Month: June 2014

Formerly part of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan, in Central Asia, is a long way from nowhere, lying between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan and Iran. It’s not famous for much, but does have the world’s fourth largest reserves of natural gas. That is obvious when you travel to Darvaza. A mining accident in 1971 left a huge open pit of natural gas which authorities feared would give off poisonous gases. So they set it on fire. Forty years later it is still burning and has become know as the Door to Hell. It was expected to burn out in a few weeks or months, but it apparently has an inexhaustible supply of fuel. It’s now a tourist attraction, located 270 kilometers from the capital Ashgabat.

Visitors to this geological attraction are reminded of Christ’s words describing Hell in Mark 9:42, as a place where “the fire is not quenched.” John’s Revelation speaks of smoke arising out of Hell, the “bottomless pit” which burns like a “great furnace.” Those who deny the Bible may mock this description, but if Darvaza is any indication, the idea of an everlasting place of tormenting fire might not be so unimaginable. Those who travel to the Door to Hell are warned not to get too close lest their bodies become engulfed in flames. Those who get too close to sin should be warned that Hell is a place of eternal fire where both body and soul will suffer forever (Mark 9:45).

On the surface the quote is all sweet, simple, and syrupy, designed for ingestion by a generation brainwashed by humanism and universalism. And coming from a Nobel Peace Prize winner, the political and spiritual leader of six million Tibetan people, it certainly seems credible. Other notable quotes of the Dalai Lama include:

• “The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual’s own reason . . . “
• “The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”
• “My religion is kindness.”
• “All major religious traditions carry basically the same message . . . “

First some facts: The Dalai Lama is believed by his followers to be the reincarnation of those Lamas before him (in effect a god), and each successor is chosen by divination/sorcery. The current Dalai Lama is thought to be one in a line of 14 successive incarnations. Tibetan Buddhism teaches that this lineage is protected by a hideous female guardian spirit/demon, named Palden Lhamo (aka Lilith, Jezebel), pictured here:

The Dalai Lama is feted by world religious and political leaders, always beaming with his ever-present, beguiling smile. He may be a nice guy, but he’s dead wrong about religion. To reference the quotes above: 1) Our own hearts are not a temple, but our hearts are desperately wicked without Christ (Jeremiah 17:9); 2) the ultimate authority is Jehovah and His Word, not any individual; 3) The purpose of our lives is to glorify God (1 Cor. 10:31); 4) Kindness is a virtue, but not a saving grace, and 5) All religions do not carry the same message (John 14:6). These are but a few reasons I say, the Dalai Lama lies.

First he gave us “Walking Dead.” Now comic book writer Robert Kirkman’s next horror topic will be demons and exorcism, in a new series called Outcast. It’s the story of a man plagued with demonic possession all his life. According to sources familiar with development of Outcast (also coming to TV via the Showtime Channel) Kirkman believes in demonic possession. In the “Hollywood Reporter” Kirkman says of his new series, “It’s a big, epic story that involves exorcism and demon possession, and we’re trying to shine a new light on that genre of horror-fiction.” He goes on, “I don’t know if it’s quite as much of a bloodbath as The Walking Dead has turned out to be, but there certainly is an element of, ‘No one is safe.'”

Here we go again. Demon possession presented for commercial consumption, all dressed up as frightening, unearthly, uncanny, and bizarre. As someone who deals with demon possession almost every day of my life, let me loudly proclaim, THAT IS NOT THE WAY IT IS! Most people with demons appear normal, even successful. I have cast demons out of pastors, priests, nuns, worship leaders, Sunday school teachers, and every day, ordinary Christians who love the Lord. They are sometimes the victims of generational curses and were born with demons without realizing it. No one would suspect they have demons, even their own family members who may have been taught it just isn’t possible for a Believer in Christ to have a demon. I’m glad that Kirkman is giving the subject its due. I just wish it were more authentic so that the real sufferers of demon possession would understand that they don’t have to be a serial murderer or a social outcast to have a demon.

In Toronto, Canada, last weekend, I was conducting Spiritual Encounter Sessions when I briefly stepped outside. A well-dressed, pleasant middle-aged woman was handing these flyers out on the street corner. Who is this guy that lays claim to being THE Messiah, the Christ, and even supposedly has his face reflected on the moon? Is this a joke or what? Born in 1941 in India, he started the Messiah Foundation International to promote his claim to being the ultimate incarnation of God for all religions. In 2001 he disappeared from view, and some say he died in 2003. He had been a Sufi (See LARSONS BOOK OF WORLD RELIGIONS for further explanation. Click here to order.) preacher in Pakistan until he claimed to have met personally with Jesus Christ in 1997. Muslims convicted him of blasphemy laws. His followers believe the world will end in 2026 and only faith in Shahi can save them.

“There’s a sucker born every minute,” P. T. Barnum allegedly said. Christ warned, “Be not deceived; for many shall come in my name, saying ‘I am Christ . . . go ye not therefore after them.” (Luke 21:8) How sad that the spirit of the Antichrist is alive and well on a street corner in North America’s fourth largest city and the financial and intellectual center of Canada. That speaks volumes.

A new study out this week, published in The Wall Street Journal, reveals interesting statistics about how Americans spend their time, including weekdays and weekends. Compared to ten years ago, as a nation we are sleeping more and praying less. What we do spend much more time doing is watching TV. Keep in mind these stats are on-average and include all people of all ages over 14, employed and unemployed as well as retired. Here’s the numbers based on hours/minutes per day:

• 8:44 Sleeping
• 3:44 Working
• 2:46 Watching TV
• 2:29 Sports
• 1:14 eating
• 0:19 all organizational, civic, and religious activities combined!

As it looks on paper we’re a bit of a lazy, self-indulgent society, with little concern for others, and certainly not much regard for God. I don’t know where you fit in this spectrum, but I am an extreme outlier to these numbers. Sleep? Try 5-6 hours a night. Work? 10-14 hours a day (sometimes exceeding that). Watching TV? Almost zero, except for cable news in the morning over breakfast.

Look again at the 0:19 number for all altruistic/religious time. Winnow that down to actual time spent in church, Bible reading, and serious prayer, and the figures are almost non-existent by comparison to other indulgences. Is it any wonder that moral disintegration and violence are increasing? It’s easy to blame our problems on guns and political gridlock, but the real culprit that is killing Americans may be too much time in bed and too little time in worship.

As I mentioned in my blog of Tuesday, I’m currently in New York City doing face-to-face Personal Encounters sessions. After a long day of dealing with demons, I decided that, with my wife Laura who is helping me minister this week, we’d head down to Times Square, the epicenter of the City; you know, where they drop the big ball every New Year’s Eve. (RIP Dick Clark.) If you’ve never been there, it’s a 360 degrees panorama of advertising with huge electronic billboards by the dozens advertising every imaginable product: movies, car, cell phones, Broadway shows, and M & M’s, to name a few. If I’d come to escape the rigors of fighting Satan, I’d run into him smack dab in the middle of Times Square. There, on a billboard at least 60 feet high, were a series of revolving promos for a new Nickelodeon teen TV series called “Every Witch Way.” The photos above, that I personally shot, tell it all. Fresh-faced, good-looking mid-teens advertise that, “At this school magic spells trouble.” “Spells,” get it? How could you miss this not-so-subtle appeal to the demonic? Thank you, Harry Potter. You paved the way well for your minions.

The show, which actually premiered last January, features a 14-year-old witch named Emma, a so-called “Chosen One.” (Of course, witchcraft is a generational curse.) She has inherited a Hexoren Book of Spells from her late mother. The youthful sorcerer has to stave off a rival witch (also with generationally passed down powers) and an evil Principal (Naturally, aren’t all Principals evil?).  And, naturally, Emma has a post-pubescent love interest. In TV Land, why would anyone be shocked that a 14-year-old is capable of understanding “true love?” According to the ratings, last TV season it was the most viewed show by kids ages 4 to 11! Now, that’s really scary.

Just a few blocks up the street, a couple of hours earlier, I dealt with real demons of voodoo in a showdown with Satan. Here, amongst thousands of mostly tourists, I was faced with the devil’s deeds trivialized on a big screen. This is what America has come to: the demonic indoctrination of sub-teens by the millions, sitcom style. Unless the Christian church gets serious about dealing with demons, our children don’t stand a chance. God help the church to get its head out of the proverbial sand and wake up before the next generation is forever lost to Satan and the occult.

Each week we post a new deliverance session on our YouTube exorcism channel. These postings have become a phenomenon, with many exorcism examples “going viral” with more than half a million views. Our total views, in less than two years, are now near 3.5 million! More than 120 examples of casting out demons have been posted, and many more are on the way. Through our YouTube outreach, more people have witnessed the power of God through deliverance than previously in the entire 2,000 years history of the church!

This week we did something a little different. Instead of our usual exorcism we featured my confrontation with a Satanist named Adam who attended our recent Chicago seminar. He explained his attraction to self-styled Satanism, with influence from Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan. Adam, who described himself as a bit of a bedecked “Christmas tree” of the occult, was covered in demonic tattoos, including Egyptian hieroglyphic and quotes from The Book of the Dead. Ironically, he told about his fascination with our ministry by saying that our “work is inspiring” and that he appreciates what we do.

After anointing Adam and confronting his demons, I spoke a blessing over him, according to Luke 6:27-28. (To see the entire video CLICK HERE.) That Satanists would come to an exorcism seminar says a lot about the respect this ministry garners on the other side. I only wish that Christians who reject the ministry of deliverance were as magnanimous. And I pray that Adam and his friends may someday experience the love of Christ. Thank God for the opportunity to build bridges toward those outside the Christian church.

I took the photo above yesterday afternoon. I’m in New York City for Personal Encounter session of ministry. To adjust to the three-hour jet lag, I flew in a day early. With an afternoon to spare, I did something I’ve never done before in all my years, and many times, of coming to New York. I took one of those open-air, tourist bus rides I’ve always disdained. It was a beautiful afternoon, and I have to admit that I actually enjoyed the tour. I’ve seen all of New York many times but never Uptown and Downtown Manhattan, all at once, in one two-hour stretch. As we were making our way toward The Battery area, I looked over my shoulder and took an impromptu photo of the Empire State Building behind me. It was later, when I looked at my picture, that I realized I had also captured St. Paul’s Chapel in the foreground. This historic place of worship was completed in 1766. George Washington worshipped here on his Inauguration Day. In the hours after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, it was miraculously unharmed and served as a place of refuge for recovery workers, police, and counselors. It survived without as much as a broken window. Debris hit a tree on the northwest corner of the property and spared any significant damage.

But notice something else about this unplanned photo. The apex of the Chapel seems to rise above the 1,454 feet of the Empire State Building, an edifice more than 50 times taller. This photo represents not reality but perspective. It seems to say that no matter how important the commerce of the city might be, the significance of spirituality looms larger. In truth, that’s the way it should. The lesson in life is that no matter what problems may seem to tower over us, if we look at them properly we’ll see the perspective of God’s view of our life and needs. The old song “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus” puts it this way: “The things of Earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”

First there were “dead men walking” and now there are “dead men talking” – to their therapists. In California, land of all things exotic and trendy, courts have now required psychiatric care for mentally disturbed death row inmates. At San Quentin prison, a new 40-bed psychiatric hospital is soon to open for those destined to die by edict of the state. In some cases, 24-hour nursing care will be provided. Long-term mental health care for those destined to die? Part of the problem is that those sentenced to die are not being speedily executed. In fact, the last time California executed someone condemned to die was 2006 due to almost endless appeals. The bleeding-hearts behind this worry about mentally ill prisoner having issues with drug overdoses (drugs in prison?) and suicide. Proponents of such health care cite as an example one prisoner named Justin Helzer who hung himself with a bedsheet. They argue that with better psychiatric care, Helzer might still be alive and his problems of delusional thoughts cured. Never mind that Helzer was on death row for killing five people and dumping their dismembered bodies in a Sacramento River.

Of course most death row prisoners are mentally ill. That’s why some of them killed, and others became mentally ill because of the guilt of their crimes. Should the law-abiding taxpayers be billed to take care of criminals to be certain they are thinking straight when they enter the execution chamber to pay for their crimes? Providing basic human needs is one thing, but seeking to emotionally fix a man to face judgment by death for his deeds is an exercise in misguided liberalism. To give those on death row a more reasonable right to a better life seems a bit overdone, when you consider that these men who were condemned to die gave their victims no right to life at all.

A fascinating book called Dear Leader has been written by a former top Communist government official of North Korea, Jang Jin-sung. In 2004 he fled his country after discovering that what he had been commissioned to write by his political leaders simply wasn’t true. At one point his job was to write praiseworthy poems about Kim Jong il, North Korea’s former dictatorial ruler. Eventually Jin-sung saw through his sycophant servitude. He discovered how North Korean brainwashing was rewriting literature and history to create a personality cult. He tells the way propaganda poets were paid by the state to mold the minds of citizens. While people in villages were starving and “waiting for death” due to shortages caused by the Communist system, he was penning poems which addressed Jong il as “Lord.” It wasn’t until he began reading banned books about his own country’s history that the truth unfolded to him.

The tragedy of such brainwashing is that so many suffer for the sake of a single autocratic leader. In a spiritual context, many more suffer because they are victims of demonic indoctrination. The propaganda poets of our culture are Washington politicians, actors, writers, and entertainers. Most, without realizing it, propagandize for the devil by furthering an agenda of godlessness and immorality. Sadly, too many believe such disinformation. They’ve been brainwashed to believe that the Bible can’t be trusted, religion is a crutch, and that all preachers and priests are corrupt and “in it for the money” or some other self-aggrandizing motive. Stop for a moment and think about what you believe. Is it the result of objective investigation or have you been demonically indoctrinated?