Good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome back to Faith Ward Baptist Church
So good to see you all here for a Sunday night service find your seats, please then take a hymn. They'll go to him
419 will get started tonight hymn number 419
number 419 sound the battle cry hymn number 419
Once you find your place together, we'll start on that first verse
419 sound the battle cry see the phone is now hymn number
419 lifter voice on that first together now
Sound the battle cry, see the foe as I raise the standard high for the Lord.
Girdor, armor on stand firm, everyone, rest your cause upon his holy word.
Round steps, soldiers, rally round the banner, ready, steady, pass the word along.
Onward, forward, shout aloud, go stand up,
Christ is captain of the mighty throng.
Strong to meet the foe, our dream of the new,
of our God, we know but prevail.
She will never rightfully lean in the light,
rally for the right we there can fail.
Soldiers, rally round the banner, Ready, steady, fast, the word along.
Onward, forward, shout aloud, Hosanna, Christ is captain of the mighty cross.
O thou God of all, hear us when we call out.
my face. Rouse them soldiers, rally round the banner. Ready, steady, pass the word along.
Onward, forward, shout aloud, Hosanna, Christ is captain of the mighty heart.
Thank you, sir, for our sing tonight. We want to go before the Lord and ask his blessing on the service.
You pray that you would bless this in me and fill Pastor Anderson with the power of Holy Spirit as he preaches to us later
And I help us just take heed to every word that's spoken. It's in Jesus me pray
Is merciful, Jesus will save.
Though they are sliding against, still He is waiting, waiting the pen and the child to receive.
He will never sleep, He will digest me, He will forgive if they only believe, rescue the perishing.
Jesus is merciful.
Jesus will save.
Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter.
Feelings library that grace can restore.
Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness.
Horses that are broken, a library once more.
the dying. Jesus is merciful. Jesus will save on the last. Rescue the perishing, duty,
do not say, strain for thy neighbor.
We'll get to you with one on the inside.
Sunday mornings at 10 30 is our preaching service Sunday nights at 6 Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study and
This week will be in 2nd Chronicles 35. We've got the soul winning times listed there below as well as salvations and baptisms
Across the page the soul winning event on Friday night actually some updated totals came in
There were a couple of participants
that we didn't know about.
So there were actually 12 soul winners
and 12 salvation total at that event.
So good job everybody who did that.
And then also we were going through,
I couldn't sleep the other night
and I asked for the book of the Chronicles
to be read unto me.
And as the Chronicles were being read unto me,
it became apparent that actually we reached our 1,000th
baptism in January, so that was kind of a cool milestone.
So thank you to all of the hard-working soul winners
of our church who've made that happen over the years.
But we've actually had 1,001 baptisms so far,
lifetime at Faith Forward Baptist Church,
so that was pretty cool.
And then I think that the picture here is actually the 1,000,
is that the 1,000th or the 1,000th first?
Who'd I baptize, him or his mom first?
So this so that picture is the 1,000th baptism. All right, so that's kind of cool
All right, and then on the back of the bulletin
Keep praying for our expectant ladies that they'll have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery
We got a guest preacher coming up not this Wednesday night, but next Wednesday night
Pastor Jonathan Shelley from steadfast Baptist Church in Cedar Hill, Texas gonna be preaching
So even if you don't normally come on Wednesdays be sure to come on that Wednesday to hear him on February 19th
Or if you mix up the date and you accidentally come this Wednesday. Well, that's great, too
and so below that some other upcoming events and that's about it for announcements let's go
ahead and tally up the soul winning from the past few days going back to thursday anything to report
from thursday okay got it got it okay and then how about friday okay and then the 12 from the event
Okay, and then how about Saturday?
Anything from Saturday gotcha anything else from Saturday, and then how about today Sunday?
Four for the main group of Brothers Scott
Gotcha
Okay, got it
Okay
All right very good keep up the grip up today gotcha
All right, keep up the great work on soul winning.
And with that, let's sing our next song.
Come lead us.
All right, you should find the insert in front of your hymnal
with the hymn entitled,
Seek ye first the kingdom of God.
If you don't have an insert, you can raise your hand.
You'll receive one.
We'll sing it on that first together.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God
And all these things shall be added unto you, Alleluia, Alleluia, Ask and it shall be opened unto you, Seek and ye shall find.
And it shall be opened unto you.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
Man shall not live.
Take your hymnals now go to hymn number 414 414 stand up stand up for Jesus
This is the other version not the one that you're used to singing so might take you a lot of catch up to the tune
Unless you're already familiar with it
414 if you are familiar with this song, please sing it out with me help those around you
We'll sing it on that first together hymn number
400 and 14
stand up stand up for Jesus
Soldiers of the cross
Thank you for your...
All right, this time we'll pass our offering plates.
Well, the plates quickly go around.
Let's go to Exodus chapter number seven in our Bibles.
Exodus chapter number seven, as we always do,
we'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number one.
Follow along silently with Brother Dan as he reads.
Exodus chapter seven, starting in verse number one.
in the Bible reads, And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a God to Pharaoh,
and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Thou shalt speak all that I command thee.
And Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of
his land. And I will harden the Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and my wonders
in the land of Egypt.
But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you that I may lay my hand upon Egypt and bring forth mine armies and my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt, by great judgments.
And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them.
And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded them, so did they.
And Moses was four score years old, and Aaron four score and three years old when they spake unto Pharaoh.
And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Show a miracle for you,
Then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent.
And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the Lord had commanded,
And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent.
Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers.
Now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments, for they cast down every man is rod and they became serpents.
But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods, and he hardened Pharaoh's heart that he harken not under them, as the Lord had said.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuses to let the people go.
Get the unto Pharaoh in the morning.
Low he goeth out under the water, and thou shalt stand by the rivers brink against he come, and the rod which was turned to a serpent, shalt thou take in thine hand.
And thou shalt say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness, and behold hitherto thou wouldest not hear.
Thou sayeth the Lord, in this thou shalt know that I am the Lord.
Behold, I will smite the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river,
and they shall be turned to blood.
And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink, and the Egyptians
shall loathe to drink of the water of the river."
And the Lord spake unto Moses, say unto Aaron,
take thy rod and stretch out thine hand
upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams,
upon their rivers, and upon their ponds,
and upon all their pools of water,
that they may become blood,
and that there may be blood throughout
all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood
and in vessels of stone.
And Moses and Aaron did so, so as the Lord commanded, and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the side of Pharaoh, and in the side of his servants, and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood.
And the fish that was in the river died, and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river,
and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.
And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments, and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them, as the Lord had said.
And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he set his heart to this also.
And all the Egyptians dig round about the river for water to drink, for they could not drink of the water of the river.
And seven days were fulfilled after that the Lord had smitten the river.
Definitely, Father, Lord, thank you for this church and thank you for all the
soul winners doing the work for you.
Please fill Pastor Anderson with the Holy Spirit.
So they may preach bowling from the King James Bible so that we can be edified
by the sermon in Jesus' name.
I pray Amen.
Man, tonight we're continuing the Revelation 21.8 series.
We've been going through the various things in that list,
but the fearful, the unbelieving, the abominable,
murderers, hormongers, sorcerers, idolaters,
and all liars shall have their part
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone,
which is the second death.
And the main idea behind this verse listing these sins
is that really,
Everyone is going to be guilty of one of those things because even if you're not a murderer or a sorcerer
Certainly all of us have lied before we've all been cowards at times
We've all lacked faith at times
And so it's really a great verse when you're out soul-winning just to show people look we all deserve to go to hell
We've all sin and that's why we need Jesus to save us
And if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ our sins will be forgiven. We'll have eternal life and so forth
But, as we're going through the series, what we're mainly talking about, though, is that
if these sins anger God so much that he has a place reserved in hell for those who do
these things, then obviously, even though we're saved, even though we are not in peril
of going to hell, even though we have eternal life and we are secure in our salvation, we
don't want to displease God as his children.
that are incurring the curse of God on our lives on this earth
by doing these things because, of course, no matter what we do
as saved Christians, we're going to go to heaven.
But, at the same time, God will punish us on this earth if we are living a life of sin,
whom the Lord loveth, he chaseneth, and scourgeeth every son whom he receiveth the Bible says.
So as children of God, we'll always be God's children, he's always going to love us, we're
always going to be saved, but we can still get severely disciplined on this earth.
And if these things incur the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience,
then we as Christians should want to do our best to avoid these things, right?
One of the sins on the list is sorcerers,
and that's what we're going to talk about tonight, sorcerers.
What is a sorcerer?
Well, if you would look down at your Bible at Exodus, chapter 7, verse 10.
It says, And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the Lord had commanded,
and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent.
Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers.
Notice some of the other words that he uses pretty much interchangeably.
in this passage, now the magicians of Egypt,
so he just called the sorcerers, now he's calling them what?
magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner
with their enchantments, what are enchantments?
This is like a casting of spells
or saying some kind of a magical formula or whatever.
And it says they cast down every man as rod
and they became serpents, but Aaron's rod
swallowed up their rods and he hardened Pharaoh's heart
that he hearkened not into them, as the Lord had said.
So, what is the sorcerer?
It is someone who is using magic or witchcraft.
You could call it dark arts.
Someone who is using occult practices, spells, whatever.
Okay, that's what we're talking about with sorcery.
Now, here's the thing.
One of the big questions that probably comes to your mind
when you think about this issue of sorcery
is, wait a minute, is this even real?
right? Because I guarantee you that this world is filled with a lot of just fake sorcery and fake
witchcraft and a lot of things are just fake, right? So if you go to the psychic palm reader or the
tarot card reader or you call the, you know, Hollywood psychic hotline 1900 number back in the
80s, 90s, you know, obviously a lot of that is people that are just charlatans. They're just
Obviously, it's not all fake because obviously we know that Satan is a real entity.
We know that demons actually exist.
And so is it possible that someone could call upon a demon of some kind and have some kind
of a supernatural experience?
I would say absolutely.
And here's the thing, I don't really know what percentage of it is fake
and what percentage of it is actually, you know, some kind of an intercourse with Satan.
But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter.
I don't really care because the Bible is telling us to stay away from it.
So if the Bible is telling us it's wrong and it's sinful,
we shouldn't be participating in a fake version of it or a possibly real version or whatever
because whatever it is, it's wrong.
And so whether it's real wrong stuff or fake wrong stuff,
we don't care.
Now obviously when it comes to like a magic show,
like a magician, you know,
obviously everybody's under the understanding that look,
this guy's not claiming to be using demons or dark arts
or the power of Satan.
That's just slight of hand.
And we'll often call that a magician, right?
And you know, he goes and does a little kid's birthday party
or something and he's just kind of doing this kind of stuff
or whatever, you know, nothing too crazy.
Obviously, you know people do magic tricks and whatever just ha ha and they're just doing it in fun
And there's an understanding that we're not actually participating in the occult
Obviously, I realized that all of those magic shows are fake
100% of them so David Copperfield is not you know using is that the guy's name or is that just a book by Charles Dickens?
Or is it both you know
Obviously that guy's not using dark arts or something he is just a really skillful slight of hand kind of a guy
but
At the end of the day, when the Bible says magicians, though,
it's talking about people who are really trying to do magical things,
trying to manipulate the forces of nature through spirits,
through demons, we know.
And so, is it real?
Some of it, obviously, has to be real.
If there's a demon out there, according to the Bible,
if there's a devil out there,
then, yeah, obviously, the devil has power.
And in this story,
the devil actually does accomplish something real.
This isn't, you know, a David Copperfield
that Pharaoh has on staff here,
but rather, you know, I believe that this is something
that the sorcerers really do accomplish.
They really are able to turn their stick
into a serpent, seemingly.
You know, it's, you know, you say,
oh, it's just sleight of hand.
Well, whatever, maybe,
but I do believe that the devil does have power.
and that he could do a miracle.
And one of the reasons I say that
is because the Bible tells us,
and if you would keep your finger there
and go to 2 Thessalonians chapter two
in the New Testament toward the end of the New Testament,
go to 2 Thessalonians chapter two.
And the Bible is talking about the end times and talking about the antichrist and so forth.
And it says in verse number eight,
And then shall that wicked be revealed,
Whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth,
And shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
We're in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 9.
Even him who's coming is after the working of Satan, watch this,
With all power and signs and lying wonders,
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness,
in them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved,
and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie,
that they all might be damned to believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
So the Bible here talks about the Antichrist coming and he's coming after the working of Satan
with power and signs and lying wonders. And you know you can interpret
And if you were to Revelation 13, you can interpret the lying wonders one of two ways.
You could say, well, you know, they're just illusions.
They're not real or you could say that they are actually miraculous,
but that they are leading people to lies and teaching people false doctrine
and lies and teaching them to worship the Antichrist.
Because look what the Bible says in Revelation chapter 13 about the false
prophet who, you know, is pointing people to the Antichrist.
It says in verse 13,
And he doeth great wonders so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth and the sight of men,
And deceiveeth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles,
Which he had power to do in the sight of the beast,
Sang them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast,
Which had the wound by a sword and did live.
And so we can see here that in the end times,
there are going to be miracles that are done by the antichrist and the false prophet.
The whole world is going to be marveling at the fact that the antichrist receives a deadly wound
and then his deadly wound is healed. The whole world is going to be marveling at him making
fire come down from the sky and so forth.
And so I think when we look at Revelation 13 2nd Thessalonians 2 and then go back to the story in Exodus chapter 7
I think it is plausible that the sorcerers and the magicians actually did through the power of Satan
turn their rod into a serpent.
But then Moses had thrown down his rod
and turned it into a serpent,
and then his serpent ate their serpents.
You know, what a classic story here in the Bible
where God's serpent swallows the other two serpents.
Really sad for them, they lost their toy.
But if you would, jump down to Exodus 7, verse 20.
Back in Exodus chapter seven, look at verse 20.
Sorry, I'm fighting a cough today.
Exodus 720, Mose and Aaron did so as the Lord commanded,
and he lifted up the rod and smote the waters
that were in the river in the side of Pharaoh
and in the side of his servants,
and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood,
and the fish that was in the river died
and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink
of the water of the river, and there was blood
throughout all the land of Egypt.
And so obviously the Nile River is super important
to the Egyptians.
and he ends up turning it temporarily into blood.
And then it says in verse 22,
the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments.
So they also turned water into blood
and Pharaoh's heart was hardened,
neither did he arc into them.
But here's the funny thing is that
it's funny how they can't turn it back into water.
You know, they're able to turn water into blood
in order to just show Pharaoh,
hey, we have power too, you know, the power of Satan.
they can't turn it back and this is one of the reasons why I don't think that
they're necessarily faking it because when we get to chapter 8 you see that
they're actually not able to do something. Okay well first look at verse 6 it
says Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt and the frogs came
up and covered the land of Egypt and the magicians did so with their
enchantments and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt and again it's
hilarious how they're not able to counteract what God is doing
They're not able to undo what God is doing.
God turns water into blood.
They can just turn a little more water into blood.
Well, that's super helpful, guys.
You know, here we are trying to drink water.
It's turned into blood.
You just made more water into blood.
Really cool.
And then, you know, Moses brings all these frogs upon the land,
and then they're like, oh, yeah, we'll bring some more frogs.
But again, they can't get the frogs to leave.
Because in all of these plagues, Moses is being begged by Pharaoh,
Pharaoh is saying, please get these frogs out of here, get these flies out of here,
you know, the ten different plagues, he's always begging for it to end
because his magicians or sorcerers or enchanters or what,
they're not able to undo what God is doing.
And so in all of these stories, what comes through is that God is supremely more powerful than Satan and his minions.
And so Satan and his minions, they're not able to undo anything that God is able to do.
They can just sort of do some of the stuff that God does on a smaller scale, kind of a cheap imitation.
They have some power, but not the kind of power that God has.
And ultimately, God's power is superior.
Look what it says in verse 17, and they did so for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod.
and smote the dust of the earth, and it became a lice in man and in beast.
All the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt,
and the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice,
but they could not.
So there were lice upon man and upon beast,
then the magicians said to Neferro,
this is the finger of God.
Now, again, if you were just faking it, this seems like probably one of the easiest ones to fake, if anything.
And you don't see them attempting to fake this by just, you know, pretending that they're bringing lice out of the dust or whatever.
So it seems like they were legitimately doing some miracles through the power of Satan,
and now they've just kind of reached the end of their abilities at that point.
Now go if you went to Deuteronomy chapter number 18.
Deuteronomy chapter number 18 and again like I said there are many frauds and charlatans and and whatever out there
I get that
And I'm not really interested in trying to figure out how many sorcerers and witches are, you know, doing anything real or how many of them are just 100% fake,
because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter, right?
This is something that we are commanded to stay far away from.
Look what it says in Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 10,
Now, this is talking about actually killing your baby.
This is talking about abortion, basically.
And so it's a murdering of a child.
And so he says, do not do that.
Or he says, let there not be anyone among you
that uses divination.
or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits,
or a wizard, or a necromancer.
For all that do these things are an abomination of the Lord,
and because of these abominations,
the Lord thy God, to drive them out from before thee.
So he's telling his people,
look, the people who do this stuff are super wicked,
and they're an abomination of God.
So don't you
be like them or participate in these things.
And there's a big long list here.
And when we think it's about something like observer of times,
this would be like the horoscope or something, right?
Doing astrology and reading your horoscope
and trying to predict the future based upon the horoscopes
that are in the newspaper or magazines or whatever,
which are obviously an absolute joke anyway
and are ridiculous, okay?
They're about as, you know,
Spiritual as a fortune cookie, okay, as far as actually being able to tell you anything
And then it also says, you know, a charmer,
maybe this could be someone who's like, you know,
hypnotizing people or manipulating people through
those type of means, a consultant with familiar spirits.
This is someone who's communicating with demons
or a wizard, right?
There's another word for sorcerer, or a necromancer.
Now, what is a necromancer?
Well, necro, that necro prefix means dead, okay?
Necrotic tissue is dead.
tissue, right? And so a necromancer is someone who attempts to communicate with dead people.
So this would be, you know, you get out the Ouija board or have a seance and you're trying to
talk to dead people or channel dead people's spirits or whatever. And this is really what we
see happening with Saul and the witch at indoor, right? Saul goes and consults with a woman who
has a familiar spirit and he wants to pull up Samuel, the prophet, who's dead.
So he's trying to communicate with a dead person,
and in this case, it's a man of God,
but that doesn't make it any better or more righteous
that he's trying to pull up a man of God through...
those kind of dark arts and so of course God is very angry about this and when Saul and his sons are all killed in one day
God says that the reason why they're killed is because
One of the reasons listed is because he sought one that had a familiar spirit
So for going to the witch at Endor
God is angry with Saul and that's one of the reasons why he dies on the next day as a punishment
For doing that and so necromancy now. Here's the thing again
If you're just open the phone book
and just look up your local necromancer or whatever.
And it sounds funny, but I guarantee you it's in there.
I don't know if it's gonna be under N for necromancy.
Maybe it's under P for psychic or whatever
But I guarantee you that there are people all over the city that will put you in touch with your dead loved one for a price
Okay
Obviously, I'm not saying that they're actually communicating with dead people. I don't think that that's even humanly possible
Okay, I think that the situation with the witch at Endor is an anomaly, which is why she's kind of freaked out
I don't think she even expected Samuel to actually show up
but
there's really one of two options with these psychic readers or necromancers or people who
run seances is that either A, they're just a complete fake charlatan just making things up
and just telling people a bunch of vague platitudes and then people just fall for it.
And there's a whole book about that written by the circus guy P.T. Barnum.
He wrote a whole book about how psychic readers perpetrate their fraud and everything.
Did some wild things in the circus, but he really didn't like that kind of stuff. And so, you know, either a it's just fake or
B, they're just talking to demons and he's just demons pretending to be your loved one or whatever
But you're not actually talking to your loved one. Okay. I think that the situation with Samuel was an anomaly
That's not the norm
And so, again, we don't care which one it is, the Bible says,
do not consult with familiar spirits, do not do this kind of necromancy,
do not go to these wizard sorcerers and whatever.
If you would flip over to 2 Kings chapter 17, 2 Kings chapter 17.
Now, one of the things that people will often bring up
with sorcery or sorcerers in the Bible
Because what are we talking about?
We're talking about people who are using supernatural forces.
We're not talking about the Bible.
We're not talking about Christianity, though.
We're talking about dark forces of the devil, Satan,
speaking to the dead, using the power of the devil,
Ouija board, seances, those kind of things.
And here's the thing.
They sell the Ouija board in the board game aisle
at like Walmart and Target.
Whose stupid idea was that at Milton Bradley?
to manufacture a Ouija board by Milton Brantley,
like, oh yeah, Monopoly, Parcisi, yeah, Ouija board,
might as well just, you know, talk to the devil or whatever.
It's super wicked, and you know what, it's just the devil trying to get a foothold
and just trying to normalize this kind of stuff
and trying to get you to think it's not a big deal.
And I guarantee you there are probably a lot of kids that are in that board game aisle
and they just grab it and say, hey, this is going to be fun, let's play around with this.
You don't want to play with that kind of stuff because here's the thing, demons are real.
And you can invite in...
evil spirits, unclean spirits into your life,
and you don't want to do that,
and especially unsaved people are susceptible
because they can be demon-possessed and everything else.
And I believe that there have been many times in my life
when I have encountered people that were demon possessed.
Obviously, you don't always know for sure
if people are just crazy,
or if they're demon possessed, or both.
But it's definitely out there.
And we see it a lot in the four Gospels with Jesus
running into people that are demon possessed.
But when we talk about the subject of the occult and sorcery,
a lot of people will say,
well, you know, if you go back to the Greek, they'll say,
You know, the word for sorcery in Greek, they'll say, is pharmakia.
And like the sorcerer is a pharmakos, or pharmakefs, and, you know, they'll say, so basically,
you know, what we're talking about is the pharmacy.
Now, here's the problem with that, is that you've got to be careful that you don't read
things backwards into Greek from English.
Okay, so obviously our English word pharmacy is derived from this ancient Greek word
Pharmacone pharma kefs, but it doesn't mean that it means the same thing in English that it means in
Greek, okay, and and what's going on here is that obviously in the ancient world in Bible times
There's no CVS. There's no Walgreens. Yeah, people aren't showing up and getting a prescription
So it's anachronistic to say, oh, that's what God was talking about.
He's saying, you know, the pharmacists are all going to the lake of fire.
You know, that's not what he, you know, the fearful, unbelievable,
unbelieving, abominable murderers, hormongers, and pharmacists.
That's not what he's saying.
So we, that's called the root fallacy,
when basically you will look at the root word that something comes from,
and it's, oh, well, because this word is derived from that,
that must be what it means.
You know the word for naked in Greek is gymnos, which basically is where we get our word gymnasium
You know, so, you know, does that mean when the Bible says something about someone naked?
Well, if you go back to the Greek, they're actually just going to the gym
You know, it's just stupid because obviously, you know, these words change in meaning over time
So, no, the Bible is not condemning, in general, all pharmaceutical drugs.
The Bible is not saying that you can't take an ibuprofen or an aspirin or a Tylenol because
you're a sorcerer now or something.
That's not what the Bible is saying.
Okay, here's where the connection comes in.
between these two words.
Why is it that that ancient Greek word
that has to do with sorcery
has become our modern Greek word
or modern English word for the pharmacy?
The reason why is simply because of the fact
that a lot of sorcerers, witches, or whatever,
they deal in potions,
and they would sell people magical potions and whatever.
And again, obviously a lot of it's just totally fake,
but a lot of it is also what?
mind-altering drugs and so what happens is a lot of these witches and sorcerers would use
mind-altering drugs in order to somehow reach the spirit world and kind of
cross over to the other side and commune with these other spirits and things they use drugs as a vehicle so you can see how drugs and
Sorcery could be connected now when I'm thinking about the subject of drugs and this is a big subject unfortunately
in our day, drug use is rampant in the United States of America.
I mean, it's horrible.
I was just looking at some incredible statistics today.
My mind was just absolutely blown by the drug statistics
for our local area here in Arizona.
You know, different lists had different cities
ranked in different orders, but some websites were claiming
that Mesa, Arizona and Phoenix, Arizona
were like the number one and two places
for being addicted to certain drugs.
And in fact, there was a statistic showing that like 20% of people in Phoenix had tried cocaine or something.
I was just like, what in the world? I mean, these statistics were crazy.
Or it was like, oh, 30% of young people have, you know, tried an illegal drug in the last year or something.
It was just mind-blowing, and the statistics are all over the place because obviously these
things are hard to measure, and some of them are talking about all drugs, some of them
are including marijuana, not including marijuana.
Some of them are just homing in on certain drugs, but I mean, either way.
Numbers like 10%, 14%, 20% of people using these serious drugs?
That's insane, it's crazy.
Those numbers were just wild to me.
And again, I didn't go super deep down the rabbit hole,
but just I was looking at a lot of websites
and the numbers all seemed to be in those kind of ballparks.
And I was looking at like 30% of Arizonans
in a certain age group were like using marijuana.
or something like that, at least once a year or something.
You know, they're smoking marijuana
like in the 18 to 25 bracket or something.
Okay, sounds like this is a very serious problem.
And I think we've all known people who committed this sin
and we've all been exposed to it and we've all seen it.
Even when I was a teenager, I saw a lot of it,
but it's way worse now.
And even now that marijuana is legal,
you know, first of all, that doesn't make it right.
And then beyond that, you've got all these other drugs that people are doing that are even going beyond marijuana and they're doing things like mushrooms and LSD and whatever.
Now, the way I look at this with drugs, and again, this is a big subject that's really important that we condemn this, that we rebuke this, that we fight against this as God's people, and that we not allow this in our homes, that we not allow this to creep into our church or anything like that.
and it needs to be preached against.
I think there's really like two different categories
that you could almost divide drug use into, right?
Because on the one hand,
there's one aspect of drug use
that's kind of comparable to drinking alcohol, right?
Because people go out and they drink alcohol, why?
One of the reasons is
because it just makes them feel good or something, right?
They just, they want to get buzzed
or feel good or enjoy or whatever.
I don't know, because I've never,
uh, been intoxicated so I don't really know what it feels like, but you know,
whatever they want to feel a certain way or maybe they just want to numb
themselves because maybe they're just in a bad mood.
They can't get their mind off things. They're depressed. They're upset.
So they want to just kind of just dull their brain and just kind of drown their
sorrows so to speak and use alcohol in that way.
or people will drink alcohol to just, I guess, loosen up or something, and lose their inhibitions,
and that way they can just do stupid things that they normally wouldn't do.
So I think that's one aspect of drug use is kind of the same as alcohol use, but maybe just taking
it a little further. They're basically taking something a little stronger,
Basically, they're doing the same thing that the drinker is doing,
wanting to feel good, or wanting to forget,
or wanting to loosen up, or party, or whatever.
And it's like they're basically just taking it to another level,
maybe even mixing drugs and alcohol to get just a more powerful effect.
Because human beings are greedy.
And they're not just going to be satisfied with a little bit of alcohol.
They're just going to keep escalating until they're drinking more, mixing it with drugs, moving on to drugs, whatever.
But I think there's also another aspect of drug use that is not really similar to drinking alcohol,
because there's another aspect of drug use that has to do with sort of opening your mind.
So it's not necessarily people taking drugs for the reason that they would drink alcohol.
It's more like they want to experiment with drugs and go on these journeys and whatever.
And look, I've read some articles about this even in mainstream news publications like
New York Times or something, where you read these articles about how now doctors are wanting
psychedelic drugs to cancer patients, to people that are dying, et cetera,
because basically they give people drugs and they have these spiritual experiences
and then they're not afraid of dying anymore because they, you know, they go to the other side
and they check it out and it turns out, you know, it's fine.
And so they don't mind going there. So then they can die more peacefully or whatever.
But it's funny because even the article, even this one article I was reading in the New York Times,
said, well, is this necessarily even really a good thing,
though, you know, and I was thinking about it
as like a false sense of security.
Like somebody's not saved and on their way to hell,
they take a bunch of drugs and it's just like,
oh man, I've already been there, man, and it was cool,
you know, it's like, no man, you didn't go there,
you're going downstairs, you know,
and that is not where that trip took you.
And so the point is that a lot of people out there will try to use drugs in order to reach a higher level of consciousness, no pun intended, right?
And they want to reach a higher level of consciousness, and they want to commune with other spiritual entities and so forth.
And this is where I think drug use does cross the line into becoming satanic.
or becoming sorcery or becoming witchcraft
when you're taking a drug in order to commune with other spirits
or go to some other higher level of consciousness and so forth,
then, yeah, then I can see where the overlap of sorcery and drug use is there.
With that kind of drug use versus like the guy who's just smoking some pot
I just want to mill out with some pot or whatever and just be a loser pothead or whatever
That's one aspect sort of like the guy who just gets a drunk and he's a drunken loser
And then, oh, I don't think you should talk about drunk people that way.
Well, you know what? Drunks are losers and so are drug addicts.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Actually, don't smoke it because you'll get too high.
But the point is that, yeah, you know, I'm not going to sit here and say that you're wise
or that you're smart when you're drinking and using drugs.
Hey, the Bible says that you are a fool.
The Bible says,
whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
Wine is a marker and strong drink is raging,
and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
The Bible says it's foolish to be a drunkard.
It's foolish to be a wine-biber.
Obviously, these things are not leading you to wisdom
or down a right path.
And beer doesn't make you cool.
Beer doesn't make you physically fit.
That's why there's not a beer dispenser down at the gym.
You know, it's like, oh, here's all the protein shakes and here's a glass of beer now
I mean, I'm sure there's some gimmick Jim that has that but at the end of the day
Nobody who knows anything about nutrition thinks that beer is is good for you
You know, oh, oh, yeah, every time, you know, every time I have a big math test to take, you know
I just I just drink a few beers before that calculus exam and that just really just opens my yeah
Just do some mushrooms right before the big, you know differential equations exam or whatever. That's it's stupid
It's not making you smarter. It's killing brain cells. This stuff is poisonous. It's toxic. It's bad for you
It's bad for your health. It's bad for your brain. It's not making you smarter is making you dumb or stay away from it
And so, these are two aspects, I think, of drug use.
They're sort of the one that could be compared to alcohol use in the Bible,
because let's face it, the Bible doesn't talk about drugs.
But the Bible talks about alcohol.
And I think half of drug use, you could kind of just take the alcohol verses and apply them.
And then I think the other half of drug use, you could take the sorcery verses and apply them.
You know, the magic, sorcery, enchantment, wizardry kind of verses,
because of the fact that you're trying to reach some higher consciousness through the use of drugs.
Now, here's the thing about that. What it comes down to is that people are trying to exceed the boundaries that God has placed upon mankind.
God has created us and he has given us certain abilities and he's given us certain mental power and certain physical prowess and
We don't want to go beyond
Where God wants us to be and look this goes all the way back to Adam and Eve in the garden
You know, they felt like God is withholding some important knowledge from them because they're not allowed to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and
Then Satan tempts them to eat from that tree of the knowledge of good and evil
they're going beyond the bounds of what God has allowed. And if you think about it,
human beings in their sinful condition also kind of have this desire to go
beyond the natural to the supernatural and say like, oh well I want to know the
future so therefore I'm going to go to the psychic reader.
Or I'm going to read the horoscope, or I'm going to use these enchantments or whatever.
I'm going to take these drugs or whatever so that I can go beyond
a normal human consciousness. Instead of just being a humble servant of God,
learning actual wisdom from the Bible, the things that God has provided for us,
like in the Garden of Eden, God had provided all these wonderful trees.
But then there's the one tree that they're not allowed to have that's the one Satan entices them with look
God has given us all this wonderful knowledge in the Bible
And there's better knowledge in the Bible than all that the occult bookstore has to offer
Right, because we could go to one of these like downtown areas and go to this like weird creepy little occult bookstore
And we've all walked by places like this. Hopefully you didn't enter them, but you know man in New Orleans, Louisiana
It's like every other business was like a Satan worshipping store
But you know, I'm sure we have them down in in Tempe or Phoenix or whatever
and you walk by these places
and they have all this witchcraft and occult stuff,
maybe even just, I don't know,
just vanilla bookstores probably even
just have a little section, you know, for this stuff.
I, you know, I wouldn't be surprised
if you could find a little nook in Barnes & Noble
or something where you can find a lot of this weird stuff.
But here's the thing, all of that occult information
and everything, first of all, it's coming from who?
The father of lies.
Satan is literally the father of lies, right?
He's a liar from the beginning and the Bible says he's the father of it.
Okay, so you're going to go to the father of lies bookstore in order to find occult knowledge.
What does occult mean? Occult simply means hidden.
So you're going to go find hidden knowledge by going to the father of lies bookstore.
Here's the thing, I'm sure that there is some hidden knowledge in there that's legit.
But for every piece of hidden knowledge that's in that occult bookstore,
there's probably a hundred just outright lies and just made up bogus, fake things.
And so by reading that stuff, you're just filling your mind with a bunch of garbage
and it's lies and even the part of it that's true is probably some off limits knowledge
that you're not even supposed to have.
Because look, we don't need to know about every single thing in this world.
There are certain things that I'd rather just never know about.
And the Bible says that we should be wise concerning that which is good, and simple concerning the evil.
Okay, go if you would actually to Acts chapter 19. Acts chapter number 19.
But here's the thing, I've got the Bible right here, and this book is just packed.
with wisdom and knowledge, information, and it's all true.
Like, everything in the Bible is true and it's got all this wisdom, all this advice,
all the mysteries of the universe are explained, the answers are all in here,
and you can spend your whole life reading this book and you're never going to get everything out of it.
You know, I've been reading it for decades and I'm still constantly learning new things. We are.
And so you got everything you need right here, but then what the wickedness of man says,
oh well this isn't enough for me. This is boring. Give me apocryphal books.
You know, give me the book of Enoch. Give me the book of witchcraft
and give me all this occult knowledge and all this other stuff, the voodoo stuff.
So instead of being satisfied with the knowledge that God has given you,
which is enough for you to chew on for the rest of your life,
you're never going to run out of information to learn.
You want to reject that and go to the father of lies and learn from him and get all his occult knowledge from the occult bookster
Doesn't make any sense
Now also God also has power available, right? Because there's the power of the Holy Spirit
And the Bible talks about how we can be filled with the Holy Spirit.
And what's going to be the fruit of the Holy Spirit?
Love, joy, peace.
I mean, isn't this the kind of stuff that people want in their life?
I mean, I would think that everybody should want to be filled with love,
filled with joy, filled with peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance, faith.
These are all wonderful virtues that come through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Hey, that's the power that I want to tap into.
I want to get that power in my life.
I want to be, you know, not just indwelled by the Holy Spirit, but filled by the Holy Spirit.
And I want to have the power of Christ resting upon me, as it says in 1 Corinthians.
Right? So there's power to be had here with the Holy Spirit.
But then people instead of that they want to go get some special powers through black magic and dark arts and things like that
So they're rejecting the real power
for something that a lot of times is fake anyway,
and even if it's real, it's coming from Satan,
it's inferior to what God has to offer.
It's not going to bring you real joy and peace and happiness in your life.
Oh, you know, we just got to give people, you know,
psilocybin or LSD or whatever,
you know, on their deathbed so they can have peace,
and you know what, I'm going to have peace on my deathbed,
and no drugs required.
Amen? I mean, look, we as Christians, we already have peace on our deathbed.
We owe death. Where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
Not because we went to some weird orange and purple mushroom land
and found out everything's going to be okay.
We know it's going to be okay because in Christ's father's house at many mansions...
And if it were not so, he would have told us, and he went to prepare a place for us,
and he's going to receive us again unto himself that where he is, we may be also.
That's the peace that we need.
And look, God can supernaturally imbibe us with power to preach the word of God boldly.
Right? Through the fullness of the Holy Spirit, we can have boldness.
See, I don't have to drink up my courage with booze.
I pray up my courage with the power of the Holy Spirit.
So I want the Holy Spirit, not the spirits, not the drugs, not the magic chant, right?
Oh, you can chant this mantra and say this spell and go through this.
No, my friend, I would rather stick to what God has to offer and I'm satisfied with what God has to offer.
I don't need to go to the devil for additional power, knowledge, etc.
Now, in Acts chapter 19, we have a major book burning in the Bible, and it says in Acts
19-19, many of them also.
These are people that believed on Christ, so it says in verse 18, many that believed came
and confessed and showed their deeds.
is a word that's used throughout the Bible
to mean very complicated, intricate, or whatever.
That's what it typically means,
like the curious girdle of the ephod in the Old Testament.
It's talking about the fact that it was elaborately embroidered.
So it's it's very intricately woven. Okay, so when the Bible says here that they used
curious arts what we're basically talking about here is
Witchcraft or dark arts. That's what we're talking about here. We're talking about people who use magic or something like that
So it says, many of them also, which used curious arts,
brought their books together and burned them before all men,
and they counted the price of them and found it
50,000 pieces of silver, right?
So this is a lot of money.
You know as far as how much exactly this is you know
We don't really know the size of the pieces of silver or whatever
But you could think you know maybe a one ounce silver coin or something right is what we kind of tend to think in today
Is worth about like thirty dollars right now
You know I didn't check the silver price today or in years, but it seems like it's always around like 30 bucks
Am I right?
Can I get a witness?
About 30 bucks?
Nobody here owns precious metals.
All right, there we go.
I see that.
God bless you, I see that in hand.
So basically, if it's like, let's just say it's an ounce
and it's $30 and it's 50,000 of them, right?
So that'd be what?
$1.5 million or something, right?
It's some huge amount of money.
Maybe it was less than that,
but either way, it's a ton of money.
You know, even if this was just even if it was even if each piece of silver was just a dollar
Which there's no way that'd be a really small piece of silver to be only worth a dollar, right?
Even just like fifty thousand dollars is a lot, but this is probably like hundreds
Realistically, it's probably hundreds of thousands of dollars possibly even over a million dollars
Maybe a million and a half dollars or something
Now part of the reason for this is because of the fact that books are very expensive
in the ancient world.
Because this is before the printing press,
so every book is written by hand.
So every book represents a human being working
for weeks or months or even years,
just to produce one volume.
It could be like a year of your life
just to produce one long book
or a month of your life or something.
So we're talking about expensive books,
but either way, no matter how expensive the books are,
50,000 pieces of silver.
This is a huge pile of books.
This is a lot of books.
And you know what that tells me?
Is that if people who used curious arts
brought their books together and burned them,
and they counted the price of them
and found it to be 50,000 pieces of silver,
sounds to me like a lot of people are into witchcraft.
To have that many books to burn,
these are just the people that repented from it.
And they got saved and they're like,
oh, we're saved now, we don't need this stuff anymore.
Let's just burn it, let's get rid of it.
And so that shows me that this is pretty common.
And I guarantee you that human beings have this tendency
to want to kind of know more than they're supposed to know
or this kind of curiosity, no pun intended,
with the curious arts there.
There's a different meaning of curious.
But this kind of curiosity that says,
hey, you know, I really want to know what it's like
to take these drugs or experience these other things
or, you know, I want to know if there's anything
to this witchcraft or whatever.
You know, I want to see if it's real.
You know, well, you know, it's not that I love Satan or anything, but you know, I just kind of want to experiment with it to see if it's real
Folks, that's super wicked and stupid and you know what now we're back to unbelieving
Why don't you just believe the Bible that it's real?
and that it's evil, and that you should stay away from it.
Right? I don't need proof that the devil exists.
I don't need proof that demons exist.
And I heard somebody say, well, you know, well, yeah, but if the devil exists, that means God exists.
Well, I already know God exists.
I already believe in God. I already believe in Jesus.
I'm not a doubting Thomas over here that needs to actually physically see.
I don't need to go to some house and see, you know, things.
whirl around the ceiling or something in order to know,
hey, the devil's real, ergo, God is real too.
I don't need that.
And God doesn't want us to have anything to do
with that kind of stuff.
Okay, and again, some of it's just made up stuff,
but some of it has to be real because demons exist.
They must be doing something, right?
And so if you would flip back to second Kings, chapter 17.
2 Kings 17, so again, I think that at the root of this thing of sorcery is a desire to go beyond what God has for us,
to know things that are outside the realm of what we're supposed to know,
to have power outside the power that God has given us and that God has provided for us,
to seize that power ourselves and to be able to go further than where God wants us to go.
and a miracle of the Bible, right?
Like, what is the difference?
Because isn't this what atheists will claim like,
oh, you know, you believe in a magical sky daddy
or something, you know, they say these stupid things.
But they kind of try to equate religion with magic,
don't they?
And one of the colossal differences
between what we see in the Bible with miracles
and, you know, God granting people power and ability
versus magic.
is that when it comes to the power and ability that God grants in Scripture,
where you see people doing miracles like the apostles or the prophets or something,
is that they are carrying out the will of God, right?
So they are doing things according to God's will.
They're fulfilling His plan.
They're not just using quote-unquote magic willy-nilly just to basically impress their friends
or punish their enemies or to gain things for themselves.
Right and this is sort of what Jesus is tempted with when Satan says, oh, you're hungry command that these stones be made bread
Right what he's just basically trying to get him to use
Spiritual power as like a magic trick or something
to just kind of satisfy his craving right then and there,
like, oh, I'm just going to turn these stones into bread
or whatever.
You know, I'm just going to walk on water
for the fun of it or something.
You know, that's not the point.
Any time miracles are happening in the Bible,
these are people that are in the will of God,
doing things according to God's will,
praying according to God's will,
and having the ability to do things according to God's will.
And here's the thing.
Even today in 2025, obviously God can still work miracles, right?
And we, you know, someone could be sick and we could pray for that person
and that person could be miraculously healed through our prayers.
Absolutely, that is possible.
But the difference is though that we don't just have this ability
that we decide whether this person gets healed or not
because we have this little enchantment.
And it seems like a lot of magic is almost like forcing these spirits to obey you like,
well, if I say this spell, then this, you know, spirit has to obey me.
I can summon this genie and he's got to give me his three wishes or whatever.
You know, that's a little different than praying to God and saying,
look, God, you have the power to heal here and you're asking God to do it if it's according to his will.
You see the colossal difference between God supernaturally doing something versus just,
oh, I'm a magician, I'm a sorcerer, so I can just make people's heart explode, you know,
just by just going like this or something, you know.
And people think I have that power.
That's why they got really mad when I preached that sermon where I did that in a sermon.
They thought that I was actually going to hurt someone.
but it turns out I actually don't have that ability or power.
I'm not trying to get that ability or power.
I don't have the power to strike people dead
and just be like bam, bam, you know.
They're like, you're threatening, you know,
by praying and preclatory prayers,
you're threatening people.
It's like, no man,
because I don't have that kind of power.
I've never had that kind of power.
You know, I can't even reprobate anyone, you know, whatever that means.
But the point is that, you know, magic is sort of like this desire
for you to have all this power so that you can wield power
and manipulate the forces of nature and do stuff
versus someone who's just living for God
and then God gives them the power when they need it
to accomplish his will and whatever.
And at the end of the day, you know, what we'd all rather have if we're smart
than having some power to, I don't know, levitate things or something,
you know, to punch and then like the candle goes out or whatever.
You know, more than that, I think we'd all rather just have love, joy, peace in our hearts.
So, you know, I'm much more interested in what God has for me
and the blessing of God and walking with God and just being a humble servant of God.
than just kind of putting on some hood and being some like super powerful level 99 sorcerer or something.
You know, just casting all these spells or something, right?
But apparently that appeals to people. I mean, this is what a lot of human beings desire and fantasize about.
Hence all of the fantasy novels and books and movies and all the different things that really glorify this type of stuff.
It's a whole genre, right?
Obviously there's, like I said at Barnes & Noble, there's probably the section of like actual witchcraft, sorcery, occult section,
but there's a whole other section of just fiction,
of just fantasizing about having all this power and doing all these things.
And again, it must be that human beings have some desire within them,
and really what this desire boils down to is actually wanting to have the power of God.
and we're not God, and we're not supposed to aspire to be God.
We don't want to be like Satan in Isaiah chapter 14, where he said what?
I will be like the most high. I want to be like the most high.
You know, it's not my desire to take the place of God or to be on par with God
or to be on the same level. I just want to be a humble servant of God for all eternity.
I'm just going to humbly serve God for all eternity.
I don't need to be able to read minds and know the future
and make things levitate and walk on water
and things like that. I just don't need to do that.
I'm not interested in that.
But I think that there is a desire within human beings
to want to do that kind of stuff.
And so that's where they go seek all these things
and get into all this stuff.
Where did I have you turn? First Kings.
Second Kings 17. It says in verse 16,
And they left all the commandments of the Lord their God and made them molten images
even two calves, and made a grove and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal,
and they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire
and use divination and enchantments and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord,
to provoke them to anger.
Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight.
There was none left but the tribe of Judah only.
Now look, if those things angered God back then, do you think they anger him now?
You think God looks down and sees the abortion clinic and he's angry.
You think God looks down from heaven and sees a bunch of kids with a Ouija board.
Do you think he's pleased with that?
When Christian kids decide to fool around with a Ouija board,
Christian kids decide to experiment with mind-altering drugs
in order to reach some higher plane of consciousness.
Folks, that is garbage.
It's wicked.
It's not making you smarter.
Whatever experience you're having by taking those drugs. It's lying wonders. It's it's garbage
It's not gonna make you a better Christian
You're not you're not gonna come back from some LSD trip and be like, you know what now I understand the Bible
You know now I can really break down the gospel of John in a way that I've never been able to understand before I
Took those mushrooms. I mean does anybody that stupid?
But yet we have a bunch of 18 19 20 look at the statistics
It's through the roof. You got a bunch of young people out there. Oh, there's got to be more out there
Let me take these. Yeah, there is more out there. It's right here
Yeah, there is more to life than just your little eat drink and be merry life. It's called walking with God
It's called the Holy Spirit. It's called prayer. It's called church
It's called soul winning and you know what they're looking for a shortcut though. They're looking for something easy
Because here's the thing, you take the drugs and you know, just immediately, the effect is right away.
Whereas in order to reach the heights of what God has for you spiritually, it's going to take effort of years of reading your Bible, going to church.
Oh man, you know, I don't want to do that.
But here's the thing, the reading your Bible, praying, going to church, it's all going to pay off and you will tag spiritual summits that the drug addict down the street has never tagged.
You know, it's just like, yeah, he's going to feel something, but it's a fraud.
He's going to communicate with spirits, but they're evil spirits.
I'd rather communicate with the Holy Spirit.
And look.
Maybe someday I will observe some kind of a miracle in my life or something, you know
Maybe I'll see God perform a miracle or something and and see something really miraculous where I could say
Hey, this is the finger of God
But you know what even if I never see something in my life like that that doesn't bother me at all
Because you know what the Bible says that John the Baptist was the greatest man to ever live
Jesus said, among them that are born of women,
there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.
And you want to know what else they said about John the Baptist in the Four Gospels?
John did no miracle.
How about that?
John did no miracle,
and yet all things that he said concerning this man are true.
This man being Jesus.
So here's the thing, if John the Baptist could be the greatest man who ever lived,
and he didn't perform any miracles,
I don't feel like I have to perform miracles to be a man of God.
Okay? You know, obviously we read about a lot of miracles in Scripture,
but we also read entire lifetimes of people who had no miracles.
I mean, how many miracles did Josiah perform?
How many miracles did Hezekiah perform, right?
I mean, look, you can go through the Bible, and there are a lot of people in the Bible
that didn't perform any miracles, and yet they lived great Christian lives for many, many decades,
and there are probably a lot of people who never saw any miracle in their whole lifetime.
And again, I'm not a doubting Thomas that has to go see a miracle.
You know, blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.
Amen.
But at the same time, I am not satisfied with the carnal existence of just eating and drinking
and sleeping and working.
I want something more.
I want more than that.
I want spiritual communion with God.
I want to know the mysteries of the universe, but it's all found in the Bible.
Yeah, I do want to go beyond what's earthly here, but you know what?
I'm willing to put in the work and the time and the effort to be pure in heart so I can see God and
Not have to take a shortcut of just here smoke this snort this shoot this up whatever and then boom
You'll immediately you'll be in the spirit world and look here's the thing. Oh
The man is just it opens your mind all this creativity
You know you take these drugs, and then you know you could write all this great music or whatever
But but here's the thing about that is that we all kind of go on a drug trip every night
If you think about it, it's called going to sleep at night
Because let's face it
I don't know how well you remember your dreams.
Some people remember their dreams better than others.
Sometimes I go through phases of remembering
a lot of dreams, not remembering.
But I guarantee you that my dreams are weirder and wilder
than any drug trip that anybody's ever been on.
I mean, we've all had those wild dreams, amen.
I mean dreams are weird things don't make sense things are crazy things are strange and here's the thing
That's a lot of the same thing that you're doing when you're taking drugs
You're just your brain's just kind of going crazy all over the place. It's called just being a crazy person
But see here's the thing when we're at bed at night and we go crazy every night and go all into all these weird dreams and stuff
Here's the thing is that our bodies are paralyzed
You know our bodies are designed that while we're in bed having all these crazy dreams
We're paralyzed, which is why we're not sleepwalking all over the place and doing a bunch of crazy things
That's some people when they do sleepwalk. It's because that thing that's paralyzing them is broken
And so they get out of bed and start acting out their dreams and some problems ensue
but
The normal thing that you do at night is you go to bed, you lay down, you're asleep, you're paralyzed.
So it doesn't matter if you end up robbing a convenience store in your dream or something.
And I'm not saying I've ever done that in dream because I've never had a dream like that.
Okay? I'm just throwing that out there.
You know, if I had some dream where I'm robbing a convenience store, no harm, no foul,
because I'm just laying in bed, all I did was just twitch my eyeballs a little bit.
Right, but then what happens is people that are taking drugs and people that are you know drinking and getting high and stuff
They are like in a confused wild dream state in a sense
and then they will go out and do these things in real life.
They're out committing adultery in real life.
They're doing robberies in real life.
I talked to this one guy that was drunk
and he just, he blacked out while drunk
and when he came to his senses,
he was just walking down the street
with like an armful of electronics equipment.
He had just broken into a store and stolen it
and he was being arrested by the police,
just red handed with a bunch of stolen equipment.
He's like how did I get this stuff where this stuff come from and you know when he tells the cop
I don't know where this came from. They're just like yeah, right buddy
But he really didn't know where it came from
So look every single night we go on we we're seeing pink elephants on parade every single night in our sleep
We don't have to take drugs to do that
Right, I mean look we got all the creativity we need right here, you know, no drugs required
We can read our Bibles and learn the truth instead of going to the father of lies from
the occult bookstore.
We don't need drugs, we don't need witchcraft, we don't need sorcery, we don't need spells,
we don't need the psychic reader, we don't need tarot cards, we don't need a Ouija board,
we don't need a seance, we don't need any of this stuff.
We need to just be patient.
Study our Bibles, walk with God, and look.
You say, well, I just really want to experience something supernatural.
Well, you know what?
Why don't you read your Bible and pray to God and pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit
and go out and serve God and sing praises to God and, you know,
win souls to Christ? And you know what?
I guarantee eventually you're going to feel something.
You know, you're going to have a supernatural experience. You're going to have a spiritual experience.
You know, you're going to have something that's real.
And God will supernaturally give you love, joy, peace, et cetera.
Which is way cooler than whatever the devil's offering you.
Whatever drugs are offering you.
Because, oh, I felt so high when I took those drugs.
Yeah, but how'd you feel afterward?
Low.
And you know, isn't it funny that the same people
that are experimenting with drugs
are the same people that are attempting suicide?
Same people that are experimenting with drugs
are the same people that have to go to counseling
and therapy because they're so depressed
because the drugs, I guess, didn't fix it, did they?
No, because drugs are not gonna provide
lasting happiness or joy.
The Holy Spirit provides real joy.
And that's the supernatural power
that I wanna tap into is actually being happy.
actually having love in my heart, actually having peace.
And you know what?
I have hope in my death, as the Bible says.
You know, when I die, I'm going to be at peace,
knowing that I'm going home to be with the Lord.
And when the doctor's like,
hey man, you know, would you like some LSD
to make you feel better?
I'm just going to be like, no thanks, I'll skip it.
Let's pray, let's have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much.
for your word Lord and
Lord God's sorcery is something that is is frowned upon in Scripture. It's super evil abominable
Your wrath came upon the children of Israel for sorcery Lord help us never to
Go beyond what you have appointed for us and and Lord help us never to try to use drugs to do that
And Lord help us never to try to use
You know
Black magic or curious arts or white magic for that matter to try to to achieve those things
Lord help us to go through the proper channels and the only spirit that we should deal with is the Holy Spirit and
Lord we thank you for everything and thank you especially for salvation through Jesus Christ and it's in his name. We pray amen
Well, all right everybody take your hymnals, please go to hymn number 343 hymn 343
We'll close out our service tonight.
Him 343, revive us again.
Him number 343, we praise thee, oh God.
Him number 343, sing it out now.
We praise thee, oh God, for the Son of thy blood.
For Jesus who died and is now God above.
Hallelujah, line the clock.
Alleluia, amen.
Alleluia, thine, the glory, revive us again.
We praise thee, O God, for thy spirit applied.
Who has shown us our Savior and scattered our night.
Alleluia, thine, the glory.
All glory and praise to the Lamb that was slain, Who has borne all our sins and has cleansed
Revive us again. Revive us again.
Fill the chart with Thy love.
Name soul be rekindled with fire from above.
Hallelujah, Thy glory. Hallelujah, amen.
Hallelujah, Thy glory. Revive us again.
Again
Man good things night be artists missed