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Doctrine of Demon Possession
BD21-02© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1971)
The ministry of the Berean Memorial Church has as its
cornerstone the instruction, the teaching, and the communicating of
Bible doctrine. One of the ways that we do it
is through the ministry of the Berean Youth Clubs, these six clubs that
meet all during the week to keep this place operating night and day, as
young people are dealt with in the world in which they live, and in which clubs are
used as the vehicle for the instruction in Bible doctrine, and to lay a life in
a functional way to the living God on into adulthood.
It is only natural for kids who have grown up among us to
come to adulthood, and then in time to be out on their own and to look
back and to make an evaluation of their own heritage. So, over the years, I have a series of what I call love letters that I
have on file of young people who have looked back and then they
suddenly come to the place where their hearts are overwhelming in gratitude toward
God for the privileged place that they held in a local church that had some
insights and some values that have carried them into adulthood in which they,
now on their own decision making mechanisms, they’re going to carry
them right out into fruitful eternity.
So, I have a letter this week that I want to read to you that
I think will be an encouragement to your heart, and will point out in
some respect what it is that Satan is trying to resist with all of his
demonic hosts. This is the sort of thing he does
not want to happen. He does not want
people to go out and write letters back of this nature.
This is from Sue Stalman, one of our young women who is now
a student at Wheaton College. She says:
“Dear Dr. Danish and Mrs. Danish, I wanted to write and tell
you some of the thoughts and realizations that I have been discovering. I
guess you really learn so much when you are
away from home, and more or less on your own. A lot of my
discoveries have concerned Berean. I
am so thankful for my background and
experience at Berean. The first place
that I am going to start is with my working as a guide at Keystone
Baptist Church…”
Now, Keystone Baptist Church is a black church on the west
side of Chicago. It happens to be in the
very section of Chicago in which I was raised. It is now a black
community. The church itself, we discovered last summer as we found out where our
Wheaton kids were working in their Pioneer Girl’s Clubs, was, of all
things, the very church where Mrs. Danish attended years ago. So
now it’s a black church. These girls go
every Saturday and run Pioneer Girl’s clubs there. So,
Sue goes on and says:
“I always thought that Pioneer Girls and Brigade made the
Berean Youth Club program, but that was a wrong assumption. I
know now that it is the leaders that make a
program work, and all of Berean leaders have been top notch as far as
my experience goes. This I name as a
blessing from God and thank Him for that. Working as a
leader, I now see the other side of the coin. What
they give of themselves is more than I
ever imagined. The little things
they did, not so that they’d have fun, but that we would enjoy
ourselves, and experience and grow as God’s children.
“The position of leader is humble and selfless. This
is extremely opposite of what I pictured when I was a child. Being a leader
was authority, and more or less boastful. As
a leader and a teacher, you yourself have to know and experience what
you’re telling those little minds. If what you
are teaching is not real to you, then how can it be real to them? It
is a responsibility that demands a lot,
and not some Mickey Mouse position.
“Last night, Sarah and I, along with the other three leaders
at Keystone, made a presentation to the church about Pioneer Girls. We
had the whole evening service. Talk about nervous! This was a pretty
big responsibility and task. During the entire program, I
wished that you and all the other people at Berean, that had something
to do with my learning growing up celebrating and struggling with
Christianity (if that is a good term), could see Sarah and me. You would have
seen that you did a good job. There is so much that Sarah are thankful for
because of Berean, and these things really show through in our work at
Keystone. I appreciate the Berean Youth Clubs and
realize that Brigade and Pioneer Girls are just programs, only truly
successful when there is good leadership and discernment.
“Another point that I thank God for is the Bible
teaching. It is so important what you
teach a child, even big kids like me. There is so much
that I remember hearing and learning that just
gels. Right now, certain absolutes, principals that you accepted and now understand why.
“I just wanted you to know that I am still learning and will
keep on learning, and am thankful for the part has played, and is
playing, in my growing up. One of your Berean kids,
Sue Stalman.”
Well, we thank Sue, and I know you appreciate hearing from
her. I think her letter illustrates what
it is that we are up against in the satanic warfare that we have been
studying together. The one thing that demons are
seeking to oppose is spiritual growth in depth in grace through the
local church. You may be sure that Satan will
do all that he can to weaken and to destroy a local church which is
producing people with a storage of Bible doctrine in their human spirits which
enables them to be victorious in the spiritual combat in the face of the
demonic warfare. The Bible spells out for us
very clearly the nature of our enemy. This is important
if we are to be able to deal successfully in this warfare.
Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and
blood (we’re not wrestling against human beings), but against
principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in
high places.” These are classifications of
demonic beings, orders of demonic beings, various ranks of power. This
is the nature of our enemy. It is high time that Christians everywhere
came to grips with reality that the demons are here. They
are seeking to influence your life. Satan has fantastic capacities. The demonic world
has super-human powers. They have great information. They work through
human beings, and they have fantastic influence upon believers. Some of you are learning this.
However, I’m happy to remind you that 1 John 4:4 tells us
that, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome
them, because greater is He (God the Holy Spirit) than is he (Satan and his demons) that are
in the world.
David Hills
We are living in the intensified stage of the demonic
warfare. Their time is short. They don’t intend to give up. We
have evidence of this mounting demonic
activity through the expression of tongues, miracle healers, and
through occultism. There are people who have had
experiences with this demonic world. My
attention was called to one such man named David Hills this past week. It
would be nice if we had him here to speak
to us, and to share with us from his unsaved days when he had dabbled
in the spirit world, in occultism. How real he
found that world that we joke about and have glib little expressions
like, “The devil made me do it.” All of which make
it seem very unreal. But David Hills,
who is in his middle twenties now has traveled the world, and he has
moved in some fantastic circles, in the high and the mighty of this world; in
the casinos of the Riverias.
One of the things that he pursued was people who knew and
had contact with the spirit world. The
more he got into it, the more fascinated he became. He
went to the fabled places of the earth to
learn about contact with the spirit world. Finally, for the
climax of his life, he who had been involved on close
association with evil expressions such as the Mafia, who lived for
period of years in the home of the supreme Don of the Mafia, Joe Bonano. He
came to a climax in his life and he met
some German friends who had from Hitler’s Germany, but who
were spiritists. There was a lot of that in
Hitler’s Germany. Hitler himself was undoubtedly
a fantastically demon possessed genius. And he found from
these people some great new insights, means of
contacting the demon world and securing these powers.
His pursuit came to a climax one night when he met with his
German friends and they sat across the room from one another practicing
telepathy, ESP, transferring thoughts without words from one mind to
another, which is a demonic activity. I’d
like you to listen to him in his own words describe to you what happened to
him that night. OK, fella, will you roll the tape?
“I have heard that if one could reach the fabled locations
of the Incas in the Andes of South America, there was where the action
is at in this hemisphere. One of the cities there
had the distinction of being a citadel of the ancient occult knowledge,
the secret knowledge, this hidden knowledge, those ancient mysteries. It
was like the regions of Tibet and India and a handful of other locations around the world.
“So, I went to South America, and I lost 30 pounds in the
process. I was very ill. But I had to know what was beyond the powers
that I had now assimilated and had now access to. You
can be sure there are such powers as
levitation where by will an individual raises the drum from the ground
and has it move elsewhere. There are such
things as clairvoyance where one can accurately foretell future events before
their occurrence. There are such things as boards
with alphabets spread across them saying in the French and the German
“Ouija,” that one can address a question to and have it accurately answer the
question with the pointer moving by itself. You don’t put your finger on it. There
are such things as a spiritual séance where a group of minds in
collusion with an unseen power grasp hands, calling for this power and spirit from the
dead world to come in; and, literally it does come, and it does speak, and it is,
lo and behold, the voice of the departed one, or so it seems to be, and it is
as tangible of those of us who are here now—very real.
“But, you see, at the time, I didn’t know the Bible. I
didn’t know the sixth chapter of Ephesians
where Paul says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and
blood.” It’s not a question of you and I. It’s
not a question of communism versus
capitalism, or morality versus immorality—no, not at all. No,
we don’t deal with each other, “but
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” We
deal with Lucifer. I didn’t know this in the Andes of Peru and
the fabled lost city of the Incas.
It just so happened that I came to know a group of Germans—I
say so now with amusement, “It just so happens.” Nothing
“just so happens.” These German people claimed to have been
refugees from the horror of Hitler. Over
the next two weeks that I came to know them better I found that indeed
they had in the concentration camps, but they weren’t prisoners. No. No, they were
there on an entirely different capacity. These
were people who were evil in the sense
that words would fail me even now. They
were not into witchcraft, or occult sciences, which is just a pretty word for witchcraft.
“They knew a great deal, and I found that we had a great
many things in common. So, it was one particular evening that we were practicing that power of
self-transference, that conversation that knows no words. One
looks an individual in the eyes and communicates with the eyes where a
thought, or series of thoughts, or an entire train of thoughts is created in the
mind and then encased in the rectangle of natural energy that exists within
all of us and is transformed by will to the other mind, and it is accurately
received, much the same as the lens of a camera receives the object that it is
aimed at. And the individual across the way understands only too clearly what’s happening.
“So, I’m practicing this remarkable conversation where words
and facial expressions are not necessary, to a German named Ryan Haud. Then
a most peculiar thing happened. His face began to alter itself perceptibly. The
eyebrows began to draw up about here. The face began to draw in
here. The hairline I had seen was long gone. Guess who was
sitting across from me at this time. Oh, you’d never believe it. I
could never have believed it, but you see I
was much too sophisticated to believe in the existence of the devil. After
all, I’d been around the world. I
knew the highs and the lows of it all. Who
was going to tell me about someone as
absurd as the devil? Yet, lo and behold,
here he was, sitting across from me, telling me in the very same
conversation that knows no words and no facial expressions, that, “Now
you’ve seen some of the amazing gifts that I’m passing around in these days, and
now it’s time for you to pay.” So, there was the price.
“So, to know the moral of it all with Satan always ultimately
demands the same thing. You sell out to him. You fix a deal. You
make an arrangement. You sell your soul. You sign it in
blood. You become a spirit filled with the evil
spirit, a walking talking living disciple carrying the gospel of evil
to the world. That’s what it’s all about. You’re
a soul winner for Satan. He has counterfeited Christianity from the
Bible all the way through every aspect of it. There’s
not one original aspect to his nature. Everything about him is a counterfeit.
“So, literally we become soul winners for the devil. And
this is what I was faced with now. And I began to watch my will to resist
leaving me. And Buddha and Muhammad and Confucius
and Marx and Lenin and all of these individuals that I knew infinitely
more about were nowhere to help me. Oh, I wanted help, to be sure. I wanted help,
but these gentlemen could do nothing for me. So, the grim
reality of my entire life was now before me. All
of my life I had been serving the destroyer who was very real. He was
sitting across from me.
“By faith, I uttered a name that I hadn’t mentioned for
perhaps fifteen years because I was much too sophisticated for the
devil and much too sophisticated for Christianity. I mean, after
all, “Christianity, what a joke.” And
yet in the grips of terror and facing
Lucifer himself, I began to ask Jesus to help me. Then
I began to scream, “Jesus help me.” It
was in that instant that the evil one was
gone. My will was restored. The ground had
returned. I went into a coma-like state, completely
exhausted by the experience. I had the
overwhelming experience that, indeed, the devil is real. He
does exist, and he has powers that are not
of this world. But there is a greater power. That power goes
by one name, and one name only—Jesus Christ.
“So, I did a remarkable thing. I got out of this
remote region of South America. Within 48 hours,
and believe me it took some fast traveling to get out of South America and on the
floor of my room at home praying for more within 48 hours. It’s
not an easy thing to do. But by now I needed the more that He had to offer. And believe me,
the devil is a funny fellow. He’ll string you along. But when you
begin to step out on him, he comes for you in a fantastically horrible way.
“But the Lord knew the needs of my heart, and instead of
taking me, when I got the Bible, to ‘in the
beginning,’ He took me to ‘greater
is He that is in you than he that is in the world.’ So
now I had a promise that I could claim forever and ever.”
OK, thank you fellas.
Now I hope you were able to follow that. Mr. Hills has been a Christian for something
less than a year. Some of you may have
seen him on the platform at the Billy Graham meetings here at the
crusade. But this is the grim reality of somebody who has
actually delved deeply into the spirit world, and who has come up with
a real genuine confrontation. So, what we’re
talking about is real. And this is the
information that you and I are now going to be dealing with relative to
yourselves. I remind you again that any
act, the Bible says, of negative volition on your part is equated by
God to demonism. That’s a fantastic declaration
of Scripture. Any negative volition on your part is going to be for three things: You are going to
be resistant to teaching, to teacher, or to technique (what the group is doing).
So, let’s learn how Satan operates. Let’s
learn how he is related to you as Christians. What
I’m trying to say is don’t
think we are talking only about unbelievers, the idol worshippers, the
sex cults, and the people who are not at all associated with you in the
things of the Lord. We’re talking about the
believers who come under the dominance of satanic influence.
First of all, believers cannot be possessed by demons, as we’ve
already indicated. 1 Corinthians 6:19
say, “What know ye not that your body is the temple of the
Holy Spirit who is in you, whom ye have of God, and ye are not your own.” A
believer can come under varying degrees of demonic
influence, but he cannot be indwelt or possessed by a demon. A
Christian will come under demonic influence
as a result of spiritual callouses which he builds up on the facets of
his soul through negative volition. Negative
volition is a fantastically frightful thing. This is the first
stage to demonic influence on the part of a
Christian. If you are negative to
teaching, teacher, or technique toward which God is positive,
you’ve had it. If you ever move
away from a ministry that God is positive toward, and you have become negative
toward, God help you. You’ve had it.
Negative volition, God says, is the same as demonism, and
demonism carries the death penalty. This
influence is a result upon Christian because of negative volition. It
creates a spiritual vacuum, and as 1
Timothy 4:1 then indicates, it draws in doctrines of demons which
influence the facets of our soul.
So, a Christian can be noted for wide emotional swings, for
irrationally resisting the plan of God, and for being attracted to the
occult. The Christian is overwhelmed
then with restlessness, and he sublimates. He substitutes
with drugs, with sex, with alcohol, with ecstatics such
as tongues, with ambitions that he pursues in various actions, with
legalistic living, and with sweetness and light attitudes. All of these are
substitutes. They cover up for the fact the he is engaged in the demonic activity of
negative volition, and his soul has become calloused. This
kind of a believer is very dangerous in
the local church. He’s a troublemaker
because he’s under demon influence, and he talks contention. He
has a vocabulary and the concepts that convey
spirituality even though he’s negative. So, he leads the
weak astray. He discourages. He hurts others. There’s
a hard quality about him—a heartless quality
about the demon influenced believer who’s calloused in his
soul through negative volition toward teaching, teacher, or technique.
He is usually a very attractive type. He can even convey a spirit of selfless
devotion in the form of human good which is under the demon control
operating out of his old sin nature. These are the
Christians who are the casualties in the angelic warfare, and these
Christians are all around us.
There are two type of demon possession that we want to look
at first of all this morning. Type
number one is active submission. Deliberate steps
are taken to detach the soul from the body, to give the
soul to Satan in exchange for some superhuman powers. There
are various ways to give your soul to
Satan, including the ultimate of signing it in blood. Those
who have shared the secrets are those
who have entered into pacts of understanding with the spirit world such
as you just heard on the tape excerpt.
Demon possession operates on the faculties of the soul, and
they are expressed through the body. In
active submission, it will hit the mind. What happens to
the mind? Well the self-awareness is blanked out. A
person who is a believer who is under demon influence by active
willingness is a believer conscious of what he does, but he focuses on what
he’s doing and on what he wants, and he focuses on those things apart from any sense of
morality, from any understanding or relationship or acting upon doctrine, on
spirituality, indifferent to its influence upon others or to the plan
of God. He focuses on his desires when he’s
under demon influence, and nothing else counts. If he’s
an unbeliever, he may be conscious, but he’s not aware of the
implications of his actions because his mind, his self-awareness has
been taken over by Satan.
The will is also affected in active demon submission. The
soul operates outside of its own
volition, so the person is capable of fantastic atrocities. This
is what happens in the tongues movement. Here the vocal
cords are taken over by the ventriloquist-type demons who then are able to speak
through the believer or through the unbeliever. The
emotions are also struck. What happens
to the emotions under demonic possession and influence of active
submission? The emotions go into
ecstatics—tongues, sexual perversion. The same thing
occurs whether in primitive societies or in civilized
societies. Tongues is an expression
again of ecstatics of demonic influence. The conscience is
struck with legalism and with human good values.
What we’re talking about here is active submission, a
disembodied spirit condition, so that the soul can be projected from
the body. There are various ways that the
demonic world has of separating the soul from the body. Some
of the techniques are: yoga; meditation—into nirvana, to seek to
become one with the mind of the universe; and, the fakers of India who
can do those fantastic physical feats (who do it because the soul is projected
out of the body).
Another technique for separating the soul from the body is
through the use of drugs (Since ancient times, drugs have been used to
bring about demon possession. Today it’s LSD. LSD produces a
fantastic demonic possession, and it can be deliberately done. The man that we
listened to on tape has quite a testimony on that. Some
160 times he took LSD trips to get full
demonic possession of his being. Marijuana is a
big debate, and I will observe in passing that whatever
the facts may be concerning the physical effects of marijuana, it is
bad on the soul. So, don’t be a fool to think that marijuana
is alright, it’s not addictive, and all the other things
you’re hearing. It is destructive to the soul as any drug is
because it is a technique for satanic possession.
Our bodies house our souls. Our souls are to
be the fortresses of our bodies. Unless
our souls have a flow of doctrine into
them, they cannot be that fortress. Spiritual
maturity is the key to demon opposition. That’s
why it’s important to know how to grow
up spiritually and how to develop the facets of that structure.
There’s another way to become demon possessed, and that is
passive submission. You just float into it. In this category
comes the influence upon most Christians who just drift into demon influence. This
is accomplished, for one thing, through idol worship. Behind every idol
is a demon god. Certain kinds of dancing lend
themselves to passive submission—the whirling dervish type. The
gyrating to a wild beat opposite a partner. Dancing has
always been associated with idolatry because it is a step in passively succumbing
to the demon power. The body comes under the
soul’s control and the demon has control of the soul. When
you dance to an idol, it’s an act of
worship which indicates submission to the demon. It’s
the same with the sex act which is performed
in connection with demon idol worship. The modern dance,
you can readily see, opens the door to demon influence, if not possessions.
Drugs, mesmerism, is another means of coming under demon
influence passively. Mind over matter, self-hypnosis. Hypnosis is
another means of coming under demon influence and possession. There are
specific means to coming under demon possession—demon
possession, actively entered.
Idolatry
Number one (the first means of coming under demon
possession) is through idolatry. A
person can become demon possessed through idolatry. Idol
worshipers are exposed to this. When the Hebrew
Bible was translated into Greek (which is called the Septuagint version), the translators
recognized that certain words connoted certain meanings, and the Greek translation
reflects this. There is in the Hebrew the word “Elohim”
which is translated in the Greek Septuagint (which generally has the
symbol the “LXX”—the Roman numeral for
70—as the symbol for the Septuagint version); there
this word is translated as the Greek as the word
“demonia,” which is the Greek word for demon.
For example, in Psalm 96:5 you get a totally different
impact when you read the word translated in its background meaning. Psalm
96:5 says, “For all the gods of the
nations are idols. But the Lord made the heavens.” Now this is the
word here, “idols,” in Hebrew. The Septuagint
reveals what the meaning of the “idols” is, and that is
“demon.” So, the verse is saying, “For all the gods
(the idol gods) of the nations are demons.” Demons are
associated with every idol. All the national gods are therefore demon gods. Idol
worship is demon worship. It’s not such an irrational act. When people
worship these dumb things of wood and stone that they made, they’re really worshipping in
reality the god who is behind it.
When the children of Israel were led out of Egypt, Numbers
33:4 indicates to us that the judgment of the firstborn was also a
judgment upon the gods of Egypt—the idol gods. They were real. Numbers
33:4 says, “For the Egyptians buried all their firstborn which the
Lord had smitten among them. Upon their gods also the
Lord also executed judgment.” Behind all
of these national gods are demons in reality. Exodus 12:12
includes the firstborn of animals dying upon judgment of
Egypt’s gods. Why? Because demons very often possess animals,
and bestiality is expressed through animal possessed by demons.
Leviticus 17:7 speaks about satyrs. If you know your mythology, a satyr was a
half-creature—half goat (four-legged or two-legged) and
half-man. Images of these were worshipped. What was it that
was being worshipped? Leviticus 17:7 says, “And they shall no more
offer their sacrifices unto demons after whom they have played the
harlot. This shall be a statute forever unto them throughout
their generations.” The Hebrew word for “demons”
there means “the hairy one.” Again, in
the Septuagint translation, they put the word “demons” here. When
you are worshipping a satyr, you are worshipping a full-blown demon. Isaiah
portrays these demon satyrs as dancing in the rooms of Babylon (Isaiah
13:21, 34:14). They’re mythological creatures,
half-man and half-goat. You pass them off
and you laugh at them. But if you read
the stories of mythology, what does the satyr stand for? Another
big factor that is involved in idol
worship and demon possession. The satyr
represented unmitigated expression of unrestrained sex in every
perverted bestial expression.
1 Corinthians 10:16-21
So, the gods of mythology are indeed seen to be demon
gods. Idol worship is a counterfeit by
Satan of the Lord’s communion table. If
you’ll turn to 1 Corinthians 10 for a moment, verse 19. 1
Corinthians 10, beginning at verse 19. We
see how Satan has produced a false
community. Let’s begin reading at verse
16. “The cup of blessing which we bless,
is it not the communion of the blood of Chris?” The word cup here
is a symbol of the work of Christ on the cross in His
spiritual death for us. Inside this cup
were all the sins of the world poured out upon Jesus Christ on the
cross. So, the sins of the world were poured out on
Him, and they became a part of Jesus Christ. For this reason,
the Father imposed spiritual death upon Him on the cross.
“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion
of the blood of Chris?” Remember that in
the Old Testament, they had animal sacrifices. The blood of the
animal was poured out because, instead of the animal,
his life was in the blood. Therefore,
symbolically to portray that this animal, an unblemished
animal—signifying that
it as innocent, that this animal was giving his innocent life in behalf
of the sinner, his life was poured out by the blood being shed.
This is an analogy which represents the spiritual of death
on the cross. It is the spiritual death
of Jesus Christ on the cross that is the crucial thing. It
is not so much his bleeding. He didn’t die by bleeding to death. He
bled a little bit when they put the nails
in His hands and into His feet, but the wounds coagulated and the
bleeding stopped, obviously, because He was there for six hours on the cross. When
He was dead, and it usually several hours if not days for a person by crucifixion to die. They
were amazed when they walked up to Jesus
to break His legs in order to spur death that He was already dead. In
order to verify it, the soldier put the
spear into His side, and out came serum and blood. When
a person dies, His blood begins turning
into water serum. This indicated that
Jesus Christ was definitively dead, but His blood was mostly in His body.
So, when it speaks about the blood of Christ, as in 1 John
1:9 (washing away our sins, and so on), it is using that Old Testament
analogy of life, innocent life given for guilty life. That is the point
of the blood. It is an analogy of the spiritual death of Christ, comparing it to the
Old Testament animal sacrifices. When we
get here to the upper room, the Lord’s Supper is instituted,
and the reference is to our communion to the blood of Christ, which is represented by the
wine. (Incidentally, the wind was not alcoholic
because they used non-alcoholic wine at the Passover, since it was
boiled wine, since fermentation is a process of leaven, and leaven is a symbol of
evil. Therefore, as the bread was free of leaven, so the wine was. So, there was no
alcoholic wine used in the Lord’s Supper.)
The bread here stands for the person of Jesus Christ, the
unique God-man. The blood stands for His
spiritual death upon the cross. So, verse
16 says, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the
communion of the blood of Christ (His spiritual death upon the cross that
we’re remembering)? “…
and the bread which we break, is it not
the communion of the body of Christ?” This
is the unique God-man that He was, with the emphasis on His humanity. He
had to be a member of the human race in order to qualify for us.
Verse 17 says, “For we being man (believers in the church
age) are one bread (we’re all in union with Jesus Christ),
for we are all partakers of one bread (united to Christ). Behold Israel
after the flesh: Are not they who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” The
sacrifices here are the Levitical offerings. The priests
partook of these offerings that they offered to God. They
had a part of it that they ate, and thus were identified by that eating
with the God of that altar. The Jews had
animal which anticipated what Christ was to do on the cross. Now
we have the Lord’s Supper which looks back to that act.
Verse 19 says, “What say I then?” Here’s
our idolatry. “… That the idol is anything or that which is
offered in sacrifice to idols is anything?” And the
implication here is, “No.” That piece of
wood, that piece of stone, that piece of metal that is
made into an idol is nothing. But notice
the line of thought here. When that
priest ate of the sacrifices of the Levitical offerings, he was
identifying himself with Jehovah God. He could not
eat of the sacrifices that had been offered to that God and not
identify himself with that God.
By the same token, verse 20 explains the problem with
idolatry. “But I say that the things
which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God. And
I would not that ye should have fellowship with demons. Every time an
idol is worshipped with an offering of some kind, it is being offered
to the demon behind that idol. The worshipper
always comes under the influence of that demon. If he’s
an unbeliever, it may be full possession.
So, fellowship with idols is forbidden. The
apostle John says specifically, “Little
children, avoid the idols. Do not
worship the idols.” Verse 21 says,
“Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.” You
cannot be under God’s influence and under
demons’ influence at the same time. You
cannot be partakers of the Lord’s Table and the table of
demons. This is Satan’s false counterfeit communion
table. Christians are engaged in demonic
practices today. Tongues, healings,
occultism, they’re all out of fellowship with God, and
it’s because they are worshipping at the demons’ communion table. That’s
what led them into that to begin with.
Deuteronomy 32:16-20
There are various systems for contacting demons, but God
says you are to have nothing to do with it. Idolatry, you
will remember, was a major problem for the Jewish people. Idolatry
brought national destruction to the
Jews. If you’ll turn for just a moment
to Deuteronomy 32:16, you will understand why God looked upon idolatry
with such seriousness that he imposed the death penalty upon anybody who was
involved with idol worship because it was the same as demon worship. Beginning
with verse 16, “They provoked Him
to jealousy with strange gods.” Strange
gods are demons. “With abominations they
provoked Him to anger.” The word “abomination”
here refers to those phallic cults that we looked at last week with the
three objects involved in the groves, around the hills, in the worship of the
demonic gods in the process of the phallic cults: the nude Venus,
the Baal figure sitting atop a furnace into which the
offerings were cast; and, the phallus, the male sex organ for
auto-erotism. These three objects were at the center of the phallic cult worship.
This is what he means by abominations. These
are the Jewish people who have been
given a victorious exit out of Egypt from under the control of the
Pharaoh and the demonic gods of Egypt, and this is what they turn around and do to
the God who informed them.
Verse 17 says, “They sacrificed unto demons.” Not
to God. When they came into Canaan they sacrificed to the idol gods they found
there, including the Baal worship. “…
to gods they knew not, to new gods who came up newly to whom their fathers
knew not.” They were ready to take up these gods as one would take up a fad.
Verse 18 says, “… of the rock that begot thee, thou art
unmindful and has forgotten God who formed thee.” Demonism
led them away from the God that actually created them. This is what all
occult participation does. If you go fooling with the horoscopes and with the astrology and with the
séances and with the witchcraft and that which has to do with occultism, it will
lead you away from God. It inevitably has that result.
Verse 19 says, “And when the Lord saw it, He abhorred them
because of the provoking of His sons and His daughters.” He
abhorred the conduct of the Exodus
generation and the influence which it had upon their own children.
Verse 20 says, “And He said, ‘I will hide my face from
them. I shall see what their end shall be for they
are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no
faith.’” The result was that God turned from the
Jewish people and sent them into destruction.
In Leviticus 20, therefore, verse 27, we have the
declaration as to what is to be done to anybody who participates in
demon worship or demon contact. Leviticus
20:27 says, “A man also or a woman who hath a familiar spirit
(that is, demon possessed), or who is a wizard (a male fortune teller) shall surely be
put to death. They shall stone them with stones
and their blood shall be upon them.” You
will notice that it could be a man or it could be a woman, but it was
viewed as worthy of the death penalty. When it
says “their blood shall be upon them,” it indicates
that there was personal volition involved in the matter.
They personally made this choice, and nobody can come under
demon possession, and no Christian can come under demon influence
except by your own particular choice. You have to
very definitely go negative to the Word of God. You have to go
negative toward the sources of communication of God’s
Word before demon influence can move in or demon possession can take
hold of an unbeliever. It is viewed by
God as very dangerous to the spiritual and soulish and physical well-being of the
Jewish nation. Why? Because demon influence can lead a nation
astray, but demon possession will very quickly destroy the nation.
That’s what the United States faces today. As
we go along in this, you will see more and
more the techniques for demon possession are being widely practiced in
this country today. The evidences of
demon possession are fantastically in evidence. It’s
one thing for a nation to be influenced by demons. It
is the kiss of death for a nation to be
possessed and indwelt by a demon.
Dr. John E. Danish, 1971
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