Paganism 38

(NOTE: Some of the themes of these articles may not be appropriate for young readers. Please keep that in mind when sharing this information).

It is written:

“The field is the world. The good seed are the people in God’s kingdom. The weeds are the people who belong to the Evil One. 39  And the enemy who planted the bad seed is the devil. The harvest is the end of time. And the workers who gather are God’s angels. 40  “The weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire. It will be the same at the end of time. 41  The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will find the people who cause sin and all those who do evil. The angels will take those people out of his kingdom.” (Matthew 13:38-41)

We have been noticing some of the tactics that pagans and Satanists will use to destroy churches. Infiltration is one of the most commonly devised methods. One former witch tells us about her practice of infiltrating certain denominations. She was taught an eight-fold strategy to use in destroying these churches.

1). Profession Of Faith.

2). Build Credibility.

3). Destroy The Prayer Base.

4). Rumors.

5). Teach And Change Doctrines.

6). Break Up Family Units.

7). Stop All Accurate Teaching About Satan.

8). Direct Attacks By Witchcraft Against Key Members Of The Church.

She writes:

“First of all the satanist must make a “profession of faith.” He or she must pretend to be saved in order to gain credibility with the church people. In churches who have altar calls, the person will go forward, usually with tears, and pretend to “get saved.” If the particular church is a charismatic church which places great emphasis on the gift of speaking in tongues, the satanist will speak in tongues. This is no problem, demons can speak in tongues very easily….During the time I served Satan, I spoke in tongues regularly in all the meetings and prayer meetings, so did the other satanists I was working with. No one interpreted. We were cursing the church, the pastor, the members, and God! And No one knew!…Satanists build credibility within the Christian churches in many ways, depending upon the particular church. They are regular attenders. They can be counted upon to always be ready and willing to help in any project. Not only do they build credibility in this way, but they also get to know the church and its members. It doesn’t take long for them to find out who is truly committed to Christ and who is not. Money is another big tool. If the church is a large and wealthy one they give regularly, gradually increasing the amounts they give until they are one of the main supports of the church financially….The single most important goal of the satanists is to knock prayer out of the church. There are so many scriptures about prayer that we could not begin to list them all. A strong church is a praying church. Prayer requires self-discipline, and unfortunately the majority of Christians spend very little time in prayer. Let me give you a true story of how a satanist destroyed the power of the very church in which I was delivered. Rebecca and I are broken hearted over what happened, but we could not get the leaders of that church to listen to us. Shortly after I was completely delivered, we were horrified to see that the high priest of the large and powerful coven of the city in which our home church was located, started attending our church. I knew the man and his family personally while I was still in Satanism, and he personally threatened both Rebecca and myself on more than one occasion. Within two short years, he and his co-workers completely destroyed this wonderful and powerful church! Many times Rebecca and I pled in tears with the pastor and some of the elders to stop what was happening within the church, but they would not listen to us. We could not accuse “Roy” (not his real name) of being a satanist because, of course, we had no proof. It would have been our word against his. But we did try to show the pastor and a couple of the elders on more than one occasion that the fruits of his life were not scriptural….Once the prayer base of the church has been destroyed, the satanists are free to do about anything they want. One of the easiest things to use is rumors. Gossip is Satan’s prime tool. Very few people are strong enough not to pass along a rumor they have heard. Satanists can easily destroy the credibility of the pastor and the true Christians within a church by starting rumors. We urge all church leaders to be very careful. Never go alone to the home of a member of the church of the opposite sex to help or counsel them. You can be framed so easily. Even if you did nothing unseemly or wrong, who can prove it? Many a pastor’s career had been destroyed by just such set-ups….Satanists particularly covet teaching positions within the churches. They can do tremendous damage in these positions. Do you really know where all of your Sunday school teachers stand with the Lord? Do you really know just what they are teaching to your children? Or to anyone else for that matter. I taught Sunday school in a large Bible-believing charismatic church in my home town for several years, and led and taught the youth choir, while at the same time serving Satan….Satan knows that if he can successfully break up the family unit, he will also break up the unity of the church, and, I might add, of our nation. Satanists within Christian churches work hard to separate families. They start all sorts of programs for teenagers, school age, and preschool children. They develop separate programs for women and men, so as to keep the parents separated as much as possible also. Children need to listen to the sermons and join in the prayer meetings just as much as the parents. All through the Bible the principle of learning by joining in with parents is shown. Children learn respect both for God and the church by learning to sit quietly in church and listening to the pastor. Immediately after programs are provided for young people separating them from the main church services, they lose respect for the pastor and the church. THEY don’t have to sit and listen to the pastor, he is just too boring. This is the attitude they quickly develop. What better way for children to learn to pray than by joining in with their parents? Husbands and wives are constantly under attack by Satan. In this day of easy divorce, couples need to spend time together to stay unified…..One of the major goals of Satan and his servants is to prevent any teaching about him or his activities. As long as people remain ignorant about Satan he is relatively unhindered in anything he chooses to do….This is another reason why prayer is so important. Any pastor and church leaders and/or church members who are really taking a stand for the Lord and against Satan will come under tremendous attack by witchcraft. They will be afflicted with all sorts of physical illness, difficulties in concentrating, confusion, fatigue, difficulties in praying, etc. The leaders of any church must be continuously upheld in prayer and interceeded for by the members of the congregation. Once such a prayer base is lost, the pastor and leaders face these attacks alone. Often they are overcome.” (Rebecca Brown, MD, He Came To Set The Captives Free, 235-245 (Kindle Edition); Clinton, AR; Wells Of Joy Ministries)

There are two things that I would like to draw your attention regarding this testimony.

First, pagans and Satanists have no problem practicing what is often called “speaking in tongues.” The Bible gift of tongues is the ability of a person to speak fluently in another human language without having previously studied. This is made especially clear in Acts 2.

Acts 2:4, 6, 8, 11-And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance….And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language….And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?…Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.”

Notice the different words used in this passage to refer to the gift of tongues. By studying them, we are able to clearly see what this gift of tongues is:

“Tongue   The Greek word here is the same as what is found in verse 6—dialectos, the common Greek word for “language.” So it definitely should be translated “language” here. In the Greek we have glōssais, “tongues,” in verses 4 and 11, and dialectō, “language,” in verses 6 and 8. This proves conclusively that the speaking in tongues (v. 4) was not ecstatic utterance but speaking in known, intelligent languages of that day (see v. 11).” (Ralph Earl, Word Meanings In The New Testament, 4107 (Kindle Edition); Kansas City, Kansas; Beacon Hill Press).

What is practiced in modern day churches and called “tongues” (i.e., speaking in ecstatic gibberish) is not the Bible gift of tongues!

Furthermore, this gibberish speaking was practiced by pagans in the first century, under demonic control and influence. James Bales is one of several researchers who have documented this:

“Tongues of a sort have been manifested in pagan cults which existed before Christ came to earth, and in others which have not been influenced by Christianity. Virgil (70-19 B.C.) tells of one who inquired of the Priestess of Phoebus, at the cavern of the oracle of Sibyl.’ ‘They had gained the threshold, when the maid exclaims: Tis time to ask the oracles; lo! The god, the god! Before the doors thus speaking, suddenly nor countenance, nor hue, nor braided locks Stayed in one fashion; but her bosom heaves, her heart swells wild with frenzy; and more vast she seems, nor mortal rings her voice, when now touched by the nearer breath of deity. He made an end of speaking. But the seer, not yet patient of Phoebus, I the cavern storms Immeasurably, if haply from her breast she make shake off the mighty God; but he so much the rather plies her raving mouth, tames her wild heart, and moulds her to his might. In such words from the shrine doth Cumae’s Sibyl chant her awful riddles, and echo through the cave, in darkness shrouding truth; so shakes the reins Apollo in her raving mouth, and plies deep in her breast the goad. Soon as had ebbed her frenzy, and the frantic lips were still.’ ‘Oracular possession of the kind above described is also common among savages and people of lower culture; and Dr. Tylor, in his Primitive Culture, ii. 14 gives examples of ecstatic utterance interpreted by the sane. Thus in the Sandwich Islands the god Oro gave his oracles through a priest who ‘ceased to act or speak as a voluntary agent, but with his limbs convulsed, his features distorted and terrific, his eyes wild and strained, he would roll on the ground foaming at the mouth, and reveal the will of the God in shrill cries sounds violent and in distinct, which the attending priests duly interpreted to the people’ (Encyclopedia Britannica). L.C. May wrote: ‘As a rule, speaking-in-tongues and kindred phenomena are confined to those areas where there is spirit possession and where inspirational shamans hold forth. Glossolalia can be and often is the result of spirit-induced ecstasy making it possible for the inspirational shaman to cure, exorcise, and prophesy…speaking-in-tongues is widespread and very ancient. Indeed, it is probable that as long as man has had divination, curing sorcery, and propitiation of spirits, he has had glossolalia.’ (As quoted by Pattinson, 74). These were manifestations of what these people called ‘spirit-possession,’ and these spirits which possessed them were not viewed as the Holy Spirit, for of the Holy Spirit they either knew nothing; or if they had heard anything about the Spirit they had not accepted Him. Concerning the Shango cult in Trinidad, George J. Jennings pointed out that ‘The induction of possession is at religious feasts or sacrifices where the combination of crowd excitement, singing, darkness, candles, circular rhythmic dancing, and other ceremonial phases are intensified by incessant drumming. The expected and common result is possession by the spirit or ‘Powers’ with a dramatic physical transformation including body vibrations, rhythmic bending of the body forward and backward, dilation of the eyes, and a fixed stare…The spirit then speaks through the he possessed individual in a mixture of genuine language and nonsense syllables-in short, a form of glossolalia.’ (10). This certainly reminds one of some of the meetings in which people get the gift of ‘tongues.’ There are others, of course, that are not so visible in their display of emotional involvement, but even in these cases we find the testimonies, prayers, and the repetition of certain words such as the name of Jesus. Other examples of tongues in pagan religion can be found in the worship of Amon around 1100 B.C., the writings of Plato who died around 347, Pythoness of Delphi, in some of the mystery religions, in Islam, and among Eskimos in Greenland. (Gromacki, 6-9).” (Dr. James D. Bales, Pat Boone And The Gift Of Tongues, 61-63 (Searcy, Arkansas).

Another author, Doug Bachelor, has written:

“While living with the Native Americans in New Mexico, I witnessed a similar ritual several times. The Indians would eat the hallucinogenic peyote, then sit in a circle and chant and pound drums for hours. Before long, several were spasmodically muttering as they experienced their tormenting visions. Today the charismatic churches are by far the most popular among the Native Americans because it is such an easy and natural transition from their old religions. Among many heathen African tribes, in order to invoke the blessing of their gods, the people would sacrifice a chicken or goat and then dance around a fire for long hours, chanting songs to the hypnotic rhythm of a pounding drum. Eventually some of the people would become possessed by their gods and begin speaking the eerie languages of the spirit world. Then the local witch doctor or priest would translate the messages. This ritual is still practiced today among the Voodoo Catholics in the West Indies. This pagan practice first found its way into the North American Christian churches in the early 1800s. Many of the African slaves who were brought to America and forced to accept Christianity were unable to read the Bible for themselves. Even though they came from a variety of tribes in Africa, one practice most tribes held in common was the “Spirit Dances” with the “spirit-possessed” person muttering. The slaves mistakenly associated this with the Christian “gift of tongues” and began to incorporate a modified version into their meetings. These frantic services, which were accompanied by heavy rhythmic music, began to spread at first only in the South and the participants were mocked by the mainline denominations as “Holy Rollers.” Some even went so far as to grab venomous serpents during their possessed trances as a means of proving that they had the “spirit.”…The national expansion of the Pentecostal movement among Caucasians began in Los Angeles at the Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission on Azusa Street in 1906. The leader was a black former holiness preacher named William Seymour. From there, leaders continued to refine the doctrines and make them more attractive and palatable to other mainline Christians.” (Doug Batchelor, Understanding Tongues, 248-279 (Kindle Edition); Roseville, CA; Amazing Facts, Inc.).

Because well-meaning religious people have set aside the Word of God and embraced the feelings in their hearts as their authority, they have been deceived (cf. Proverbs 14:12). Pagans and Satanists will take advantage of this ignorance of God’s Word, and will convince many sincere church people that they are “saved.” They will do this by manifesting the “tongues” that are practiced in modern day charismatic settings. This is just another reason why we need to return to the Bible as our standard of belief and practice (Jeremiah 6:16)!

Second, notice that pagans and Satanists will do everything they can to confuse people about the nature and identity of Satan. There is a reason why Satan is called the father of lies (John 8:44)! Paul knew what he was talking about when he warned us about the deceptive schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:11). The Corinthians had to be reminded that Satan appears-not as the bogeyman-but as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

It is by heeding the Word of God that we are able to be wise to the ways of the wicked one (Ephesians 6:17-18; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; Luke 4:1-13).