Are You Letting Deception In?

There are thousands of Christians who need to go through their libraries, their basements, and other places and get out and burn masses of Christ-dishonoring, satanically inspired material. The Bible says in Deuteronomy, I think it's the seventh chapter, God warned Israel,

“if you take an accursed thing into your house, you become accursed like the thing.”

A woman came to me for help some time back from New England, which is a center of witchcraft. And I had the most pathetic letters from her. My wife will probably remember. She said, every time I take a letter to the mail to mail it to you, the devil tries to kill me on the way to the mailbox. And she said, I don't know whether I'll get back home alive. She said, I am a doctor of theosophy and I have spent years in studying the occult, and I need help. Are you willing to help me? So I said, meet me in a certain camp I was going to, and I'll do my best. And my wife and I spent several hours ministering to her.

She got a measure of deliverance, but at the end, I said to her, God will not finish this deliverance off until you get rid of all your books. He'll keep you on the hook in his faithfulness and mercy till you've got rid of the books. She said, my books are worth about eight or nine thousand dollars. I said, what's your soul worth? But as far as I know, that woman never got rid of those books. And she'll probably end a lost soul because of eight thousand dollars worth of occult literature.

All these things in the Bible are true and up to date. I must keep going. Galatians 1, 6 through 9. Paul is really upset with the Galatian Christians. He says,

“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel.”

And we don't need to read the next two verses, but the problem with the Galatians was a false gospel had been brought to them after they had become Christians, been saved, and baptized in the Holy Spirit. A false gospel had been brought to them and they began to accept it. And Paul is tremendously disturbed about their condition, and he writes these words to them. Then in Galatians 3:1, he says,

“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?”

Notice, through receiving a false gospel, they had come under the power of witchcraft. They were spirit-baptized believers. The very next verse says that they had received the Holy Spirit, but because they had turned away from the truth of the gospel and embraced a false gospel, a deceptive teaching, they had become bewitched. They had come under the power of witchcraft. And the evidence is found in Galatians chapter 4, verses 9 and 10.

“But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?”

The modern translations say elemental spirits. They'd gone back to the worship of elemental spirits.

“Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.”

There's the outward mark of it. Horoscopes and astrology, you see. How many charismatics are in that category today? Millions.

Going on to 2 Timothy, chapter 3. 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 6 and following.

“For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

There are some teachers who get into homes and prey on silly women.

Now, Paul then goes back to the history of Israel and the deliverance of Israel from Egypt and reminds the Christians of the conflict that Moses had before Israel could be delivered from Egypt with the magicians of Egypt, whose names were Jannes and Jambres. That's why they're named there. All right.

“Now as Jannes and Jambres, the Egyptian magicians, withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.”

So just as magicians resisted Moses when God's people were to be delivered from Egypt, so in this age, practitioners of the occult will resist the messengers of the gospel. But I love the next verse. Oh, you should underline that verse.

“But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be made manifest unto all men, as was the folly of the Egyptian magicians.”

Now friends, we're coming to the place of an open conflict between the forces of Satan and the forces of Christ. And it's going to be fought out in the supernatural realm. But praise God, the Bible declares that the folly of Satan's administrators and ministers will be openly manifested. And I believe it'll happen in the next 10 years. I believe there'll be a showdown between occult power and the power of the Holy Spirit in the true church of Jesus Christ. And thank God, I'm on the winning side.

Now, the same chapter, verse 13.

“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.”

This is a picture of the approach of the close of the age. Where the King James says seducers, the Greek says magicians. It's the same word that's used in Acts 8, Acts 13, and elsewhere. So, as we come near the end of the age, there will be more and more of evil men and the practitioners of the occult deceiving, but themselves deceived. That's exactly the way it is, and I suppose there's no place in the world where it is more manifest today than Southern California. These words are being exactly fulfilled in Southern California today. Evil men and magicians, practitioners of the occult, are getting worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. You could really put a line against that and say, happening now. I really believe it is.