Witchcraft~Investigating Exploring and Repenting

Blessed Savior, when I call, hear me, and from Thy dwelling place pour down the riches I have. Jesus, my Lord, shall I say. Jesus, my Lord, shall I say.

Jesus, my Lord, shall I say. Jesus, my Lord, shall I say. Jesus, my Lord, shall I say.

Jesus, my Lord, shall I say. Jesus, my Lord, shall I say. The last thing I want to say about that song is that last, those last words, the honesty that, you know, we may love the Lord, but we need His help for love and more.

You know, it's interesting, my wife said this morning, the verse that says, you must love the Lord with all of your heart, you know, it doesn't say you must serve the Lord with all of your heart, although that's what we should do, but it says we must love Him with all of our heart. So, we need His help sometimes to even love Him and to hunger and thirst for Him, truly. So, it's a good song.

This morning, welcome. Roger's going to be coming and preaching for us in just a little bit. But for announcements, and also maybe any praises, we have a couple minutes here, if you want to be thinking through this last year, it's a new year, maybe there's something you remember that you want to praise the Lord for this last year.

Good time to do it. But for announcements, I know that we have a volleyball tomorrow night for the family. I think that was at 630, 630 over at the Halsey Mennonite gym, so I know about that.

Of course, we have Wednesday night prayer meeting here at 715. Everyone's welcome. Looking out into the month a little bit, we have a camp open house the last Saturday of the month.

I think that's the 28th. Also, this is a five Sunday month, so keep in mind the fourth Sunday, we won't have a service here. The encouragement is to be thinking of a place that you can go visit to visit other churches and know that we're not the only church in the kingdom of God.

So go fellowship with some other believers and get to know them. It's been a good occasion for us. We've driven all the way up to the German Baptist and visit them before and other churches around.

So yeah, good time to get out. One time we went all the way up to even Estacada, so maybe take a little trip. I don't know of any others, but Roger or anyone else, any other announcements for this month that we need to keep in mind? I'm sure there's some more things coming like a youth singing and anything else like that.

But anybody else have any announcements? So stay tuned, more events to be coming. Just a reminder, if you didn't hear or you're ever curious what events, you can just go to the church's website and there's a calendar tab there and it'll tell you what events are coming up. That way if you forget or you lost the paper, it'll even tell you who's on for the schedule for the Sunday mornings and prayer meetings.

So if you forget and you're not sure, you can just look there anytime. Okay, as for that, are there any praises or prayer requests too before we pray for Brother Roger? Any praises or prayer requests? I'm going to ask Mary to come over there. Okay, pray for Ron's Bible, she has cancer.

I know Joel and Queed are down in Roseburg today, or maybe it was yesterday and today. I think we can thank the Lord for the trial that they've gone through this last year. I think it's really challenged all of us to seek the Lord and pray more.

We're also still praying for them for grace and health and healing, but in a lot of ways we can see how the Lord's used it to challenge us. You know, when you go to the gym, it's not always easy. You know, you tear up your muscles and it's painful and all of that, but you grow stronger.

The Lord uses trials to perfect our faith. The trying of your faith worketh patience, so that's why we rejoice. Anybody else? So yeah, we're right on that anniversary of the release.

A lot of prayers went up for them when they were kidnapped. 17 missionaries kidnapped. Days of fasting.

I remember getting together, remember I think one Sunday morning we just devoted a time of prayer. Remember, we just prayed for them. That was neat.

So yeah, the Lord answered in that. Thank you for that reminder. Anyone else? Their family is kind of always falling apart.

And the boys are, they're all grown and they're married and divorced and different things. And now that their granddaughter is, they're not getting into the family anymore. It's left, and they're still not, I don't know if they're still married, but it's just really quiet.

The family is just too much to hold to. It's difficult to deal with. We've had six sessions with the family.

It's just really sad. Yeah. I think it's over at the moment.

The only family that I know of is Ava. Is what? It's Ava. It's been a while now.

We've had six sessions with her. Yeah, we should. You know, we could be a light out there.

Yesterday, we went ice skating. And we came to this little spot where, you know, that person was sitting here and I was sitting here. And I said, go first.

And she kind of had like dyed hair. I wasn't sure, you know, what she might be going through. Like it was different colors coming down.

And I said, go first. And she said, no, you go first. And I said, ladies first.

And she looked at me a little bit strange. And then she kind of liked that and went on through. So, you know, you can look for opportunities too.

It's like we can be a light and encourage how God created people. But she tended to like the treatment. Ladies first.

All right. Anyone else before we pray? All right. Right.

Corey and Ronnie. Corey's pregnant. Alex was born, but he passed away.

That was another trial. All right. Well, let's stand.

And Brother Roger, if you come forward, we'll pray for these prayer requests and for you. Let's pray. Lord, we come to you today in the name of Jesus.

Lord, we're thankful that you loved us and made a way to send us Jesus, that we could come before you as your children and as your people. And as that song said, Lord, help us to love you more. Lord, help us to not only glorify you but enjoy you.

Lord, help us to really be thankful for this opportunity we have that we're your people. And we just praise you for that today. Lord, we're here.

We're not here to be a club on our own. We're here to come before you and to hear from you. Lord, though we go through different formalities, we still want our heart to be soft and pliable before you and listen for your voice, listen for your spirit.

So we ask for that. We pray, Lord, as our brother stands here this morning and wants to be used as a channel that you would use and that you would remove anything that's blocking that channel. Lord, empty us all that we could be filled and hear from you and walk and glorify you.

Lord, I want to lift up Rhonda Dybul as she's going through this trial. Lord, it looks like her life is ending. I pray for your peace.

I pray for your grace as she walks through it, as she crosses over that Jordan River. Help her, Lord. Help her faith to remain strong to the end.

I pray that you'd be with the entire family, Ted, and children and grandchildren. Lord, I also lift up Kawita this morning as she is going through the same trial, and we've been praying, we've been asking for your mercy. Lord, you've answered so many times this last year.

We thank you. We praise you for that. We continue to ask you to help her in this time of need.

Deliver her from the doubts and discouragement. Help her to walk in faith and be strong. Lord, we also lift up Caleb and Olga.

Thank you that they're going again. Give them grace to be there and make this transition. Lord, just be with that country.

Lord, we want to thank you for the 17 missionaries you released. We see that as a miracle you did. Your people prayed, and you heard, and you answered.

It wasn't by might, and it wasn't by power, and it wasn't by the government. It was a miracle, so we praise you for that. Lord, we also lift up Christine Gussie's uncle.

They're struggling with this granddaughter that is struggling with her gender. Lord, I pray for your help in that situation. We pray you would have mercy, you would intervene.

Lord, bring unity to the uncle and his wife, and Lord, just work in that situation. Lord, also we want to thank you. It's hard to thank you for this, but Lord, we thank you for sending Alex and, Lord, in your providence, you took him.

Lord, we pray and we continue to lift up Corey that you would use these things in her life this last year to draw her to you for this new pregnancy. We ask your mercy and your blessing. Lord, just be with us now as we listen to your word.

Open our ears, open our hearts, anoint us with your spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated.

Lord bless you. Thank you. Well, it's good to be here, and thank you for the service so far, those who took part.

Thank you for the children's lesson. Bob, you brought up again that song we sang, number 678, you know, the sword's loud clashing, and those are not the weapons we use. The first part of that verse, that same second verse, says, Lead on, O King Eternal, till the war of sin ceases, or something like that.

That's how it is. Till sin's fierce war has ceased. My question is, do you recognize that we're in a war with sin? Are you willing to fight the war with sin? Are you willing even to enter into uncomfortable situations to fight the war with sin? Maybe that means apologies.

Maybe that means confrontations. Maybe that means difficult conversations that you wouldn't otherwise choose. But we're not in peacetime.

We're in wartime. Is that something you're willing to fight? I hope so. So God bless you as you do that.

You know, if we would go out here on this highway right here, it's 99E, and we go north, we'd leave town, leave the town of Halsey, go through the red light, go about four more miles, get to the little town of Shedd. On the north side of Shedd is a road to the left called Fayetteville Drive. If you drive down Fayetteville Drive about three miles, you come to a railroad track, cross the railroad track, two driveways on the left is a little farm.

It's where I grew up. And back in that driveway, there's two lanes going off of one driveway. You just keep on going straight, get to the house back there where I lived about 10, 12 years of my life.

Got there about when I was, I think, 10 years old, moved out at age 22 or whatever that was. So somewhere in there is where I spent quite a bit of my growing up years, big house back there. But I remember an incident that happened there at that place, at that farm on Fayetteville Drive, that I think I can tell the story and get the details mostly right.

I'm not going to vouch for all of them being exactly right, but I think I can get them mostly right. But basically, here's what happened. My dad wanted to find, I believe it was a water line.

He says, there's a water line here that needs to be repaired, but I don't know where it is. Well, a friend from a neighboring church decided to come over. Somehow they made connection.

He says, I think I could probably find that water line for you. So he came and he took two wires and bent them into an L shape and started carrying them out across our driveway to find this water line. He was a respected man.

We know him. He was active in the community. We appreciated him.

And he said, now, before he did it, he acknowledged some things. He says, I know there's people that don't appreciate what I'm doing here. He says, it's kind of controversial, but we do it anyway.

It's something. But he goes on to do it, and then he explained how he thinks it works. He says, I don't know exactly how it works, he says, to be honest with you.

He says, but I think it has something to do with the electricity in my body connecting with the electric under the ground, the water line that's there. And here's basically how it worked. You hold these two wires.

You hold them straight, parallel to each other. When you get to the water line, they go like this. And they point out, OK, that's your water line.

So he did that a couple times, and, yeah, it seemed to work. We said, that's fascinating. Can we try it? And so I think my dad tried it and then let me try it, and it seemed to work.

I mean, going out across the gravel there, and all of a sudden they bent sideways. Now I wondered, was that my imagination? Did I tip my hands at just the right time so that they would swing that way? But it definitely seemed to do something there. This little procedure has different names.

Some people call it dousing. Some people call it water witching. And the explanation that this man had was, you know, it's the electricity in his body that causes that reaction to happen.

He said, for instance, hey, he can't wear a wristwatch. He puts a watch on his arm. It'll just go funny because he says, I've got too much electricity in my body.

OK, well, take that little fact and the fact that this did what it did, and OK, it makes sense. I'm good with that. And meanwhile, these people out there who think you shouldn't be doing that, well, what kind of people are they? Well, they're the more scrupulous type of people.

They're the people who are, you know, their radar's up a little too high on some of these things, and they're the type that sees a demon behind every bush. Well, I certainly didn't want to be one of those superstitious people that sees a demon behind every bush, and so I comforted myself, yes, I'm on a good team here. Excuse me.

I wonder if I can get some water. My cold's still not over, so let's see if I can make it through this. So time went on after I did this little thing there at age, I don't know, 15 maybe.

I wasn't that old. And many years passed. Thank you very much.

But later, as time went on, I did something else. I thought about that event. I went before God in prayer, and I confessed that event as sin.

And I was very specific about what that sin was. I confessed it as the sin of witchcraft. I went before God and told him very specifically, I am guilty of committing the sin of witchcraft which your word forbids.

And I repented of that. I wanted to be forgiven of that. And the question I have here this morning is, why did I do that? Why did I go before God and make that confession? And I wasn't saying it was maybe witchcraft.

I wasn't saying some people don't like it, so God, I'm sorry. I was very specific in saying positively, I am guilty. I stand before you, God, as guilty of a very specific sin, and I need your forgiveness.

Why did I do that? Why that change of mind? After all those years, why did I do that? That's what I'd like to answer here this morning. So why do we even talk about witchcraft this morning? I've preached about this before. I've preached about it here.

It's been a number of years. It's in our statement of faith. We have it right there.

I think it's one of the last few points. It says we stand against the sin of witchcraft. It's part of who we are as a congregation.

It even sets us apart from other churches that stand against the sin of witchcraft. It's something that not every church necessarily addresses. There are things that even in the Anabaptist circle of churches, we can say, we as Anabaptists are different from other churches in certain ways.

We heard about one this morning, non-resistance. It generally sets us apart as Anabaptist churches from non-Anabaptist churches. We could talk about things like non-swearing of oaths.

Very few churches outside of the Anabaptist circles take a stand on that. So we're kind of together as Anabaptist churches, kingdom churches, Sermon on the Mount churches. You could say versus other churches.

But maybe another one would be the issue of divorce, divorce and remarriage. Again, it kind of sets us apart as Anabaptist churches. But this one here, I want to say it can, depending on the church, not near all of them, but even set us apart within the Anabaptist churches.

Because sadly, even within Anabaptism, there are many churches who do not take a stand on the sin of witchcraft. And there's reasons for that. Maybe it's one of those things, well, we just don't know.

And there's mysteries there. I'd like to take away the mystery today. I'd like to talk about how I arrived to the point where I made that positive confession and give this to you in a way that can be a tool that you can use.

If you're dealing with something in your own life, maybe. Maybe there's a neighbor. Maybe there's a friend.

Maybe there's a Christian brother who you talk to about this. We want freedom in this area. And it's not going to be a mysterious, hey, do you feel this way? You know, the reason I did that wasn't because I was having nightmares and I was seeing fiery eyes up on my bedroom wall and, uh-oh, I need to go confess that.

That wasn't the motivation. It was a very thought-through, logical... Now, some of this came afterward, I admit that. But it can be a very step-by-step approach to determining the answer to these questions.

What does God think? What is God's opinion? That's what repentance is. It's agreeing with God about something we had formerly disagreed with God about. So we want to know what God's heart is here.

And there's a way to get there. There's a path to get there. There's a step-by-step approach, if you like step-by-step approaches.

Maybe you don't. Maybe you say, I just want to pray and I want to have this voice from heaven tell me what's true. If you like that approach, go for it.

God uses that approach sometimes. But what if he hasn't given you that approach? Is there another one? I think there is. And I'd like to share that with you.

And so we're going to talk about this. This is an issue that as time goes on, it tends to keep coming up. We get new people.

It's extremely serious, according to the Word of God. And so basically the answer is not because I saw some vision that told me I needed to do this. But it was rather I did an investigation.

We're going to talk about this investigation. I'm going to put some things up on the board. And we're going to talk about it.

Before we do that, let's just bow for prayer one more time. Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. We're asking you to please be present among us.

We're asking you to please guide us. We're asking you to please protect us. Our weapons are not carnal, but they are mighty.

And Lord, we're here to talk about a stronghold of the enemy. Something he does to bring us into bondage. Something we've talked about before, but it's been a while, Lord.

In the meantime, Satan is still at work in his kingdom. And he's still bringing people into bondage. And he's still seeking to kill and steal and destroy.

We're praying against him that you would rebuke him, bind him in Jesus' name, and come and anoint us as we gather here to talk about this issue. Lord, we have friends and family and people in this world who are not saved. And various of them are enslaved in various ways.

Sometimes it's unforgiveness and bitterness. Sometimes it's wrong activity. Sometimes it's a love of money.

Sometimes it's various things. But this is one of them, Lord, that does at times in life bring people into bondage. And I repeat again that I myself have been guilty of this sin of witchcraft.

And I pray, God, that you would bring freedom as a result of our time that we're spending together. In Jesus' name, amen. If I was to put up here on the board things that are necessary, and I'll tell you how many there's going to be up here on the board.

There's going to be six. Six points that we're going to walk through on this journey from bondage to freedom, from darkness to light. And I'm going to tell you in the process what I went through, the journey that I made.

And it's, I hope, a simple enough procedure that you can understand it and use this in anything else that comes into your life that you need to deal with this issue. But the first one is going to be the most important one. That's going to be by far the most important step in this entire process.

And it's usually the one where people get bogged down and they stop right there. Do I care? Because without caring enough to go down through the next five points, there's going to be no motivation to do it. We'll stop back where I stopped down the road there on Fayetteville Drive.

For many years, I did not care enough to dig in and find out the answer. Because I had another way that was far easier than caring. It was, I could take the excuse that he gave.

I got electricity to my voice. Sounds good to me. Let's go with that.

He gave the explanation that people who don't understand it don't like it. Oh, that's good enough. We don't want to be one of those ignorant ones.

And therefore, I didn't care enough to go down through any of the others. And so, we'll talk about that in just a little bit. Let's go through some of these other ones.

We could ask about, see some of this is, we're talking about water witching in particular here. In my particular experience, it was water witching. And so that's what we're talking about.

And I needed to find out, before I came down here to the point where I bowed my knee and said, God, I'm sorry, I'm guilty, I know what I'm guilty of, and I'm sorry I'm guilty of that, and I need your forgiveness and cleansing to be set free. Before I could get down there, I need to go through this process. So about water witching in particular, I need to ask the question, is there a power? I'll just put the all abbreviated sum of it.

Is there even anything here? When those wires went this way, what made them go that way? Does it work at all? Okay. The next question I need to ask, is that power, if there is a power, if the answer is yes, then the next one is, is that power natural or not? Again, if he was right, the electricity in his body was making it do it, then if it's a natural power, well, that's good. We use natural powers all the time.

I could pull this pin out of my pocket. I could drop it. I could do it two times and three times, and you just witnessed a power at work.

It's called the law of gravity, taking this pin and dropping it. And it pulls it down. It's a power.

But this is a natural power. We may not know exactly how gravity works, but we know it's part of nature, the creation that God made. So that's the next question we need to ask if we want to get an answer about these questions.

Is it natural? The next one I'm going to put, does the power depend on Jesus and his word? And so I'll just put a couple of abbreviations. Depend. And I'll put over here Jesus.

And you can also say his word. Does it depend on Jesus and his word to work? We talked about earlier already. We've been praying and anointing with oil.

We did it a number of times this year. Does it have power behind it? As we look back through history many times, and even here in our church just in the last year, we've seen that power at work. It is a power.

Is it natural? No, it's not part of nature. Anointing with oil is a power that comes from. It's not that that oil has any power in it to cure cancer or to heal somebody's, you know, ailing limbs or whatever.

So when people anoint with oil like it's found in James, it's not natural. But here's the question. Does it depend on Jesus and his word? Yes, it does.

Anointing with oil is for people who are right with God. People who believe in Jesus. People who follow his word.

People who are walking in purity and holiness. Then they come to Jesus with this. And there's a power.

Next question. We need to ask again to get to the bottom of the answers. And how did, again, how did I come to this thing? This thing of witchcraft, water witching.

What are the claims behind it? I'm going to put down here claims. And I'm going to put down here the terminology. I'll just put terms.

And after that, I'm going to put down new age. I'm going to put witchcraft, abbreviated. Are there claims that are used that connect it to new age philosophy, to witchcraft, to pagan philosophies, paganism, occultism.

Those are all kind of the same words. Sorcery is a word the Bible uses. Are there claims and terms that are used to promote it, that tie it to some of these things, occultism, new age, witchcraft, and so forth.

And finally, what about the people who promote it? Are the people promoting it? Are they also promoting? And these things are not, or do they also have connections? And I'll just put the same thing, new age, witchcraft. What about them? This list is not necessarily every point in the list has to check. But when they start to check one after another after another, the red flags in our minds should be going off.

The alarm bells should be going off. The red flags should be going up. And we say, wait a minute, do I want to do this? Is this really what I'm after? So let's talk about these things one at a time.

Let's talk about the top one again. Do I care? I remember we went to Corvallis. My wife was going to a chiropractor up there.

I was sitting in the waiting room while she was in there getting a treatment at the chiropractor, not too far from where I work. And on the screen, on the TV in the waiting room, they were promoting a procedure. Maybe later I'll tell you exactly what it was.

But it was a procedure that they were saying, you know, this is what we think you ought to do. Yeah, we do chiropractor working on your back in here, but this is something else you might want to try. And I looked at that thing and I said, by that time, I had already done some research on it.

And so I talked to the chiropractor afterward. I said, sir, I just saw that that was being promoted out there in your waiting room, this particular process. And I said, as far as the research I've been able to do, that appears to be witchcraft.

His reply was interesting. He said, maybe it is. He says, you know, I'm not a Christian.

I, you know, I practice chiropractic and I do, you know, these different things, but I'm not a Christian. I've never been a Christian. And so, well, maybe it is witchcraft, but I don't care because if it works, that's all he cared about.

Okay. Well, that was an interesting response, but it was consistent with where he was spiritually. He was not a Christian.

And so he didn't care what, whether or not this thing was witchcraft or not. So for him to not care made sense. But for me not to care did not make sense.

Those intervening years between that time on Fayetteville Drive when I used those wires and the time when I finally knelt and confessed I have sinned, those intervening years when I did not care, that did not make sense. And I'm going to tell you why. Turn in your Bibles if you would to Galatians 5. And we'll read some verses here.

Galatians 5, starting with verse 19. It says, Now the works of the flesh are manifest which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, idolatry, witchcraft. Skipping forward.

They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Now you see why it doesn't make sense for me as a professing Christian to go those years having committed that thing without caring. You see, if there was even a hint that some people thought this might have been witchcraft, Galatians 5 should have alerted me to say, you better find out.

I mean, after all, you did it. And if you did it, and if people who commit witchcraft will not inherit the kingdom of God, you owe it to yourself. You owe it to God.

You owe it to everybody around you to find out the answer, whether this really is witchcraft or not. But for many years, I didn't care, or I should say, I didn't at least care enough to do the investigation. And that's the key right there.

That's the biggest question. Do I care enough to do the investigation? Galatians 5 should have told me, you better care enough to find out. Revelation 21 verse 8. You don't have to turn here, but you can if you want to.

Revelation 21, 8 says, but the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and warmongers and sorcerers shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Sorcerers. What is a sorcerer? A person who commits sorcery, a person who commits witchcraft.

Should I care? Absolutely. What about Acts chapter 19? You know what happened there? Ephesus received the gospel. And Ephesus had a revival.

And in Ephesus, they said to each other, if we're going to follow Jesus, there's something we can no longer do. And they brought a big bonfire together. You know what was in the bonfire? It wasn't branches and sticks.

It was books. Books of witchcraft. And they burned them there.

And there was a tremendous revival. And that's been consistent throughout history. When revival comes, people do away with witchcraft.

We go back to Deuteronomy 18. I've got a list of so many verses. It says here in Deuteronomy 18, when you come into this land that the Lord's given you, you do not do what the nations there do.

They commit witchcraft. They offer their sons. They've got these charmers and so forth.

Exodus 22, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Leviticus 19, regard not them that have familiar spirits. Leviticus 20, I'm going to set my soul against anybody who has regards to familiar spirits and so forth.

There's Isaiah. There's Hosea. There's Malachi.

It says I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers. Kings, talking about the king of Manasseh and how wicked Manasseh was. What was he doing that was so wicked? Committing witchcraft.

So after reading all these verses, it only makes sense that a Christian should care. Because caring is a motivation then to go down through the rest of these points. If I don't care, I'm going to say, well, why does that matter? It doesn't matter to me.

But see, it should matter to me because, again, I had done it. I had done this thing called water witching. So let's go down through.

Let's go down through each of these and we'll apply it to my situation. I had used these things called divining rods, dowsing rods, water witching rods. And the first question you ask, is there any power behind it? Does it work? And that's where the answer is a very... Even though it was maybe in my mind I questioned a little bit.

Was it real? But as you hear testimonies of people who do this, they do a lot of it. Sometimes they even get paid to do it. Maybe they connect it up with some of their other work like well drilling and so forth.

The testimonies they have are unbelievable sometimes. Places where there should not be any water, these guys are finding water through this method. But not only that, they'll get in an airplane and fly over an area and find water with those wands up in the airplane.

Not only that, they'll say we want to get rich. We want to drill an oil well. And they'll use these things to find oil.

They'll say my dad lost his wallet out in the corn patch. I'm going to use my divining rods to point me to the place where his wallet is. And it does it.

It finds it. They'll say I'm in another state. I'm in Pennsylvania but there's somebody over here in Illinois who wants to know where his wallet is or where water is.

Okay, give me a map of your property. I'll put the map out on the table and I'll take my divining rods. Okay, do it on the northwest corner ten feet in and twenty feet to the right of that big tree.

And that's where they find water or find the wallet or whatever. This is the kind of stuff that's done with that same procedure. And so is there a power? There's no question that there's a power.

And it's often an intelligent power. And it's a power that acts kind of funny sometimes. It'll even give a lying answer but it'll be an intelligent answer.

Now think about that. There's a difference between right and wrong, obviously. If it says your wallet is over here but it's not, it's over here, you say, oh, it must not work.

But back up a little bit. Why did it give an answer at all? I know we're getting ahead of ourselves. So we've already talked about is there a power? And testimony is the key method of determining is there a power.

And I'll tell you why testimony is. There's another way to find out if there's a power. We did it already today.

We did it with this pen. We dropped it. That's called experimentation.

You can find out if there's a power or not by experimenting. I can take a pen and I'll drop it 100 times and count up how many times it dropped and how many times it kind of went floating up onto space. And if 100 out of 100 it drops, I say, okay, experimentation shows me that this power is working.

But there's another time. I could listen to people come up and say, you know what, I dropped my pen and over and over again it just fell. Every time I dropped it, it fell.

Okay, well, that's your testimony. I haven't tried it myself, but I'll take your word for it. And after a while you get to the point that a pen often, if not always, falls when people drop it.

Testimony is a powerful way to figure out whether something has power. It's not the only way. Experimentation is another way.

But testimony is one way to find out if something has a power behind it or an effect behind it. But the next question is key. And often these people get confused between two and number three.

We've got to move on to the next one. Is it a natural power? And this is key here. Some people use the word scientific, but let's just use the word natural.

Is it part of the nature as God made? See, there's characteristics to natural power. You witnessed one of them. It always behaves the same way.

The law of gravity always works. And so it works the same way over and over again. It doesn't mean it can't be overridden through the law of aerodynamics and things like that.

It doesn't mean that the angels could perhaps lift somebody up in their hands lest they dash their feet against a stone and the law of gravity be overridden in that way. But generally, natural power always works the same. And so that's how we can determine is it natural or not.

As long as you have the conditions the same, it will produce the same result if it is a natural power. And so it's a very important question. Is it natural? And here is where this thing of divination, dowsing, water witching, which I did, comes up with a very, very clear no.

It is not a natural power. It does not give the same results in the same situation. It gives different results.

It'll tell one guy that water is here, but very clear that it's there. And the next guy comes along and he'll give him no answer whatsoever. Same situation, same everything.

In fact, it'll even give an intelligent answer that is a dishonest answer. But here's what's most striking about this. People out in the field who believe in this, it'll work over and over and over again for them.

You take those same people, you say, OK, let's try to get a controlled experiment. Come over here to the college. We've got a bunch of scientists here.

We want to figure out what this is that's working. And the power will turn off like that. It will not work in the land of skeptics.

It will only work in the land of the faithful. Now what do we call something when it depends on our faith to make it work? Clearly, prayer is that way. Our faith has a very clear connection to it.

And so when people are believing in it... Here's an example. I took those wires and I went across that water line and they moved. People did the same thing with a stick, a dry stick.

It doesn't conduct electricity, but it'll do the same thing. Take this dry stick and it'll do the same thing. Or maybe dip down at the right time.

And that thing will never work when your mind isn't behind it. Carrying a bundle of sticks to the burn pile, you never find those sticks start to go twitch, twitch, twitch when you walk across a water line. It just doesn't happen.

Your mind has to be engaged. That's one of the keys here of whether it's natural or not. Your mind has to be behind it.

And that's not the way nature works. When I drop this pen, it doesn't matter if I do it. It doesn't matter if somebody who's half-sleepy does it.

It doesn't matter if their mind... It's going to drop. When that pen slides off the table, it's going to drop every time because it's a natural power. But if somebody's trying to tap into the supernatural, that's where you have to have your mind behind it.

So, we first ask is there a power? Secondly, is it a natural power? Thirdly, does it depend on Jesus and His Word? So far, anointing with oil, we go down through this list. Is there a power there? Yes. Is it natural? No.

Anointing with oil in prayer is not a natural power behind it. Fourthly, does it depend on Jesus and His Word? Absolutely anointing with oil does. Is it witchcraft therefore? No, it's not.

It's tapping into a supernatural power, but it's tapping into the power of God, Jesus, His Word. It's not tapping into an occultic, demonic, satanic power. And there is a difference.

Let's go on to number five. Does it have claims, terms that connect it to new age, witchcraft, and so forth? Paganism, Satanism, occultism. And what are some of those terms? Well, obviously you say water witching.

That term doesn't sound very good. Well, it doesn't. That's true.

But often there's other things. There's terms like life force, meridians, bioenergy, electromagnetism, electricity. You say those terms sound scientific.

They sound natural. And those words all have, or mostly have, a natural meaning as well. But when they're used in these contexts, they're used to describe something completely different.

We know what energy is. Bioenergy, electromagnetism. Those sound scientific.

But the deal is here that these words have double meanings. They're completely different. The energy that's talked about in new ageism and occultism has nothing to do with what you learn in a science book.

The science book term of energy can be transferred one kind to another. You can use heat to make electricity. You can use electricity to make heat.

You can use nuclear energy to make electricity. Back and forth they can move. When they use energy in this setting, it has no connection at all to those kinds of energy that are found in the natural world.

So watch out for those terms. Vital energy, vital force, universal energy, innate intelligence, healing force. Whenever you see those things, watch out.

You've just checked a box. Number five, there's a connection there. And sixly, who's promoting this? That's one that's a little tricky because if I were to only look at them, that one there, back when I was doing that water witching, I would have looked at the man who brought those wands over and said, well, he's a church member.

He's a good godly man. I know him. And so that one would not have checked off.

But then you start looking back. Where did he get his information from? Where did he learn it from? And you realize that some of these things are connected. So let's just go through some of these things.

Let's just check various procedures and say, how do they work? We've already talked about gravity, a pen dropping. We've determined, okay, that's a natural power. So because it didn't check this box, this is kind of a make it or break it one right there.

Not all of these are make it or break it, but this one is. If it's natural, we don't need to call it witchcraft. That's not what we should be doing.

We don't want to be these people that are sounding an alarm when there's no alarm that needs to be sounded. That removes credibility as Christians. We need to sound the alarm when there should be an alarm sounded.

If you start calling wolf when there is no wolf, people won't believe you when there really is a wolf. You know that story. I won't go into it any deeper.

Here's something else I just thought of this morning. Something I got in the mail this past week. I thought this would be a good illustration if I can just get it out and we can check this as well.

Maybe we'll see how this thing works. This is something we got called Newton's Cradle. I hope it's not going to be too tangled.

I'm afraid it is. I'm going to ask one of my boys to just get it going. It's something that we got in the mail.

We're going to check it here in just a little bit. We're going to find out does it meet the conditions for being a witchcraft or not? Is there a power there? You're going to see that there is a power. We're going to get to this one.

Is it a natural power? We're going to check that off the box. Let's go to another one. We heard about Haiti this morning already.

Let's talk about when Melody and the different ones were in Haiti. There was a witch doctor there. He had a bottle.

And this bottle had this potion in it. He could make curses on people with this potion. And this potion, if he put it outside somebody's door or he pointed at somebody, this bottle had incredible power that he himself, this witch doctor, was fearful of.

If you can't get it going, we can just wait and do it later. But anyway, this witch doctor had this bottle. He would put curses on people.

People would die as a result of this curse that he would put on them. His enemy, in another trial, they would wage war with these Haitian voodoo witch doctor curses, killing people. Now my question is, I'll set this up here.

This will be one of our next ones we're going to check. But what do you think about that witch doctor and his bottle? Is that something that would be... Let's get this all the way down in here. What about that witch doctor's bottle? Is there a power? First of all, do I care enough? Does it matter to me? If I'm doing it, it should.

Is there a power there? Yeah, people have testimonies left and right, people dying when he places a curse on them. Is there a power? Yes. Is it natural? I think we'd all say no, it's not a natural power.

There's a demon behind it. Does it depend on Jesus' word? No, absolutely not. The most wicked man in the world, these wicked voodoo doctors, they can exercise this power and it works.

Does it have claims? Obviously it does. The people, obviously it checks the box. Is that witchcraft? That bottle that that witch doctor had in the Haitian jungle? Absolutely, it's witchcraft.

No question. If we've ever been a part of that, we can say clearly it is. It checks all the box.

I took it on a step-by-step process. I didn't have to say I don't know. I know the answer.

It's witchcraft. I should confess it. I should repent.

Let's go back to this one. Newton's cradle. Isn't this kind of... Wow, you let one ball go and the other one goes.

You can swing it like this. And you could just wait and time it. Is there a power there? Obviously it's moving.

Something's going on here. There's a power there that maybe we can't explain. What if you take two of these balls and let them go and then two comes out the other side? Take three of them.

Three will come out the other side. How do these balls know what these balls are thinking? That doesn't make sense, does it? But it does make sense. And here's why it makes sense.

This one right here. It's a natural power. We'll put this down here.

We can play with it later. We talked about Newton's cradle. That's natural.

We talked about dropping a pen. It's natural. We talked about... I took you through the water witching thing.

Is there a power? Yes. Is it natural? No. It's been very well documented.

It's not natural. Does it depend on Jesus? No. You can have the most vile guy out there and he'll... A wicked man and a water witching and it'll work for him.

Does it have claims attached to it? Yes, it does. And so I went down through that list and that's the reason I bowed the knee and said, Lord, I'm guilty of the sin of witchcraft. I no longer had to say, I don't know, because I did know.

It was clear. The boxes checked. It was clear.

Friend David Conkle up here in Shedd told the story of a time he was visiting, I think it was a beachy friend back in Pennsylvania. And together they went to talk to an Amish man. And this Amish man had a visitor there, a white van in the driveway.

And this white van man was promoting something. He was there. He had this pendulum.

Kind of like these pendulums in the box down here, but he had it hanging from his wrist and he would go over a napkin. And he said, one of these napkins has a penny under it. And this thing would turn.

It would swing one way. All of a sudden it would stop and swing the other way. And he'd say, the penny's under that one right there.

And they looked at that thing and they said, that's witchcraft. Oh no, he says, you guys are ignorant. You just don't know how these things work.

And he mocked them. The reason that man was there was because he had this little device called a black box he was going to put in the Amish man's field to make his corn produce better. And it was a popular thing back there.

And he mocked anybody who said, this is wrong. This is witchcraft. David and his friend went across the road.

They said, let's pray. And so they stopped and they prayed. And all of a sudden, that man who was promoting this thing come ripping out of the house, running, jumped in his van and he tore off out of there.

They went back over to the Amish man. He said, what happened? They said, I don't know what happened. He was here to show me how to use this black box.

And you guys left. And all of a sudden, he just said, And he left. What was it? See, there was spiritual warfare going on there.

And that's all part of radiosthesia. Guys, I'm going to go. I'll tell you what.

Closing time today is 1210. So if I go over 1210, we'll know we're over time. But we're not over time yet.

Okay. So black box, water witching, radiosthesia, pendulums, it's all part of the same thing. Ouija boards.

I don't know if anybody here has ever used an Ouija board. But again, you could go down through this same thing. Do I care? I've used it in the past.

Do I care? Well, I should, because I'm a Christian. Does it have a power? Well, something was going on. Is it natural? Again, any investigation we can do tells us no, it's not.

Does it depend on Jesus? No, everybody uses a Ouija board. It's not just Christians. And we go down through there.

We could talk about, let's talk about applied kinesiology. That's what I saw in that chiropractor's office. Applied kinesiology is where people give a bottle of pills to a person who's sick and say, is this going to help you or not? You don't take the pill to see if it helps you.

Just hold the pill. All of a sudden, they feel the muscles tense up. Ah, that's the pill you need right there.

And you say, is there anything natural about this? I mean, people will maybe try to come up with some sort of a way to explain it naturally. And that's common. It's common in witchcraft circles, even the Wicca religion.

They don't believe they're tapping into the power of Satan. They believe they're tapping into some natural power. So it's not what people believe about it.

It's what the investigation determines. Is there a power? Is it natural? You want to know if something's natural or not? Subject it to the natural experimentation methods that natural things behave like. When they behave like natural phenomena, then it's probably natural.

But if it's definitely a power and it's not natural, our flag should be going up. We should first of all ask, is it only for Christians? Most of these things are not. Are the claims behind it? And most of them do.

They have these terms that they are using. And we could talk about homeopathy, a medicine where people will say they'll take a pill. They'll take a little tiny droplet of something and mix it in with some inert matter like sugar.

Something that doesn't have anything to it at all. Maybe it's just water. Maybe it's a liquid.

Maybe it's a powder. But they'll mix it in with something. And then they'll divide it 100 ways and put one of those 100 drops into another batch of pure sugar.

And then they'll divide that 100 ways. And you'll see a little thing on the box. It'll say 6 times or 6X or 6C.

And it'll tell you how many times they've diluted that until there's none of that original thing left anymore. It's a way of giving up control. But they call that whole process, that mixing and that shaking, they call it succession I believe it is.

And it's been, again, it's something that is well documented. It cannot be natural. It is deliberately not natural.

Now is there a power to people get well by taking these things? Is there enough testimonies to make it work? And obviously the testimonies, they keep coming down that, yeah, it works. So you say, well then, does it depend on Jesus? No, no, you can give these pills to anybody and they'll make a difference, at least in the right time, with the right belief system or whatever. Now what if you just give sugar pills to somebody? If they don't believe it, if their mindset is not, I'm going to be healed by this thing, it's not going to make any difference.

The belief is key there. And so we go down to, are there claims to the new age and so forth? And yeah, that's exactly what those, the claims behind homeopathy do. Life force, meridians, this bioenergy, this electromagnetism, all new age connections.

And then who sells it? Well, obviously a lot of times it's going to be in a health store. It doesn't mean that Christians don't sell it. It doesn't mean that there wasn't a Christian man, at least a professing Christian, that can come and practice water witching or a lot of these other things.

I suppose that guy at the Amish men's house, he might have claimed to be a Christian, but that's not the way we determine whether or not this is witchcraft and whether we need to repent of it. And structured water. This is one that has come into our community here locally.

And again, I'm trying to talk about things that we deal with. I'm not trying to talk about things that are way out there. I'm trying to talk about things that are right, that we will face if we're Americans living in Oregon in the 21st century.

This is a process where someone came up with this idea that if you take a little device and you put a few balls in the device and you run water through it, it'll move around the water as it passes through it and it'll restructure the water and make it a hexagonal water. And it'll actually change the structure. Now sometimes it'll say, it'll use again a scientific term.

This is a water filter. But remember, there's a scientific term for filtering. There is natural filters.

You can take a cloth and pour water through it, it'll filter it. But this is not a filter. Again, it uses a scientific term to describe something that is not scientific.

And so we say, well, let's examine this. You can do a search on the internet and find out whether it's a... First of all, is there a power? And you have testimony after testimony. People say, yes, this device actually works.

My house, you know, my water was acting this way and my food was acting this way and I got this device and things changed. Okay, well, testimonies. But now we've got to determine something else.

Is it natural? And so you take this to a science lab and say, run the test. What is the water? No, the water is sane. This is nonsense.

Well, wait, you're a scientist. We felt something different in our house. Figure out what it was.

And so they run all these tests and the moment skepticism is there, belief is gone, skepticism comes, all effect is gone. And that's the way witchcraft works. It has to have a faith behind it in order to make it work.

So again, we just go down through the steps. Is there a power? Testimonies tell us yes. Is it natural? Experimentation tells us no.

It doesn't act at all like a natural power. Number four, does it depend on Jesus' word? No. The most blatant non-believer can do it and it will work just fine for him.

Number five, are there claims that tie it to the new age? And that's where, once again, this structured water, over and over again, just those new age terms were coming up over and over and over again that clearly connect it to new age system, new age philosophy. Ouija boards, we already talked about that. Acupuncture, acupressure.

Again, you go down through those lists. Is there a power? Something's going on. Is it natural? Again, see I'm not a scientist, but there are scientists in the world.

Does that mean we believe everything the scientists say? No. They don't know anything about creation. A lot of times they don't know how this world got here.

They don't know anything about spiritual principles. But here's one thing scientists do know how to do. They know how to do science.

And they can determine this one right here. And so when you go online and do any research, you'll find scientists saying, it's certainly not a natural power. Therefore, there's no power at all.

Wait, that scientist is very good at telling you whether or not it's natural. But don't take any advice from him about whether there's any power at all. That's not his business.

He's not in that field. Because there could be a supernatural power that the scientist has no way of knowing whether it's true or not. But generally, scientific papers can tell you whether water witching is a natural power, whether structured water is a natural power, whether homeopathy is natural or not.

They're very good at that. Just don't trust them to answer any of the rest of these questions. But this is a very important question, and it stands on its own.

So our time is up. Now I'm over time if I preach anymore. So you can hold that against me if you want to.

But yoga, reflexology, any of these things that come down, I encourage you to deal with them in a way that God demands. And I'll just read this in closing. I know I'm over time, but if it's good enough, you need to listen.

And this is good enough to listen to. Here's some thoughts from God's Word. When Joram saw Jehu, he said, Is it peace, Jehu? So he answered, What peace? As long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft are so many.

These things says the Son of God, who has the eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like fine brass. I know your works, love, service. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you because you allow that woman Jezebel to teach and seduce.

I gave her time to repent, and she did not repent. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.

Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. Let's stand for prayer, and after that I'll give the time back to Jeremy.

Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. I ask you, God, to give us wisdom. Make us wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

Help us to stay away from evil and help us to repent of evil that we've been involved in in the past. Help us to warn, Lord, faithfully. And Lord, I pray that you would protect us as we do.

And Lord, help us to be willing to fight this fierce fight with sin and to be brave. Lord, I confess fear and trembling in my own heart. And I pray, God, that you would just come and make us bold and help us to do your will.

Help us to be a pure people. Help us to be a people who are clean, channels open for your Holy Spirit to flow through us, to bring life-giving revival, life-giving water to people around us. And help us to be free of this sin of witchcraft.

Lord, there's many other sins we could have preached about this morning. And we want to be free from those as well. We don't want to exalt one above another or make a bigger deal over this than any other.

We want to be free from all sin, Lord. So lay on our heart whatever that sin is, whether it's idolatry, whether it's witchcraft, whether it's covetousness, whether it's bitterness, unforgiveness. Lord, we ask for freedom.

Deliver us, Lord. And we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.

You can be seated.