigger

00:52:34.440 than Jesus tells me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. But the late Dr. Walton Martin, he had a

00:52:41.160 point, he was closing out in one of his lectures, and I remember that it's always hit me when I

00:52:46.120 heard him say this. He said, help us to have compassion and the love of Christ for these

00:52:52.840 people that are seeking help, but not from thee, but from the forces of evil. And I think at the

00:52:58.480 end of the day, that's what's really happened. A lot of these people who are witches, mediums,

00:53:04.460 astrologers, warlocks, who are doing all these things, they come from a very broken background,

00:53:09.980 they've experienced a lot of trauma in their life, and they're desperately trying to find

00:53:16.340 emotional healing, fulfillment in all of these esoteric practices. But in reality, what they

00:53:22.540 think they're finding fulfillment, at least on the surface level, but there's satanic deception

00:53:28.080 behind it. So I think we need to not fear it, but we need to have Christ as the authority,

00:53:33.720 because the Bible says, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. And we need to

00:53:37.880 be able to confront these worldviews, but you don't, you want to make sure when you're talking

00:53:41.840 with your friend who's in the new age, you're not trying to win an argument. The goal is not to be

00:53:46.560 right. This is a real spiritual discussion. This is a real spiritual battle that's happening back and

00:53:52.260 forth. So you need to make sure that when you're giving apologetic answers, it's not just about

00:53:56.980 refuting them, answering them, but really having prayer being part of it as well, too. So I think

00:54:03.780 there's a very, that's maybe an example of a good holistic approach. So yeah, I really appreciate

00:54:09.280 you having us on and we'd love to talk. There's a lot further I'm sure we could explore, but yeah,

00:54:13.780 we really appreciate the time to be able to talk with you today.

00:54:16.520 Well, thank you so much. And I know it can just kind of be frightening and feel heavy when Christians

00:54:22.020 are thinking about this stuff and looking at this, looking at lost things and lost people often does

00:54:28.340 make us sad, but thank you guys for bringing it always back to the gospel and reminding us that

00:54:33.720 we as Christians already have victory in Christ. And so I just want to read this from the end of

00:54:40.220 Romans 8, just to remind people of whose we are and who we are. And I wish I could read this whole

00:54:45.800 passage, but starting at verse 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation

00:54:51.240 or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written, for your sake,

00:54:57.140 we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all

00:55:02.140 these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death

00:55:07.040 nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height,

00:55:13.020 nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ

00:55:19.320 Jesus, our Lord. That Ephesians 6 passage says that our battle is against the cosmic powers,

00:55:27.140 the powers over this present darkness. Well, not even those powers can separate us from

00:55:32.240 the love and the strength and the power of Christ. And that is where our hope and our peace lies. So

00:55:38.060 thank you guys so much for representing that so well. I really appreciate it. Encourage everyone

00:55:42.600 to check out the Cultish podcast, to follow you guys. Thanks so much for taking the time to come on.

00:55:47.220 Thank you. Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 24, 2022

Ep 666 ｜ Confronting the Occult, Demonic Symbolism & Witchcraft ｜ Guests： Jeremiah Roberts & Andrew Soncrant (Cultish)

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