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Witchcraft Culture

Friday, July 25, 2014

 

In an effort to keep readers of my blogs abreast of significant spiritual events, I check out all kinds of web sites and blogs. Yesterday I came upon a well-read site with an entry entitled, “How Harry Potter shaped a generation.” Written by a 20-something, the blog recounts the author’s obsession with the boy wizard and J. K Rowling’s seven books focused on spell casting and witchcraft as something that is neither objectionable nor evil. A few quotes caught my eye:

  • “Harry Potter is part of a rare subset of entertainment that defines a generation.”
  • “When I got my hands on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I had been reading about Potter for seven years of my life!”
  • “It’s not an exaggeration to say that Potter has impacted almost every major friendship in my life. It became a code word to test out new friendships.”
  • “A generation who celebrated Harry Potter as a hobby is now old enough to turn those fandom-honed skills into careers.”
  • “Seven years have passed since that final book, but my place in the Potter generation continues to shape my life for the better.”

 

If, like me, you consider the Potter books to be diabolical and a clever way for Satan to mainstream witchcraft, then these comment are disturbing. What they point out is a cultural shift in thinking for an entire generation; in some ways, for those who grew up reading these book, they set the theological benchmark for how today’s young adults think and act: 1) they have abandoned Christianity in droves, and 2) they have embraced an occult worldview, influenced in large measure by a boy with a wand casting spells. Satan must be somewhere in Hell laughing at how easy it was to change the belief system of millions of youth with just seven book (which, by the way have sold 450 million copies, the most of any book series in history). If you are reading Potter, stop. If you have read Potter, repent.

An encouraging word: STOP SINNING

The psalmist David sinned. Most know of his adultery with Bathsheba. But few trace David’s torment that followed. He cried out in Psalm 6:3, “My soul is in anguish!” Make no mistake, sin has consequences. It doesn’t matter what you think about what you’ve done or how culture approves of your spiritual rebellion. Your actions may be politically correct. The effect of your sinful actions will likely carry on longer than you imagined, and be much worse than you anticipated. The best thing is to stop sinning, NOW. Don’t put your soul in anguish.

 

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did� (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online

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Hindu Superheroes?

Thursday, July 24, 2014

 

Hinduism, the idolatrous, pagan religion of India and faith of many in America, has gone upscale with marketing that would put a New York, Madison Street maven to shame. Traditional Hindu deities, such as Shiva, pictured above, have undergone visual changes. Instead of the traditional pale, passive, contemplative depiction of the past, modern Hindus are going for a flashy, masculine makeover. Comic books and graphic novels in India now depict the pantheon of gods and goddess in Hinduism with flare. The idea is to connect these ancient deities to a new generation of youth. An India company called Holy Cow Entertainment (Hindus worship the cow as a god, get it?) says, “We’re trying to give cutting-edge art to the same old mythological stories.”

 

As an exorcist, I recognize these deities as demons. The Apostle Paul said, in First Corinthians 10:20, “The sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God.” Shiva, for example, is part of the Hindu trinity of main gods: Brahma (creator), Vishnu (preserver), and Shiva (destroyer). In Revelation 9:11, John calls this demon, Shiva, Abaddon (in Hebrew) and Apollyon (in Greek). I’ve done hundreds of exorcisms on people whose ancestors were Hindu and inherited generational curses from this cruel and violent evil spirit. What a clever strategy of Satan to take his most hideous demon gods and revise how they appear to a generation raised on Marvel Comic heroes. But Shiva is no Master of the Universe, he is a demon from Hell no matter what kind of transformation he makes to the comic book crowd. 

An encouraging word:  WHAT IS YOUR MIND SET ON?

Colossians 3:2 tells us to set our minds on “things above, not earthly things.” What exactly does that mean?  Humans waste so much time “setting” their attention on things that are not eternal. Kids set their attention on mindless video games which profit nothing. Teenagers set their minds on the latest band or hottest trend. Adults focus on the coolest car or the bigger house. These things aren’t wrong in themselves, but a preoccupation with things temporal can become a big block to our relationship with God. Ask yourself, “What is the biggest ‘setter’ in my life, the thing that occupies my most energy and time?” If it isn’t godly, or is too obsessive, consider setting your mind more on the things that are eternal.

 

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did� (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online

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In the Beginning

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Our galaxy  trilli-seconds after the “beginning.”
In the beginning God created. For millennia those simple words have defined the belief of humanity’s majority regarding the origin of all things. As of March 17 this year, findings were announced by scientists intending to debunk the biblical account. The event was the supposed confirmation of the theory of primordial gravitational waves. The idea has been debated for decades. Now some scientists who put no stock in the creation story of Genesis believe they have confirmed that in a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second a volume of space no larger than an atom expanded to the size of our solar system. That’s fast and that’s big. It’s called the theory of inflation. But, boy, is that a lot of inflation. It all boils down to this. In the words of one scientific pundit, the beginning of the universe was the “chance result of a quantum fluctuation in the nothingness beforehand.” Huh? Nothingness? Out of nothing came something? I’d call that “faith” not “science. And it’s a little harder to understand than the fruit of a forbidden tree and a beguiling serpent which is just too simple for scientific inquiring minds.

One observer of this new idea of how things all began says, “The deepest truths of the material universe are to be fond by gazing out into the deepest, earliest recesses of space.” Really, and I thought that the deepest truths could be found in the Divine revelation of God’s Word. There’s nothing wrong with scientific investigation, but why does it always seem to lead away from God? Scientists, whether they admit it or not, are philosophical and theological products of our culture, and our culture is godless and immoral, for the most part. Is this latest theory of how it all started a giant leap for science but a setback for sanity? Ironically, James 2:19 tells us that demons believe the Bible and “tremble” at what God’s Word says. Perhaps a little respect for God’s words “in the beginning” is in order for those who believe in the inflation theory.

 

An encouraging word:  SEEKING GOD’S HEARTThe Bible describes David as a “man after His [the Lord’s] own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). But how can that be? David murdered and committed adultery. Perhaps David’s heart was like God’s heart because he wanted to feel what God felt. So often we want the Lord to understand our hurts and anguish. But what about how God feels toward us? Is He grieved at our actions? Is he pained by our waywardness? If you want your heart to be like God’s heart then think, for a moment, about how God feels about you.

 

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did� (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

Beheaded on a Bus!

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Killer Vince Li, being led into court the day of the murders.
The crime was unfathomable. I was reminded of it this past weekend while I was in Canada. On July 30, 2008, Canadian police responded to a call about a stabbing on a bus in Manitoba. Upon arrival, the authorities discovered that a man named Vince Li, a Chinese immigrant and paranoid schizophrenic, had not only stabbed but also decapitated his seatmate. Then, Li cannibalized the dead body. According to witnesses, Tim McLean (the victim) was sleeping with his headphones on when the man sitting next to him suddenly produced a large knife and began stabbing McLean in the neck and chest. The attacker then decapitated McLean and displayed his severed head to other passengers outside who had fled the bus in horror. The driver and two other men had attempted to rescue the victim but Li slashed wildly at them from behind the locked bus doors. Li severed McLean’s body parts and consumed the victim’s flesh, particularly his eyes and part of his heart. For four hours police cordoned the bus with Li inside before the killer was finally arrested. He was eventually tried and ruled insane because he said that God told him the victim was evil and had to be executed.

 

One of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police officers at the crime scene was Cpl. Ken Barker. Last week, the 51-year-old policeman killed himself. He had been suffering from PTSD and was estranged from his wife. Those who knew him traced Barker’s problems back to that night of the beheading. Afterwards he was never the same. Several observations, here. First, how could anyone not think this crime was totally demonic? Yes, mental illness was likely involved, but the extreme measure of this crime indicates that more than mental instability was a factor. Li had demons. Second, and sadly, Cpl. Barker likely got some of those demons as well because of his close involvement in handling this crime. So did some of Li’s fellow passengers who witnessed the murder. Demons don’t play fair and will enter any way possible, even by an open door of extreme fear and trauma, just by someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I realize this may be hard for the non-exorcist to accept, but those of us who do deliverance encounter similar spiritual phenomena all the time. If you’ve been the victim of, or witnessed, a horrible event, get counseling and talk through it. Get prayer and process your feelings. Get deliverance and cast out any evil that took advantage of you. The effect of evil events is contagious. Make sure you aren’t, as Cpl. Barker was, a victim of collateral spiritual damage.

An encouraging word:  LOOK UPWe live in a world so depraved, so evil, at times it is emotionally overwhelming. Crime, violence, and inhumanity are all around in extreme quantities. How can you keep your spiritual balance with so much evil so evident? In Luke 21 Jesus warned about the horrible things which would eventually come upon the world. But in verse 28 He counseled that, as we see the increase in moral deterioration, we should “look up” because our ultimate redemption is near. No matter how bad it gets, God is in control, and if we “lift up our heads” with a heavenly perspective, we will not falter or fear.

 

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did� (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

Thor Looks Like a Lady

Friday, July 18, 2014

Thor’s new incarnation as a female goddess.

 

Holy hammer Batman! Can this be true? The ultimate shape-shifting? Yes, according to Marvel Comics, Thor has become a lady. Well, perhaps not a lady, but a woman. What will Odin say? Will Freya take this personally and mount a challenge? (Freya is the sex goddess of Norse mythology, aka Jezebel.) Says Marvel writer Jason Aaron, “This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR. This is the THOR of the Marvel Universe. But it’s unlike any Thor we’ve ever seen before.”
Now for some serious thoughts. Thor is not only a comic book character but also a god of Odinism, a pagan Norse religion. And Thor is a demon I’ve met many times. A nasty, violent, vicious demon. He’s not someone you’d casually pair with Captain America. As for this new politically correct feminization of Thor, it’s just more demonic deception. Satan wants us to think of him and his minions in terms of fantasies and characterization, not spiritual realities who are evil entities with the power to possess human souls. Like the cartoon image of the devil in a red suit with pitchfork, this new lady-like image of Thor belies the real evil behind mythologized gods and goddesses. If the devil get humans to think of actual demons in terms of images on paper in a comic book, he more cleverly can do his real dirty deeds. In the well-known words of C. S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They [the demons] themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

An encouraging word:  ENEMIES SENT FROM SATAN“Their throat is an open grave!” That is vivid language. It’s how David in Psalm 9:5 described his enemies. Ever smelled a dead human body? I have, and anyone else who has will corroborate that it is the most putrid smell on earth. Have you noticed how rescue workers in the midst of a tragedy with fatalities often cover their mouths and noses? Some enemies, like those of David, are like that because of the demonic influence in their lives. Without being inappropriately judgmental, we need to know when those who oppose us are sent by Satan and the stench of death is in their words and ways. There is a time, in cases like this, when we need to spiritually cover our faces and resist these “messengers from Satan.”

 

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did� (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

Weird Words

Thursday, July 17, 2014

 

 

I recently came across a fascinating list of old English words that have been forgotten in our language. As a writer, I am always looking for interesting words to express what I say in inventive ways; however, I doubt I’ll be using any of these words soon:

  • Flitterwochen: What we call a honeymoon (German meaning “fleeting week”)
  • Fribbler: An 18th century man in love who won’t commit.
  • Petty-Fogger: A 16th century lawyer who quibbled over minor legal points.
  • Piggesnye: Chaucer use this to designate a sweetheart. (Hint — don’t try this on your wife or girlfriend unless you want a lot of trouble.)

The list is longer, but you get the idea. We don’t use these because they are archaic and have lost their meaning. All this got me thinking about theological, spiritual words we don’t use much anymore. When was the last time you heard a Christian in casual conversation use the words;

  • Sanctification: To set apart as holy or sacred; the process of surrendering to the Lord.
  • Redemption: What Christ did for us on the cross, atoning for our sins.
  • Eschatology: Doctrines about the final matters of Revelation, the End Times, and Bible prophecy.
  • Deliverance (or exorcism): Setting free from the devil and casting out demons.

The last on my list is the least likely to be spoken of in polite Christian conversation. Such verbal avoidance in common language says a lot about what so many Believers deliberately deny. Here is a challenge. The time you are talking with your average, go-to-church-on-Sunday Christian, drop these words into the mix, especially “exorcism,” and see what happens. Get ready for a lively conversation.

An encouraging word:  SET YOUR MIND ON GOD“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things,” Paul admonished (Colossians 3:20). Walk down any major street in a large city and you’ll be dodging people who aren’t looking where they are going. They are staring at their smartphones incessantly. Such conduct is contributing to a rise in pedestrian injuries.  But the spiritual toll is worse. It’s not just the electronic devices that consume us; it’s television, movies, entertainment, sports. There’s nothing wrong with any of this in small, appropriate doses, but too many people seem to have set their affection on the most stimulating attention-grabber of the moment. We all need to pause for a moment in our busy lives and set our minds on the Lord. Try that today and see how it enriches your life.

 

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did� (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

Harry Potter Theology?

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

 

Last week, Ronald Lee Haskell invaded the Houston home of his ex-wife and fatally shot her parents and four siblings. Haskell was looking for his ex and demanded to know from her family where she was. When they refused to tell, he murdered them in cold blood. Only 15-year-old Cassidy Stay survived, by playing dead after her skull was fractured by a bullet that grazed her. Her miraculous dodge of death was celebrated this last weekend when she made a public appearance just three days after the killings. Standing before a crowd at a local elementary school in suburban Houston, Texas, young Cassidy declared, “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one remembers to turn on the light.”

 

Now, before you become teary-eyed at this apparently brave homily, Cassidy wasn’t extolling the protection of Christ the Light of the World for saving her life. She was paraphrasing the Harry Potter character Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft. You read right. She narrowly evaded death and subsequently quoted a witch as inspiration for her near demise. My point isn’t to denigrate the courage of this young woman, but to comment on how our culture has been slowly subverted by the occult. It’s not Cassidy’s fault that she didn’t credit God or quote a scripture. It just wasn’t in her thinking to do so because, quite obviously that’s not how she was raised. The same could be said for most youth today. What happened to Cassidy’s family is an unspeakable tragedy. What has happened to purge Christian influence from our culture and replace it with an occult worldview is a collective, cultural disaster.

An encouraging word:  POST BIBLICAL AMERICAPost biblical. That’s the way some cultural commentators describe society today. It refers to a loss of Christian influence based on language and moral assumptions which have previously been the foundation of people’s thinking and actions. Today, in places like Europe, the majority of people no longer explicitly believe in a Christian God, and have lost all sense of the sacred. America is quickly headed in that directly. In Philippians 2:5 the Apostle Paul warned of these times and admonished us to be “blameless” in the midst of a “depraved generation.”

 

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did� (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

Can You Believe the Bible?

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

 

Whether or not the Bible is true and to be trusted is, of course, a central question of Christian faith. A new school of liberal thought seems to be emerging. Previously, critics of Scripture have argued that the authority of The Bible became an illegitimate way for the Church to control society. “Believe the Bible or be damned for eternity,” was said to be the battle cry of churchmen who wanted power and prestige; they beat people with the Bible to get what they wanted. Now, the theme of Christian critics has changed. They currently tend to argue that the idea of scriptural authority never existed, not in the New Testament or the Old. That’s a radical idea put forth in a new book entitled How the Bible Became Holy, by Michael Satlow, professor of Judaic studies at Brown University.

 

What are the facts? Check a concordance for the King James phrase “thus saith the Lord” and you’ll see how many scores of times Scripture speaks with Divine authority. As Israel suffered one invasion after another in a series of roller-coaster victories and defeats, and as the Captivity and the Diaspora ravaged the ranks of Jews, the Word of God was the one thing that held Israel together beset by alien and hostile enemies. In the Church age, the authority of Scripture has enabled followers of Christ to survive martyrdom and persistent persecution for two thousand years. It has given us the concept of accountable government and a legal system rooted in a belief in transcendent justice. There are many reasons you can believe the Bible. The Words of Scripture have been tested by human experience and found by the long view of time to be trustworthy. You can believe the Bible!

An encouraging word: TRUST THE WORD OF GOD“Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” These words of 2 Peter 1:21 define for us the authority of Scripture. Those who wrote the Bible were inspired, inerrant, and moved by the Spirit of God to speak and write that which should guide our lives. This declaration of the Apostle should settle the matter of biblical authority for all Christians. If we are not to trust Peter, he who first denied Christ and then was martyred for his faith, then whom can we trust? Some today trust science, psychology, even atheists. How much better to trust “holy men” who gave us God’s Word.

 

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did� (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

Return of the King

Monday, July 14, 2014

NBA Cleveland Cavalier’s fan celebrates.

 

Millions of Christians around the world are waiting for the Rapture and the return of King Jesus. But for residents of Cleveland, Ohio, the rapture has already taken place and the King has returned. Make that King James. LeBron James, more recently of the NBA’s Miami Heat, has returned to the where he started his NBA career seven years ago. The rust-belt city finally has something to cheer about. The man some believe is currently the best basketball player in the world will be playing next season for the Cleveland Cavaliers. In the era of free-agency, that’s sports. No player stays anywhere for long if enough money calls him elsewhere. And LeBron James is no exception, despite his publicity agent’s spin on James’ expressed desire to return to his roots and raise his family where, as he put it, “there’s no better place to grow up.”

I don’t have a dog in this hunt, so que sera sera. My issue is with the messianic mentality attached to LeBron. Look at the photo above? The outstretched arms of atonement. The not-so-subtle heading of the poster, “The KING has returned.” The weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal declaring the “Second Coming.” This is all about sports, and I suppose some fans are entitled to a bit of hyperbole. But the blasphemous overtones are too much for me to take. The fact that a mere basketball player — A BASKETBALL PLAYER!! — could be compared in the same breath with the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Great I Am, the Creator, the Logos, the Lord and Savior of all mankind is sickening. And it is a sign of how far we’ve gone as a culture to tolerate such sacrilege.

 

An encouraging word: BLASPHEMYBlasphemy. America used to have laws on the books against it. Today it is common fare in everyday life. God’s named is damned. Jesus Christ has become a curse word. But reviling The Lord is not a light matter. Revelation 13:6 tells us that this sin is one of Lucifer’s final acts of rebellion against God. Cursing God is one way to align with Lucifer, and that is a fatal spiritual decision. If you mimic the Anti-Christ’s actions at the end of the ages, you will be risking your own soul in the here and now.

 

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did� (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

Deliver Us From Evil

Friday, July 11, 2014

 

It was a terrible way to spend a hot, summer afternoon, in a movie theater watching a Hollywood horror film about exorcism, but, hey, someone has to do it. And since I am The Real Exorcist, why not me? I’ve consulted on a lot of movies like this, but I never got a call from the producers of this one. It’s just as well. No way could I have encouraged anyone to see this grotesque and twisted portrayal of expelling demons. For starters, the hunk hero is a cop (remotely based on a real life story) who is a lapsed, profanity-spouting Catholic who has abandoned his faith. He doesn’t believe in the supernatural but comes around at the end of the film after witnessing the paranormal on steriods. The faux priest who does the exorcism is a whisky drinking, cigarette smoking, lustful, young (of course good-looking) minister who just narrowly missed getting defrocked for getting a secret girlfriend pregnant. The priest tells the cop that he has the “gift of spiritual discernment,” a mockery in itself since all the policemen experiences are psychic impressions in the midst of a morally bankrupt life.

 

The priest does have down the ritual of exorism, sort of, except for losing his cool at one point and throwing the F-bomb into the ancient, sacred text. Yes a cross is used, even the blood of Christ is mentioned, but it’s in the midst of so much gore its holy significance is marginalized by putrefying corpses. I guess this is Tinseltown’s way of making the Catholic faith look cool. In the end, the man of God is almost outdone by the blood drooling, animal snarling, demented demon-carrier. Good triumphs over evil eventually; but the film viewer has to wade through so many uses of the Lord’s name in vain and the F-word employed ubiquitously as a default adjective so many times that the end of the movie seems to warrant a moral shower-cleansing afterwards, rather than a Eucharist celebration. It is an exorcism movie but the rite is almost incidental to the fright factor of oozing guts and maggot infested bodies. It’s The Exorcist on meth with none of the green-pea vomit.

An encouraging word: DELIVER US FROM EVIL“Deliver us from evil,” The Lord taught us to pray (Matthew 6:13). It’s a phrase that has made its way into our culture; even Hollywood repeats it. But the majority of those who say it have no clear definition of evil. To most, evil is some vague sense of injustice, writ large by the deeds of a Hitler or Pol Pot. But evil is much more than the deranged actions of a dictator. Evil is the emanation of personal malignancy from an actual being, Satan. Without the devil there would be no horror movies, no Stephen King thrillers. We will never banish “evil” until we face its source with God’s power.

 

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did� (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

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