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Amen. Amen. The title of my sermon this morning is Divination and Soothsaying. Divination and Soothsaying. Let's start reading there in verse number nine. The Bible reads, When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth 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 unto the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God, for these nations which thou shalt possess hearkened unto observers of times and unto diviners. But as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do. Pay special attention to verse 15. The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken. Now keep your finger here in Deuteronomy 18. Go to Acts chapter 3. Acts chapter 3 quotes a few things from Deuteronomy chapter 18 and gives us some application. Acts chapter 3 beginning in verse number 20 reads, and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, watch this, this is from Deuteronomy 18. A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me, him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you, and it shall come to pass that every soul, this was from a little later in Deuteronomy 18, we read it before the sermon, and it shall come to pass that every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people. Now this designation of the prophet like unto Moses that God would raise up is referring to Jesus according to Acts chapter 3. So what we actually get when we take that knowledge, okay, God is specifically referring to the Lord Jesus Christ here. When we take that back to Deuteronomy 18, here's what we come up with. Don't listen to all this superstitious hocus pocus mumbo jumbo horoscopes and diviners and observing times and enchantments. Listen to Jesus. Isn't that what he's saying? Listen to the prophet that I'm going to raise up. And of course that's the son of God, Jesus Christ. Now let me give you a divination dictionary definition here, okay? What does it mean when he says, hey, don't listen to anybody who uses divination because anybody who uses it is an abomination. And then a little later he told them in verse 14 that these wicked nations had hearkened unto diviners. The diviners are the ones who use divination. What does that mean though, divination? What's the sermon about? Here's the dictionary definition. The practice of attempting to foretell future events or to discover hidden knowledge by occult or supernatural means. And so basically instead of listening to the true word of God, instead of reading the Bible to figure out what truth is, this is seeking to find truth and revelation elsewhere using superstitious occultic means like omens, signs, horoscopes, numerology, Ouija boards, film reading, seances, channeling, aura pictures up in Sedona or peyote or transcendental meditation. I mean this can take on a lot of different forms. And then he talked about not observing times. He kind of lumps that in. What does it mean to observe times? Well let me read this for you from Jeremiah chapter 10 verse 2. Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven for the heathen are dismayed at them. Observing times would be like horoscopes because it has to do with different dates and what the heavenly bodies are doing at that time and in that month and in that year. It also has to do with astrology, astrologers. And by the way, every time astrologers are mentioned in the Bible, it's only the Babylonians because it's mentioned in Isaiah 47 about Babylon and it's mentioned over and over again in the book of Daniel with the Babylonians. That's the only mention that you'll find. And so astrology, horoscopes, getting scared about Friday the 13th, wouldn't that be observing times and being dismayed at the signs of heaven. But also how about the blood moons and setting a date for the rapture and setting a date for the second coming based on these occurrences. This is observing of times. Now obviously there's nothing wrong with looking at a calendar, counting up years, months, days and those things can be very interesting. But not when we start using them to find hidden or esoteric knowledge about the things of God. That God has revealed the things that we need to know unto us through his word by his spirit. The secret things belong to the Lord, but that which is revealed belongs to us through scripture here. So we don't need to get into all this demonic stuff. When it comes to observing times, this is brought up in the New Testament in Galatians 4 in regard to the Galatians who had been Judaized. Because the whole book of Galatians is about the Judaizers. They're trying to get them to be circumcised, to keep the law of Moses and to do these things. And he says to them, you observe days and months and times and years, I'm afraid of you, lest I've bestowed upon you labor in vain. So don't be dismayed at the signs of heaven. Don't be dismayed or observe these superstitions, horoscopes, good luck charms. You know, a black cat crosses your path, you walk under a ladder, or you break a mirror, you kill a spider, step on a crack, break your mother's back. You know, any of this stuff, you know, you spilled the salt or whatever. You know, this is all foolishness. Fear God and keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man. Don't fear these type of signs and omens and superstitions. Fear the Lord. And if you want to know the truth, it's found in the Bible as revealed by the Holy Spirit through the reading of the Bible. But let's talk about this idea of divination. Now this is something that comes up a lot in the Bible. This is not a small subject. This word is used over and over and over again. Let me give you some examples. Go to 2 Kings chapter 17. 2 Kings chapter 17, while you're turning there, I'll read for you from Chronicles about a wicked king. He caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom. Also he observed times and used enchantments and used witchcraft and dealt with a familiar spirit and with wizards. He wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. So we see these things make God angry. They provoke him to anger. They're known as being evil. And observing times, using enchantments, witchcraft has to do with dealing with what? A familiar spirit. This is what we would know as a demon. This is what we know as the devil. So this stuff is truly demonic in every sense of the word. Look at 2 Kings 17 verse 16. It says 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 hosts of heaven and served Baal. Baal is the devil. Baaliel, Baal, Bel, Beelzebub. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire and used divination and enchantments and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke them to anger. For the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. There was none left but the tribe of Judah only. Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord their God but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel and afflicted them and delivered them into the hand of the spoilers until he had cast them out of his sight. I mean, those are some pretty serious consequences for getting into this stuff. Flip over to chapter 21 since you're there in 2 Kings anyway. While you're turning there I'll read for you from Jeremiah. Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets nor to your diviners nor to your dreamers nor to your enchanters nor to your sorcerers which speak unto you saying ye shall not serve the king of Babylon for they prophesy a lie unto you to remove you far from your land and that I should drive you out and ye should perish. Look at 2 Kings 21 verse 6. He made his son pass through the fire, observed times and used enchantments and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards. He wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. Notice how these things are all mentioned in the same breath. God puts these things in the same category. These are some pretty wicked things. Now in addition to Israel following these sinful practices, okay, the Bible says that Egypt and Babylon are doing these things as well so it wasn't just Israel who indulged in this although it mainly talks about them doing it but where did they get it from? They got it from the surrounding nations. They got it specifically from Egypt and Babylon. Go to Ezekiel chapter 21. While you're turning there I'll read for you from Isaiah 19 verse 3 and the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof and I will destroy the council thereof and they shall seek to the idols and to the charmers and to them that have familiar spirits and to the wizards and this is known as the spirit of Egypt going to these type of people. Look at Ezekiel chapter 21 verse 21. For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way. What's that mean? He's got a choice to make. Which way do I go? Do I go to the right hand or do I go to the left? He started the parting of the way at the head of the two ways to use divination. He made his arrows bright. He consulted with images. He looked in the liver. Now what does that mean he looked in the liver? This is a type of divination where they sacrifice an animal and then cut it open and they look at the entrails or the liver or something like that and they have all these little charts and diagrams to tell them what it means. Now I've known of a lot of other indigenous groups to do this, a lot of other different primitive cultures and everything where they look into animal intestines to tell the future. Now it seems pretty stupid to us, right? But guess what, it's no more or less stupid than all the rest of this divination whether you're reading the tea leaves or palm reading or looking into a crystal ball or a Ouija board or any of it, it's the same junk as looking into the liver or whatever. You ought to be looking into the Bible. They're looking into the guts and entrails of a dead animal. He looked in the liver and his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem to appoint captains to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering rams against the gates and to cast a mountain to build a fort and it shall be unto them as a false divination in their sight to them that have sworn oaths but he will call it, but he will call to remembrance the iniquity that they may be taken. So there we see in verse 21 that the king of Babylon is pretty into divination, right? Flip over if you would to Isaiah 47, Isaiah 47, we'll see more about Babylon being involved in divination. Isaiah chapter 47 is a famous chapter condemning Babylon. I'll start in verse one, but just turn to verse seven is where I really want to show you. Verse one says, come down and sit in the dust, oh virgin daughter of Babylon. So I'm showing you verse one just to show you that the subject is Babylon. Sit on the ground, there is no throne, oh daughter of the Chaldeans, for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Look at verse seven, and thou saidst, I shall be a lady forever so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. Therefore now, hear this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am and none else beside me, I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children. Now this should sound familiar to you if you're familiar with Revelation 18 and the destruction of Babylon. I am a queen and am no widow and shall see no sorrow, right? It's a quote from this. And it says in verse nine, but these two things shall come on thee, I'm sorry, but these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children and widowhood. They shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, notice that, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments. Look at verse 12, stand now with thine enchantments and with the multitude of thy sorceries wherein thou is labored from thy youth, if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou may us prevail. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels, let now the astrologers, the star gazers, the monthly prognosticators stand up and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble, the fire shall burn them, they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame. There shall not be a cold to warm at nor fire to sit before it and remember what it said in Revelation 18.23, by thy sorceries were all nations deceived, right? Sorceries, enchantments, divinations, stargazing, now look, there's nothing wrong with looking at the stars, just don't gaze at them, all right, you know, you look up at the stars and enjoy God's creation and magnify God, but you better not look up in the stars to figure out the next decision that you're going to make. You better not look up in the stars and be dismayed and be like, oh man, I think it's all happening now because of the blood moon, wrong. That's not what God meant when he said that there would be signs in the heaven, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. You're not going to need some Judaizer like John Hagee to explain it to you when the sun and moon are darkened and the stars are falling from the sky like a fig tree cast to their untimely figs and when there's a great earthquake and when there's a great tidal wave, you're not going to need John Hagee to explain to you why it's significant and if somebody has to explain it to you, it's not happening, it's not the real thing and if it were something that could be predicted, then Christ would have known the day or the hour. Jesus Christ didn't even know the day or the hour. Who do you think you are to know? You don't think he could have figured out the math? Look, he said only the Father knows, the angels in heaven don't even know, the Son of God doesn't even know, Mark chapter 13. So we see that in association with Babylon. Let's go to the New Testament and see more evidence, Acts chapter 16 of the demonic nature of divination, right? The title of the sermon is divination and soothsaying, divination and soothsaying. Divination is the most biblical word for this that comes up the most often and we'll see a lot of different examples of this and again, what's the definition of divination? Divination according to the dictionary is discovering hidden knowledge by occult or supernatural means, secret hidden knowledge. You have to be one of the enlightened, initiated, ascended masters that can figure this stuff out. It's wicked. The Bible says in Acts 16 verse 16, and it came to pass as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination. So now the familiar spirit or the unclean spirit or the demon is called a spirit of divination. Do you see that? Which brought her masters much gain by what? Soothsaying. And the Bible says in verse 17, the same followed Paul and us and cried saying, these men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation. Now, what I want to point out here is that even someone who is possessed with a spirit of Devon divination, even a demonic, wicked witchcraft using demon possessed practitioner of this can still say right things. I mean, what is she not saying these right things? These men are the servants of the most high God. Is that true? Which show unto us the way of salvation. Is that true? Yeah. Okay. But here's what happens. You get these bunch of diviners and sorcerers and soothsayers and false teachers, and here's what people will say, but they preach the right salvation. I mean, they, you know, they said, salvation's by faith. I heard him say it. Therefore I must be a good guy. Well, I guess this woman was a great Bible teacher, right? I mean, according to that logic, this was a great teacher of the Bible because she, she pointed people to the right salvation. No, you know who else preached the right salvation? Judas Iscariot. Okay. But that doesn't mean that that's what they believe in their heart. What I'm saying today is that even the most devilish of people will sometimes give lip service to the truth. That's all part of being a wolf in sheep's clothing. The sheep's clothing is where they give lip service to true things. They say a lot of right things, but in their heart, they're what? Rotten. Yeah. Evil. Perhaps even demonic. So don't come at me with, oh, well, this guy can't be evil or demonic because I heard him give the right plan of salvation one time or five times or 10 times. This woman chanted it hundreds of times because that was the whole reason why they had to get rid of her. Because she followed Paul, it says, and them, us. It's because, you know, Luke is the one writing the book. Acts 16, 17, the same followed Paul and us and cried, saying, these men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. So imagine you're out sowing and you're out knocking doors and this crazy goth chick, right? With a, with a Satan symbol hanging around her neck, some wicking with black fingernails. She's like, these guys are showing us the way of salvation. These guys are the servants of the most high God. Now, even though what she's saying is true, that's not going to help your soul winning. Is that going to make you more effective or less effective? You know, that's just going to freak everybody out. It's going to become a distraction. It's going to be a disturbance, right? So that's what's happening. So she did that many days. She keeps showing up. It's like, oh, she came back again. Here she is again. So then it says, Paul being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, because they were using her as a great psychic hotline, they had a one 900 number set up and they were making money off of this. And so, you know, they saw that they lost the money. They caught Paul and Silas and drew them into the marketplace under the rulers. Like, you know, this guy messed up our employee here. Now she can't fortune tell anymore. She doesn't have a familiar spirit anymore. Now, I'm going to just go through a whole bunch of verses right now. You don't have to turn to these because there's too many. So just sit back and I'm just going to give you what the scripture says about divination. Because the point that I want to make with this list of verses I'm about to read is that every mention of this in the Bible is negative. And it's mentioned a lot. And it's always negative. Divination, divining, diviners. Let me just read it. First of all, let me say this. In 1 Samuel chapter 6, when the Ark of the Covenant had been stolen by the Philistines and they kept being cursed by it and all their people were dying and getting diseases and they were like, we've got to get rid of the Ark of the Covenant, they wanted to get some spiritual advice. The Bible says in 1 Samuel 6, 2, the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners saying, what shall we do to the Ark of the Lord? Tell us wherewith we shall send it to his place. And of course, these diviners do not give a godly answer. The diviners tell them to make idols and that God will be pleased if they make little golden mice, little molten images of mice and molten images of their emerods. And if you don't know what emerods are, just put an H on the front of it and an I in there and then you'll figure it out. But anyway, it says in 1 Samuel 28 verse 8, and Samuel disguised himself and put on other raiment. I'm sorry, Samuel. Good night. Saul. We're reading in Samuel. And Saul disguised himself and put on other raiment and he went and two men with him and they came to the woman by night and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit and bring me him up whom I shall name unto thee. So this is the famous story where Saul goes to the witch at Endor, right? And when Saul goes to the witch at Endor, what does he say? Divine unto me. So that's another use of the word divination. Isaiah 44, 25, he frustrated the tokens of the liars and make it diviners mad or insane that turneth wise men backward and make it their knowledge foolish. Jeremiah 14, 14, then the Lord said unto me, the prophets prophesy lies in my name. I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them. They prophesy unto you a false vision and divination and a thing of naught and the deceit of their heart. Jeremiah 27, 9, therefore hearken not ye to your prophets nor to your diviners nor to your dreamers nor to your enchanters nor to your sorcerers which speak unto you saying ye shall not serve the king of Babylon. Verse 8, for thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, let not your prophets and your diviners that be in the midst of you deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. Now you say, well, it mentions the prophets too. Okay, but there are good prophets and bad prophets. The bad prophets are put in the category with who? Soothsayers, astrologers, diviners and things of that nature. You know, Balaam, he was a bad prophet and you know what he's called when he's killed, it says they slew Balaam, the soothsayer, they slew Balaam, the soothsayer. Ezekiel 12, 24, there shall be no more any vain vision nor flattering divination within the house of Israel. Ezekiel 13, 6, they've seen vanity and lying divination saying the Lord saith and the Lord have not sent them and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word. Verse 7, have ye not seen a vain vision and have ye not spoken by a lying divination, whereas ye say the Lord saith it, albeit I have not spoken. Verse 9, and my hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity and that divine lies, they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel and ye shall know that I am the Lord God. Chapter 13, verse 23, therefore ye shall see no more vanity nor divine divinations, for I will deliver my people out of your hand and ye shall know that I am the Lord. You can turn to Micah chapter 3, go ahead and turn to Micah 3, I'll read you a little more from Ezekiel here. It says in Ezekiel 21, verse 29, while they see vanity unto thee, while they divine a lie unto thee, to bring thee upon the necks of them that are slain of the wicked whose day is come, when their iniquity shall have an end. Ezekiel 22, 28, and the prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord had not spoken. Look at Micah chapter 3, verse 6, therefore night shall be unto you, and ye shall not have a vision, and it shall be dark unto you, and ye shall not divine, and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them. Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded, yea, they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer of God. Look at verse 11, the heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money. Yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? None evil can come upon us. And then you don't have to turn there, but Zechariah 10, 2, For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and told false dreams. Now you say, Well, Pastor Anderson, you know, there are good prophets and bad prophets, good diviners and bad diviners, except that when we look at every single time this is mentioned, it's always lying. It's always bad. It's always false. It's always a negative thing. Now the closest thing to a positive mention of this, which is not a positive mention, but the only time the Bible records a righteous person divining, is the story of Joseph, but he didn't really do it. He's messing with them. This is when Joseph is lying to them and pretending to be what? An Egyptian, and he's pretending that he thinks that they're spies, and he says, You're spies. You've come here to look at the nakedness of the land, and he plays games with them. He's clearly deceiving them, not telling the truth, and he's disguised as an Egyptian, so he plants his cup in Benjamin's sack, remember? And then he sends his guys after him and says, You stole my cup, and he's like, Officer, you put that on me. You just put that on me, Officer. See, there's nothing new under the sun. Cops were even planting stuff on people, even back then. I've never seen that before in my life. That was put on me. So anyway, they put that on him. They put that cup in Benjamin's sack, and this is what they say when they pull out. The whole thing's a lie, right, because he didn't steal the cup. They're accusing him of stealing something that they know he didn't really steal. They're just messing with him, punishing him for what they've done, and just kind of having fun with him. I don't understand fully why Joseph went through that whole song and dance, but he probably enjoyed it, though. It seems like he enjoyed it, but anyway, this is what they say when they pull out the cup that they're lying about. Is it not this in which my Lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth? So basically, they say that he uses this cup for divination. This is a magic cup that you stole. Isn't this a nice cup? And then when they get back, Joseph confronts them in verse 15, and Joseph said unto them, What deed is this that you've done? Watch ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine? Don't you know that a guy like me can divine? Why did you take my cup? Because this is like the reading of the tea leaves. This is like looking into the liver. This is another type of divination where they look into the dregs of a cup after they drink the wine and find some occultic meaning. Look, everywhere else the Bible is saying this is demonic, a ton of times. Obviously, this is him just being an Egyptian because he's playing a role. Joseph was not really getting his knowledge about the Lord from looking into a glass and looking at the dregs at the bottom of his chocolate milk. That's what I would divine by if I were going to divine by something. The chocolate in the bottom of my cocoa pebbles after I've slurped out the milk, and then I could look at the dregs of the cocoa pebbles. That sounds better than reading tea leaves and wine. I wouldn't ever do that because it would be demonic. So this stuff's always bad. That's the only time you can even find a righteous person supposedly doing it, but he didn't do it. He was just messing with them. He was just saying that he did it because it was part of the game he was playing. Leviticus 19, 31 says this, Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 20, verse 6, And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards to go a-whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people. Leviticus 20, verse 27, A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death. They shall stone them with stones, their blood shall be upon them. Micah, chapter 5, verse 12, said, I will cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand, and thou shalt have no more soothsayers. Leviticus 19, 26, Ye shall not eat anything with the blood, neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times. Look, how many scriptures? I mean, just page after page after page after page of scriptures saying, don't do this. Divinations, soothsaying, observing times, enchantments, witchcraft, sorcery, it's all the same unto the Lord. Look to Jesus for the answers, right? He said, I'll raise up a prophet. That's who you need to hearken to. Don't hearken to this other stuff, hearken to the Lord Jesus Christ, hearken to the word of God. What are some types of soothsaying and divination? Well, we already talked about looking into the liver, reading tea leaves, coffee grinds, or dregs in a wine cup, or like I said, you could probably make it work with cocoa pebbles as well. Calm reading, tarot cards, that would fall into the same category, right? The tarot cards, the card reading, horoscopes, astrology, and numerology. Now let's stop and talk about numerology. This is a big issue these days. This is one that we see a lot. Now numerology has various manifestations and forms, lucky numbers, unlucky numbers. This is the kind of stuff that we're talking about, these kind of omens and signs, and you know, born under a bad sign, I've been down since I began to crawl. If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all. You know, this kind of just, look, nobody's born under a bad sign. I don't care if you were born on Halloween or Friday the 13th or the Ides of March or anything else, it doesn't matter. We don't fear that stuff. We're not dismayed by that stuff, right? We're not to regard or take heed of that and be like, oh, man, this is scary. It's a bad seed. You know? I mean, when you have as many kids as I do, eventually there's going to be one born on every date, you know, with all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, you know, God willing, right? But, you know, looking at, oh, when were you, what's your sign? Oh, you're Leo, Aries, Pisces. It means nothing. Right. Amen. So there's the numerology of the lucky numbers. Even today, if you get on an airplane, have you noticed how often there's no 13th row? On many airplanes, it'll go 12, 14. In many buildings, if you go on the elevator, who's noticed this in an elevator before? It'll go 10, 11, 12, 14. You know, what is that? It's superstition. Yeah. Okay. But one of the biggest examples of this is the Jewish Kabbalah. Okay. I mean, you want to talk about soothsaying. You want to talk about divination. You want to talk about superstitious pagan garbage. It's the Kabbalah. Now what is the Kabbalah? Well, those Jews who rejected our Lord Jesus Christ and persisted in that rejection of him, even after he wiped out their temple and wiped out their city, they just kept on rejecting our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and they created a Christ-rejecting religion known as Judaism. They reject the Word of God because if they believed Moses, they'd believe Jesus. That's what the Bible says. Right. If you believed in Moses, you'd believe me. If you don't believe his writings, how should you believe my words? If you believed Moses, you would have believed in me. That's what he's saying. That proves that anybody who doesn't believe in Jesus doesn't believe in Moses. So because they reject what the Bible actually says in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the books of Moses, what they have to do is say, well, it means something different. Right. Because they don't believe what it says, so they have to find some other meaning for it. So here's what they teach. Here's what the Jews teach. If you would turn to Galatians chapter 4, Galatians 4. What the Jews teach in the Kabbalah is that there are four levels of interpretation. When you interpret the Bible, they teach four levels of interpretation. Level one is the simple interpretation, translation, what the Bible actually says. But for them, that's just kid stuff. That's just baby stuff. That's just level one, you know. That's just beginner stuff. You know, the simple interpretation. Then they say level two is the allegorical or symbolic interpretation. Okay. Now let me stop and say this. They're right about method number one because, yeah, the simple interpretation, that's what we ought to be focusing on. We ought to focus on just reading the Bible and believing what it says. Instead of seeking straight to some hidden cryptic meaning, why don't we just go with what it said? You know, if God said, hey, slit this animal's throat and dump the blood on the altar and light up this sacrifice and, you know, he's telling them to do that, right? I mean, just what the Bible, when the Bible says God flooded the earth, he flooded the earth. You know, when the Bible says that they're not supposed to do this or do that, you know, don't steal, don't kill, don't commit adultery. Just what it says, just obey what the Bible says. And you know, we take that over to the New Testament. You know, when it says Jesus born of a virgin, that's what happened. When it says he fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes, that's what he did. They ate the food. They took up the fragments that were made. So what we call just reading the Bible and actually believing what it says, that's the most important interpretation. That's what we ought to focus on. That's what we ought to make the cornerstone of our study is just what the Bible actually says. The literal face value meaning of the text. But then level two is the allegorical or symbolic interpretation, and I agree that that is a valid interpretation of the Bible, the symbolic or allegorical interpretation. Now what we don't want to do is throw out the literal. What we want to do is have both. We understand the simple reading of the text, and then we also have the allegorical or symbolic meaning. You say, well, prove that that's biblical. Look down at your Bible, and I'll show you that it's biblical because in Galatians 4, God even uses the word allegory about reading the Old Testament. He says in verse 22, for it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, that's Hagar, the one by a free woman, Sarah, but he who was born of the bondwoman, Ishmael, was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman, Isaac, was born by promise, which things are an allegory. Do you see that? These things are an allegory, and then he begins to explain the symbolic meaning. These are the two covenants, saying, look, this is Old and New Testament. The one from Mount Sinai, which generate the bondage, which is Hagar, for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answerth to Jerusalem, which now is, and is in bondage with her children, but Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all. Boy, I wish people would just understand these five verses that I just read. That's a powerful truth. Let the New Testament interpret the Bible for you. This is the best commentary ever, Galatians 4. And what does it say about the story? It says, oh, Ishmael, that's the Muslims. Is that what it says? Oh, yeah, Ishmael, that's all the Arab nations. That's the Muslims. That's who's giving the Israelis such a bad time over there. Is that how the Bible interprets the story of Ishmael? No, it says, oh, yeah, Hagar, that's the Jews. That's the Old Testament. That's Mount Sinai. That's the current city of Jerusalem. You want to find Ishmael on a map? It's not in Aleppo. It's not in Damascus. It's not going to be found in Amman. It's not in the Gaza Strip. I'll show you Hagar and Ishmael on a map. It's Jerusalem. That's what the Bible says. It's what the Bible says. What a good night. We just read it. Galatians 4 says that. It says, oh, let me tell you what Hagar represents. That represents the old covenant. It represents the Jews, Jerusalem, the physical seed. What does Isaac represent? The heavenly Jerusalem and the spiritual seed. And by the way, we're the spiritual seed of Abraham. If you're Christ, then you're Abraham's seed and it airs according to the promise. This is a great passage, isn't it? Love it. But it tells us that there's a symbolic meaning. Now, does this mean that there was not a literal guy named Abraham? Does it mean, well, he didn't really have someone's name but Ishmael and Isaac. It's all just an allegory. Is that what he's saying here? No. What he's saying here is that in addition to the literal story that actually happened, there's also a symbolic meaning, right? There's also an allegory. You know, it's not saying that there is no real Mount Sinai with Moses and the commandments. It's just saying that that represents something symbolically as well. So we have two layers of interpretation. That is what we believe as Christians, right? We believe in the literal and the figurative. Makes sense, right? Okay, but now let's get into the Jews' third form of interpretation, which is the rabbinical interpretation. So after the literal and the allegorical, which makes sense, then they say, well, the third is the rabbinical. We have to go to the Talmud and see what the rabbis have said because they received special revelations from God known as the oral Torah. And so they have special traditions that were never written down. So the rabbis will tell us what it really means. So this is just a completely extra biblical interpretation based on the rabbis who Christ said were of their father, the devil and vipers and everything else, right? Then the fourth level of interpretation for the Jews is the hidden esoteric mystical interpretation, okay? So this is what this wicked Kabbalah teaches, this, and that's the most advanced. So it's like anything else. What do you think people want to do? They always want to be at advanced level, right? Nobody wants to say, I'm just a beginner 20 years later. I'm still on level one. I still actually believe what the Bible says. Or, well, I've gotten into level two because I'm understanding some of the figurative interpretations. No, no, no, I'm already past the rabbis, buddy. I'm on to the esoteric mystical meanings. Now, the most famous of these mystical, because the Kabbalah has all kinds of divinations and enchantments associated with it. But the most famous is this mystical Kabbalistic interpretation of the Bible known as gematria. Who knows what I'm talking about, gematria. Now, I didn't say geometry. It does come from the word geometry, literally. But this gematria is where they do a bunch of numeric calculations on the Bible. So instead of just reading, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, what do they do? They're like, well, every letter has a numeric value. We said A is one, B is two, C is three, D is four. And then they start doing a bunch of math and finding hidden meanings and secret codes, the Bible codes. Who's heard about the Bible code? It is complete garbage. It is a complete lie. And I'll put it in the category of divination, divination. Why? We read the dictionary definition of divination. The practice of attempting to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge by occult, occult means hidden, or supernatural means. That's what they're doing. They're looking into the, instead of reading what the Bible says, instead of caring what God actually commanded in his word, they want to go to a deeper level of understanding. And they want to go into the codes and figure out all this stuff. It's complete junk. You say, well, I think there's some truth in it. I think there's something to those Bible codes. Here's why people think there's something to it. There are two reasons. Number one is what's known as confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is where you have a theory, you have a belief. So anything that goes against your belief, you're going to ignore. But any evidence that backs up your belief, you're like, see, there it is, it's right there. You're biased toward that which confirms your theory. And another thing is known as the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Now let me explain to you the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Because this is a perfect illustration of these Bible codes. The big smoking gun that I've always heard as the biggest proof of the Bible code, the thing that they pull out first and say, did you know that if you take the Hebrew Old Testament and you take every 50th letter, so you take the 50th letter, the 100th letter, the 150th, and the 200th, it spells the word Torah or law. So it makes the word law. It's just English for law. And then they say, if you go to Exodus, same thing. 50th, 100th, 150th, 200th, Torah. Case closed. I mean, that's pretty compelling. That's pretty amazing. But a lot of people are sucked in by that. But let me explain to you why that is not exceptional at all. Number one, because Torah in Hebrew is only a four-letter word. It's not a five-letter word, so it's only a four-letter word in the original language, number one. Number two is that it's made up of all common letters. It's sort of like when you go on Wheel of Fortune. R, S, T, L, N, and E are the letters that are used the most often. Well, the word Torah in the original language is used of all super common letters. It doesn't have any obscure letters in it at all. It has some of the most common letters in the Hebrew alphabet, which is it has the taf, vav, reish, and hei. So it's just some of the most basic t, r. But not only that, but the Texas sharpshooter fallacy applies here. What does that mean? Well, there's a joke about a guy in Texas who just shoots a whole bunch of bullets at the side of a barn. And his bullets are all over the place. Then he goes to the cluster where the most bullets are all in one place. And then he goes after the fact and draws a target there and said that he's a sharpshooter. So the Texas sharpshooter fallacy is when you draw the target after you fired all the bullets. So you're just, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. And then you're just like, oh, look at that nice little pattern. There's my target. Look at that. That's what they're doing. You see, they didn't go to the Torah and say, you know what? If we look every 50th letter, we're going to find something. And it's going to say law. Here's what they did. First they check every 10th letter, every 12th letter, 20th, 30th, 40th, 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th, every 100th, every 1,000th. They try every positive, every 12, every 60. And they try all these different combinations. And they're just looking for any word. And Hebrew has no vowels. So because Hebrew has no vowels, they're just looking for any word. And they find four consonants that spell a word. Because they would have got just as excited if it would have said Elohim or Jehovah. Or it could have said heaven, God. It could have said Moses. And they would have got just as excited. So what is it? They're just throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall. They have computers now just going through, just finding anything. And then it's like, we found up. Let's draw the target there. Every 50th letter, and it made the word Torah. Hoo, hoo. This is like if you took, these Bible codes are basically like if you took a word search. And who knows what a word search is? You have a grid of letters, and you start circling. But let's say you took a giant word search and just made up your own rules. And just said, well, I'm not even going to find words that are spelled out. I'm going to start moving backwards. I'm going to start going every other letter. I'm going to start going every three letters, backwards, diagonal, skipping every five letters. You're going to find words. You could do this with any book. Forget the Hebrew Old Testament. Run any book through a computer. You could do this with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and find the secret code. In fact, they've done it with the Quran. The Quran code. It's out there, friend. Why? Because you could do this with any book, and people are gullible enough to believe it. The Texas sharpshooter fallacy. And by the way, even fundamental Baptists have gotten mixed up into this. They've become so Judaized. They've gotten so into the Kabbalah and all this Jewish fable garbage that even fundamental Baptists are preaching this stuff. I just uploaded a video of Pastor Mickey Carter, and I don't mind calling out his name. He has no problem calling out my name. You know, it's so funny how these guys are constantly attacking me and taking me to task, right? But then when somebody comes after them and shows what they're really like, all of a sudden, they can't handle it. Well, you know what? If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. I always think it's so funny. People can call me all kinds of names. They can call me everything except a child of God. But then it's like, how dare you point out the satanic teachings of a fundamental Baptist? You know what, the Kabbalah is satanic, period. Numerology is satanic, period. It's just of the devil. And he gets up, and he puts some chart for his whole church, and he shows how it predicted Trump being elected in the book of Isaiah through the Bible codes. And he's got it on the screen. And it's doctored to make it look even more significant than it is. Because I can read the Hebrew alphabet, and I could see that the letters that they're saying it is, it's all backwards and different than what they're showing. Because they only pretend to know Hebrew. But he puts this on the screen. But isn't it funny we're talking about this after Trump's elected? So after Trump's elected, then we go to the cluster of bullets, and then we draw the target. See what I'm saying? It's the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. And this stuff is of the devil. It's wrong, it's wicked, it's stupid. And they're like, see, it says Trump, and it said President, and it said Donald. But they're finding Donald in Hebrew letters. So they just basically find like a D. And then you find any vowel, because there's no vowels in Hebrew. So all they need is just like a D, and then a vowel, whatever vowel they want, and then an N, and then any vowel they want, and then an L and a D. And it's like, look, Donald Trump. And then it has the, over here, over here on the pages, is November 8th, November 7th, 2016, and ah! And they get up and teach this junk in church, superstitious, mumbo jumbo. In the same sermon, he's talking about how this Indian, who was kind of, sort of Christian leaning, put a curse on the presidents, that any president who's born or inaugurated in a certain year, that's what he said. It's actually inaugurated every 20 years. That they're going to die in office. And he starts giving the evidence, yeah, this guy died. This guy's assassinated. This guy died. And how Ronald Reagan broke the curse. Because, you know, the Republican Party is our lord and savior, according to the independent fundamental Baptist. So leave it to Ronald Reagan to break the curse and set us free from the spell of an Indian. You know what? If some Indian places some hex or curse on me, I'm not going to lose a minute of sleep about it. And I don't care if he's halfway Christian. Well, halfway Christian means you're all the way going to hell. Halfway Christian. Half Christian is of the devil. You better get all the way Christian. You know, you can't be a Christian and worship demonic native gods. You can't be part of peyote religion and Christ. Christ doesn't have any fellowship with paleo. And so these guys go, well, he was kind of sort of Christian leaning. And he put this curse into, oh yeah, that's what Christians do. They go around putting curses saying that every president for the next 100 years is born on this day. It's garbage. It's foolishness. It's a coincidence. Oh, but look at these ones who died. Look at the ones who didn't die. Well, there's Reagan though. And then Mickey Carter gets up and says, well, you know, it was just because people were praying for him. And the bullet stopped an inch from his heart. It was just because people were praying for him because that Indian had hexed him like 100 and some years earlier. And you know what, this is the garbage that people are listening to today. They go to a fundamental Baptist church. And instead of listening to the Bible being preached, instead of hearing God's word being preached, they listen to some old man who's losing his mind talking about Indians and spells and witchcraft and Bible codes and the Kabbalah and portals to another dimension. And Shekinah, the female goddess of Judaism, listen, any pastor who has ever said the word Shekinah out of their mouth should go wash their mouth out with soap. Because the Bible says don't even name the false gods. They need to go home and shove a bar of soap in their mouth and chew it up and swallow it. It's wicked to get up in a Bible-believing Baptist Christian church and say, oh, Shekinah, you're worshipping a false god. Why don't you just get up and just start naming other gods, too, while you're at it? Why don't you say, oh, Baal, the glory of Baal, the glory of Beelzebub. Why don't you praise the glory of Asheroth while you're at it? Why don't you praise the glory of the Hindu gods while you're at it? Why don't you just say, well, Christ sounds like Krishna. This stuff is demonic, friend. And you say, well, how dare you, He's my hero. Your hero is smoking crack, is what it sounds like. And He has the gall to call us out and rip on us and talk about how we're worse than Catholics, because we're the new IFB, and we're so dangerous, and we're teaching doctrines of devils. No, I'll tell you who the devil's name is, Shekinah. OK, that's the devil. You know what's of the devil? The Kabbalah. You know what's of the devil? Numerology. You know what's of the devil? Bible codes. You know what's of the devil? Soothsaying. That's what's of the devil. That's what this garbage is. And I'm telling you. You say, why do you even preach on this, Pastor Andy? Because I guarantee you this stuff is relevant, or God wouldn't have mentioned it 50 times. And we see it in churches today, having these hidden esoteric meanings, Bible codes, numerology, Kabbalah creeping in. And then we even see Christians today looking at their horoscope and thinking that that stuff matters. We see even Christians today getting sucked into the hype by the Judaizers about the blood moons and all this stuff. Hey, we need to preach against this junk and not be getting up at 10. And then there's this other guy. Let me just name out some other bozos. There's this guy on YouTube called Robert Breaker. Who's heard about this guy? He's like this dispensational Ruckmanite type guy. And this guy, Robert Breaker, his channel was just a complete dud until he started falsely date setting the second coming of Christ. Now he has a ton of subscribers. And if you look at his videos that have millions of views are the ones where he said, September 23, 2015, September 23, 2016. And here's what he did. They spend like an hour telling you all the signs and the Jewish blah, blah, astrology, blah, blah, blah. And then they get to the end. And they're like, well, I'm not saying it's for sure going to happen on that day. So then they're like, I didn't set a date. They set a date, spent an hour telling you why it's going to happen on that day. But then they give a little disclaimer. Like, oh, well, I'm not saying it's for sure going to happen on that day. Like Mickey Carter gets up and teaches for 20 minutes about Indian curses. And he's showing Bible codes on the screen. And then he's like, is there anything to it? I don't know. That's just how they cover their rear end. So why don't I just get up and just do a little tarot card reading. Let's just read your palm. And then just say, well, I don't know if there's anything to it. I don't know. I don't know. Well, I do know. It's a lie. It's of the devil. I don't know. Maybe it will happen on the day. And I think Robert Breaker just predicted a new date for this September. September 23, 2018. And all the idiots will just follow that junk. Why? You know why? Look, why is it? Just ask the other question. Why is the Bible code book a bestseller? Why does a video that falsely predicts the coming of Christ on a certain date, why does it get a million viewers? You know why? I'll tell you why. It is because people are looking for a hidden meaning and ignoring what's right in their hand. If you actually love the Lord, you're not looking for anything else. You're happy with this right here. This is what you need. This is all that we need that pertains to life and godliness. We have everything that we need. This is everything that we need. And we're not looking for something else. And I guarantee you that I'll bet you 99% of people who read that book on the Bible code have never read the Bible cover to cover. Right? If we took all the sales of the Bible code, I wonder how many of those people have read the Bible cover to cover. So it's like, why don't you read what we already have before you go looking for something else? You're not even done with level one. And you're trying to jump to level four. You say, well, Mickey Carter's ready for level four because look how old he is. He must be smart. He must know the Bible. Really? Is that why he preached a whole sermon about how Bethel and Jerusalem are the same place? He knows the Bible so well. He reads the Bible so much that he thinks that Bethel and Jerusalem are the same place. That's a major theme of the Old Testament, friends. If you read the Old Testament, you'll find that was a huge controversy where the northern kingdom of Israel, they said, we need to worship in Bethel. And David, in his descent, said, we're supposed to worship in Jerusalem. That was a major bone of contention. And even at the woman at the well, this is still a bone of contention. When the Samaritan woman says, well, you guys say we're supposed to worship in Jerusalem, but our fathers worship in this mountain. You know, the northern kingdom of Israel, they didn't accept Jerusalem. Why? Because Jerusalem's never mentioned in the first five books. Because the city of David, that came later, and they rejected that. Now, the Lord truly wanted them to worship in Jerusalem. So in this controversy, someone was clearly right, and that was the Jerusalem side was right. But that's a pretty major theme. In fact, Bethel is mentioned 60 times in the Old Testament. So this isn't something that just barely comes up. Bethel, the house of God, is what that means. Bethel, the Bible tells us that's what it means. That's a different place. It's in a different country, because it's in Israel, and Jerusalem's in Judah. Does everybody understand? Two completely different places. There's a whole bunch of chapters about the difference between the two. And this guy gets up and preaches a whole sermon, you know, because he wanted to affirm Trump. That's why he's showing the Bible code, too, that God predicted Trump after the fact. And then he says, oh, you know, Jerusalem, that's the capital of Israel, Cuz Bethel. Cuz Bethel. Bethel's not there. Bethel's a different town. And you say, well, you know, does he not know that? How can you not know that? I mean, be honest. Who knew that, that Bethel and Jerusalem are not the same town? I mean, come on. It's not, I mean, it's not like, you don't have to go real deep to figure that out. Because remember he built the, he told him, he said, Jeroboam said, you don't have to go all the way to Jerusalem. That's too far. Do it in Bethel. You remember that part? And he set up a golden calf in Bethel and he said, these be thy gods, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. OK. But Dr. Mickey Carter preached an entire sermon based on the fact that Bethel and Jerusalem are the same place. You know, you know what I think? I'm just trying to wrap my mind around how that's even possible to make that mistake and make a whole sermon out of that. But I'll tell you what my theory is. My theory is that these guys, a lot of these guys in the old IFB, they think because they read the Bible a long time ago, they don't need to read it anymore. Oh, I already read the Bible a lot when I was younger. So I don't need to read anymore. Nobody who has read the Bible in the last 12 months thinks that Bethel and Jerusalem are the same person. I mean, the same place. It's like they quit reading the Bible. And then it's just all Republican talk radio. And all Jewish kabbalah, shekinah, shalom, shakach, coming in. And you know what? It's a lesson to any of us that have been saved a long time. Don't ever think that you can stop reading the Bible. That's right. Amen. Because I could just sit here and say, well, you know, I've already read the Bible so many scores of times. I know what it says. But you know what? You forget stuff. Next thing you know, and you say, oh, just be nice to him. He's an old man. He's losing it. Well, then it's time to retire if you're losing your mind. I mean, what are the options? Either he's wicked, or he's losing his mind, or he quit reading the Bible many years ago. In any case, he doesn't belong preaching. And he's going to call us out and take us to task. And because of our view on the rapture, timing of the rapture, because we don't take the Jewish view, we take the biblical view that's post-Trib pre-wrath. We don't take the Zionist view. Let's close on this. Go if you would to Deuteronomy chapter 18. And while we return to Deuteronomy 18, Isaiah chapter 8, verse 19. And when they shall say unto you, seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter. Should not a people seek unto their God for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. That's what the Bible tells us. Don't turn to this stuff. Deuteronomy 18 says this in verse number 14. For these nations which thou shalt possess harken unto Jews, and Kabbalists, and the Talmud, and horoscopes, and Ouija boards, and Bible codes, and numerology, and esoteric occultic readings. He says, these nations which thou shalt possess harken unto observers of times and unto diviners. But as for thee, the Lord thy God has not suffered thee so to do. He didn't allow you to do that. The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me. Unto him ye shall hearken. It's that simple, folks. This is what we hearken to. The word of God, the word of Christ, and everything else needs to be rejected, out of hand. It's garbage. And you know what? Any preacher who gets up and preaches these lies about Shekinah and everything, they need to be taken to task. And look, OK, the Bible says rebuke not an elder. Then you know what? Go up to him then and say, show me Shekinah in the Bible, please. Show me that in the Bible. And he won't be able to. Then why is he preaching it? Because it's lies of the Jews. That's why. And you know what? These guys have been sucked in to that Jewish, Judaizing junk to the point where they are dealing with some familiar spirits at this point. I mean, it's bad. And you say, well, he didn't mean to. Well, you know, I'm sure Christians have gone and innocently picked up a Ouija board and fooled around with it, too. But does that make it any less wicked? I bet Christians have gotten backslidden and stumbled into some psychic reader just for fun. You think that's ever happened? I'll bet you it has. And I'll bet you a bunch of saved, born-again Christians picked up that Bible code book and just ate it up with fork and spoon because they're too lazy to read what God's already given us. And they want to just jump straight to level four when there are only two levels. And you know what? These guys have crossed the line and become demonic. I'm not saying he's demon-possessed. I'm saying he's the one teaching doctrines of devils when you're repeating this demonic stuff about Shekinah and the Kabbalah and all this stuff. We need to stay away from it. And don't let this stuff creep into your personal life. And only worry about what the Bible says, not what the observers of times tell you. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. And we thank you that we have the 66 books of the Bible, Lord. And I just pray that you would just help us to love them, read them, study them, and not get into divination, Lord. Help us to stay away from divination, whether it's in any of its forms, Lord. Just help us to abstain from divination and actually read the word for what it says, Lord. And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen.