"Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you--unless, of course, you fail the test?" (2 Corinthians 13:5)"Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil." (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22)
"and do not give the devil a foothold." (Ephesians 4:27)
"The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron." (1 Timothy 4:1-2)
"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1)
"Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ, ' and will deceive many."" (Matthew 24:4-5)
"At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time." (Matthew 24:23-24)
"But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough." (2 Corinthians 11:3-4)
"For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless." (1 Thessalonians 3:5)
"But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them --bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute." (2 Peter 2:1-2)
"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
Do you try to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5)? As a Christian, have you ever gone to a palm reader, a fortune teller, a seance, a "trance channeler," played with an Ouija board, followed your horoscope, purchased "healing" crystals, gotten involved with hypnosis, "visualization," transcendental or other forms of meditation, yoga, martial arts, or other activities associated with "Eastern" philosophies, do you believe in reincarnation, karma, fate, evolution, out-of-body experiences, psychics, the prophecies of Nostradamus, UFOs, "near-death experiences," past life experiences, good luck charms, voodoo, superstitions, etc., do you own statues or other objects which depict pagan gods or goddesses or have occult symbols on them?
We have demonstrated (in Parts One and Two) that there are sinister unseen forces of evil at work in the spiritual realm, and that Satan and his demons are masters of cunning, subtle deceptions which draw the unwary deeper and deeper into his territory as they make a "small" compromise here, believe another "little" lie there, and so on. Soldiers in wartime do not make little "harmless" excursions into enemy-occupied territory on a lark, and neither should we be dabbling in areas or putting any faith in anything which is not of God, because at that point we are voluntarily entering into the devil's domain.
Reincarnation, "karma," past life experiences, and similar beliefs are also refuted in Scripture ("Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment" (Hebrews 9:27)), but what about such things as yoga, martial arts, meditation, visualization, "healing" crystals, and so on? Don't they potentially have some positive exercise and health benefits? The question you need to ask yourself if you are involved in these types of practices is: "What kind of spiritual philosophies am I being fed as I do these things?" For example, most martial arts studios require students as they enter the main training area to bow to a shrine, to an emblem on a flag perhaps, to the master (the teacher), or something similar, and often there are statements that the students must repeat over and over which are intended to instill a certain set of character traits in the students (gentleness, humility, etc.). Make it a point to become fully aware of any spiritual philosophies that you are exposed to and listen to the Holy Spirit within you to discern whether you have peace concerning these things or whether you are being burdened about them.
Sometimes Christians are swayed by seemingly Biblical concepts such as "going to the light when you die and being enveloped in total Love" (as those who have had "near-death experiences" often describe) or by the prophecies of Nostradamus or other psychics. But once again, these things must be interpreted in light of Scripture and not on the fact that they may be comforting or that the prophecies are amazingly "accurate."
Before you buy into this concept of "going toward the light when you die" and receive any comfort from it, make sure you understand it from a Biblical point of view. God's Word tells us repeatedly that Jesus is the only way to Heaven. (John 14:6; Acts 4:12 etc...) I am distressed by the almost complete absence of this truth being relayed to us by those who testify of this near-death experience. When they tell us that there is nothing to fear in death, or that the light holds peace and contentment etc..., are they drawing people to Jesus or away from Him? The world wants to hear that everything is OK, they want to believe that they can do whatever they want in life and that in death they'll experience a utopian experience. The problem with this notion is that it is completely wrong. We need forgiveness... we need Jesus... without His sacrifice and work of redemption there is no hope for the eternal bliss suggested by these "been to light" people. (1 John 5:12)
And when it comes to the prophecies of Nostradamus, what do you actually know about him? Do just a little bit of research and you will find that he was a sixteenth-century seer who was schooled in spells and incantations and other "magic arts" and that he used numerology and occultish (i.e. satanic) forms of divination to come up with his prophecies. Is this really the type of person you want to be impressed with and whose prophecies you want to put any faith in? People say his prophecies are amazingly accurate, but so what? His (or anyone else's) prophecies must not be placed on a par with Biblical prophecies. His methods came from occultish, satanic practices, and for this reason alone he should be dismissed by Christians. Consider also that the apostle Paul encountered "a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling" (Acts 16:16). Paul cast this demon out of the slave girl (which really angered her owners!). Since this girl was predicting the future because of an evil spirit, the fact that Nostradamus' predictions seem to be accurate in some cases and the fact that he is known to have been schooled in the occult should make us realize where his prophecies really came from, it should not influence us to believe him in any way or be impressed by his accuracy or feed our spirits with his non-Biblical predictions. (Deut.18:9-13)
If you have statues or other artwork which have occult symbols on them or which depict pagan gods or goddesses, maybe from foreign cultures you have visited or from people-groups in which you did missionary work, be aware that these may be more dangerous than you realize. Idols are associated with demons in various parts of Scripture, and the Israelites were told over and over to smash and completely destroy all sacred images and idols from other cultures:
"They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to demons, which are not God-- gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear." (Deuteronomy 32:16-17)Do you see what God's attitude is towards anything associated with pagan (i.e. non-Christian) beliefs and practices?"They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons." (Psalm 106:36-37)
"Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons." (1 Corinthians 10:18-20)
"Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you cross the Jordan into Canaan, drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places.'" (Numbers 33:51-53)
"This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession." (Deuteronomy 7:5-6)
"Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places."" (Deuteronomy 12:2-3)
Evolution ? The Bible doesn't entertain it... why
should we?
UFO sightings and the testimonies of UFO "abductees" ? First of all, there is no evidence in Scripture that God created life on any other planets, and the argument that life may have evolved on other planets is without Scriptural merit as well, so we have good reason to be skeptical of UFO-related phenomena. If God did not feel it was important for us to know of life on other planets then it is not a subject that we as Christians should be overly concerned with.
So why is it that "abductees" seem to tell convincingly similar stories? Are they lying, are they trying to perpetrate a hoax, are they trying to draw attention to themselves? Do they honestly believe this happened to them? Are they being deceived in some way? For many Christian scholars, this last question is a key issue. In Parts One and Two of this series on spiritual warfare we demonstrated that demons exist and that they can deceive and even control people to some degree, and that Satan can create atmospheric disturbances and perform "all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders." Knowing this, and understanding that there is no Biblical support for the belief in life on other planets, it is quite plausible that there is a UFO deception going on in our world, but if so then it comes from the spiritual realm. Many people are convinced that UFOs are real and that therefore there must be a race of highly-evolved, highly-advanced beings "out there" who are keeping tabs on us. The New Age movement likes to refer to the "ascended spirit masters" (or some such terminology) as if there is some type of super-race "out there" which has evolved way beyond us and which wants to help us evolve into gods in our own right.
Since the devil wants to deceive as many people as he can and keep them from believing in the one true God, doesn't this sound like a good way to do it? It certainly seems to be working quite well, and many people are being deceived.
We must always set our minds on things above, not on earthly things
(Colossians 3:2) and fix our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2) and take captive
every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5) so that
we will not be taken captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which
depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather
than on Christ (Colossians 2:8).
The purpose of this 3 part series has not been to place any undo attention upon the enemy of our souls... we must always remember that our focus is to be on Jesus and not on the enemy.
Many well-meaning pastors, missionaries, prayer warriors, etc... have been bloodied in battle, so to speak, by giving the devil a foothold in their lives through carelessness and forgetting the power and viciousness and clever subtlety of the enemy. It is for this reason that we strive to instruct and warn our brothers and sisters. We are in a spiritual battle... we must be prepared!
As Christians we are all victorious through Christ our Savior, but we must take hold of that victory each and every day by putting on the full armor of God and submitting completely to God’s will. Stay focused on Jesus, your Savior, your Redeemer, your Lord, your King. Let Him be the object of your attention, your love, your praise, your adoration, your worship, and your service.
other titles are available.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from
the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (R). NIV (R). Copyright (C) 1973,
1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan
Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Because of Him
Rev. Marshall and Ruth Lawson
Lighthouse Ministries
Sussex, New Brunswick
Canada
This material is not copyrighted. Please feel free to copy and distribute it in its entirety for the greater glory of the Lord.