Occult Practices

It is stated that the truth will be resisted in the last days in the same manner that these withstood Moses. This is by imitation and often through occult practices. It is significant that the meanings of their names (perhaps titles) are the "foamy healer" and "the oppressor." The foamy healing and oppression are altogether the effects produced by drugs as well as other occult practices. Still men in our day are searching for and claiming to get religious experience through drugs. But the effects are "foamy" and "oppressive." Those who claim religious experience through drugs are thus fulfilling prophecy. Their minds are described as "corrupt" (2 Tim. 3:8). A current expression is "blown minds." On drugs, some users think they are so great they can step out of a ten-story building and then on another occasion so small that they cannot step up a curbing. Their minds have been corrupted.
The word "witchcraft" used in the Old Testament included drug usage and is severely condemned. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Ex. 22:18. In Nah. 3:4, the word "witchcraft" carries the same meaning and is given as the cause for the destruction of Nineveh. The ancients derived drugs from natural sources. Natural products and chemically modified, natural products are used in our day.
It may not be realized by all Christians now but drugs were a problem in the early Church. In A.D. 315, a council of churches was held in Ancyra to forbid the use of all "pharmakia” in the church. We are considering an old problem, one of the enticements of Satan to lead men to destruction.
Continued drug usage opens up the mind to demon possession. The man in Luke 8 had the characteristics of a man under the influence of drugs. He was driven into the wilderness as men on drugs are driven into a wilderness of mental confusion and living conditions. He lived among the tombs. They and their friends come to an early death. He broke the chains. Men on PCP ("angel dust." but what kind of angels?) break handcuffs. He was afraid of torment. Drug addicts are in torment until they get another dose to last a while. He wore no clothes, symbolizing the moral condition of these people.
The man in Luke 8 fell down at Jesus' feet and acknowledged Him to be the Son of God. This is the only hope for drug addicts, as well as anyone else. He begged Jesus not to torment him. So Jesus delivered him from the torment that he was in and then he sat at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.