Accidental Witchcraft

Hey, welcome to my show again. This is Dr. Ray Self. Cannot hardly believe it, but this is episode 196 of Self Talk with me. Today I want to talk about accidental witchcraft. How does that happen? Does it happen? Actually, it happens a lot more than you realize. This’s going to be an important show. I don't want to scare you with this, but also want to encourage you with this important issue: what it is and how to avoid it. The show is sponsored by the International College of Ministry. We're enrolling right now at icmcollege.org. God bless you, so glad you joined me today. Let's stay tuned, something good. God bless you.

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All right, here we are. Episode 196, Dr. Ray Self, let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for everyone listening to this show. I pray, Father, I can speak truth that will keep us free, set us free. Everything we do, we do for the glory of the name of Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit, you are welcome; you are welcome here. In Jesus’ name, amen. So what is witchcraft? And you know, let's look at a couple of definitions of, of witchcraft and then I want to talk to you more specifically about what it is and how this relates to you. So let's look at some definitions of, of witchcraft, look at Miriam Webster. Uh, it's the use of sorcery or magic, communication with the devil or familiar spirits, rituals, and practices that incorporate belief in magic, and associated with Pagan traditions and religions, okay? Um, so…it's, it's magic. It's, it's a, it's spiritual; and unfortunately, it is demonic and it is real, and it is something that is very, very serious; and the Lord detests it. He detests it. Here's a very big principle you need to understand: if it is spiritual and it's not about Jesus Christ, the glory of God - God - and it has anything that we do that has a spiritual, supernatural context to it, if that supernatural context is not Jesus Christ, it's going to be demonic, period. There's a lot of people out there say, “Well yeah, I believe in Jesus but,” you know, “I want to practice my my New Age mantras” or, “I want to practice yoga–” which is very demonic by the way, that's Hinduism, and all these…if it has– if anything we do has a supernatural spiritual context to it, then that is going to be detestable to God, and God made it very clear in His word. He said, um, in Deuteronomy 18:10, “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer,” those are detestable, okay? Those things are detestable to God. And if you look, if you look again and go a bit further in that scripture, okay, “For whoever–” Deuteronomy 18:12, “For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable things, the Lord will drive them out before you so you shall be blameless before the Lord your God,” that's verse 13, okay?

So…and then there– there's another scripture; let me read verse 11, Deuteronomy 18:11, um, “There should not be found among you one who makes a son or daughter pass through fire,” wors– “practices divination, one who practices witchcraft, or interprets omens, or sorcerer,” verse 11, “or one who cast a spell, or a medium, or spiritualist, or one who calls up the dead.” It's interesting, I was at a meeting not too– well, actually been several years ago. It was a, a grief counseling meeting because we had lost um, a loved one, and went to this meeting and I, I realized really quick it was a secular meeting and the lady who was leading the meeting wants to know if “Have you have you been able to contact your loved one? Have you talked to your loved one since they died?” Well, the Bible says we're not to call up the dead. So, here's the deal. What witchcraft is, it is…magic, and it is spiritual, and it is an abomination to God. We have a jealous God. When we get involved with anything that is spiritual or magical, God hates it. The devil loves it, and there's where demonic doorways can open. 

So, how can we accidentally do that? Well, you see, witchcraft is about manipulation. Um, a spell that witches use is…the, the purpose of a spell is to control and manipulate people against their will. Now look, I know a lot of this stuff is, is, quote, harmless; however, even if you're playing with it you can– children playing with Harry Potter - which is bad - the problem with playing with witchcraft and you know, wearing the little sorcery hats and waving your little magic wand, “oh, it's just fun! The kids are having fun!” Well, demons see this and they go, “Huh, oh, I'm welcome here, this is a place where I can hang out.” “But you know, they're just having fun.” No, you don't want to have fun and have an invitation to the devil. So, how do you accidentally do these things? Well, what happens in our flesh is, we're constantly looking– people are constantly looking for ways to ensure their blessings. Remember, uh, chain letters years ago? You know, pass this letter on to so many people and you'll get a blessing. And people are always looking for ways - I'm going to be blunt - to manipulate God. “Well, you know, if I, if I, if I do this I'll get my blessing, if, if I do that I'll get my blessing,” and they're looking for ways, and they're not– that's not their heart to manipulate God, but people are always looking for magical formulas. Years ago, um, a couple came into my church, God bless them, and they said, “Dr. Ray, Dr. Ray, I have found the answer to our prosperity. This is the reason that, that we're not being blessed,” and I said, “What is it?” 

“Well, it's because we don't give the first fruit offering at the beginning of January.” 

“What do you mean first fruit offering?”

“Well, we should take our first paycheck and give it to the Lord every year. If we do that, we're going to get blessed.”

Well, see, they found a formula, they found a method to get a blessing. What's wrong with that? Well, unless the Lord has directed them to do that - the Holy Spirit has directed them to do that - then what they're actually trying to do is manipulate God. You see, our blessing came from Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the law. He took all the curses and all the requirements of the law of God, all these things that the Israelites had to do for so many years; Jesus accomplished all that; He fulfilled it. Then He died and paid the price for it all and rose from the dead in victory. Where does our blessing come from? Our blessing comes from our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, and living by that faith– that's where our blessing comes from. Our blessing does not come from things that we magically do to, to get God to bless us. 

Um, sometimes– now listen, I believe that there's life and death in the power of the tongue, but sometimes people, they get, they get almost magical with their confession. “Well, if I just say this enough times, then I'm going to get this blessing,” Well then– I said, “Wait a minute, I thought Jesus gave us our blessing when He died and rose from the dead?” “Well, yeah, Jesus did that stuff, but there's other things I need to do to make sure I get the blessing.” This is what the Galatians were doing in Deuteronomy. So when you go into the, the book of Galatians, you see Paul very upset with them. And this actually explains what I'm talking about today. We'll look at Galatians, chapter 3, verse one. “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This one thing I want to find out: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” Now, I get this. What the, what the Galatians were doing was they had received Christ as their savior, but now they were going, “Yeah, okay, we got Jesus, but we got to make sure that we are circumcised because, because there's a blessing in the circumcision.” And then, they started observing - and you can go into verse um, five - and he talks about them observing seasons and months and years and days, and he goes– and they're finding blessing in, in, in the festivals. Well, you see, the problem is when we start looking for things and methods to get our blessing, we're actually denying Jesus Christ who– our blessing comes through Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, through what Jesus has done for us; I hope this is making sense to you. 

And so, we don't need a secret formula. And I've seen this for many, many years. Churches seem– they're always coming up– well, you know, “If we practice– if we wear our prayer shawls, and if we observe the Passover and if we observe the various feasts and, and um, Yom Kippur, that's how we're really going to get our blessing from God.” Well, again, it's like we're trying to manipulate God with our actions, and what God wants for us is our faith and our works because of our faith. He wants us to be led by the Holy Spirit. And again, I hope this is making sense to you because it's very, very i– I want to go back to the book of Galatians. Let's go to, again, Galatians chapter 4. Now…verse 9, 10, and 11. Listen to this very carefully because this, this backs up what I'm saying. Now, he's talking to the Galatians, “But now you have come to know God,” or rather, be known by God, “how is it you turn back into weak and worthless elemental things to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days, months, seasons, and years.” Now here they going, they're going back into observance of all the Jewish traditions and holidays and feasts and seasons and years. What does he say about that? “I fear for you.” “I fear for you. Perhaps I have labored over you in vain.” So, what’s he say? See, they were looking for– to get their blessing by observing certain days, by observing certain months, and observing certain seasons and years. They were also looking for their blessing under…by observing circumcision, by being circumcised.” Well, you see, all this is an attempt to manipulate God. It's a manipulation. It's, it's trying to control things. And the problem God has is that Jesus finished it all on the cross. What God wants us is to live through Christ. It's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. Paul said, “this one thing I know, but Christ and Him crucified,” okay? We are in Christ, and Paul said in Romans 6 we died with Christ, we resurrected with Christ. And Christ took care of all these things. 

You see, up until Christ, there were a lot of things people had to do to try to invoke God's favor and God's blessing; and they could never really do it because there was too much to do they needed a savior. Here comes Jesus, now Jesus has fulfilled all these requirements, fulfilled everything, and now what God says we're to live by faith. The just live by faith. It's– our blessing comes by our faith in Jesus Christ, our blessing does not come through something else like circumcision, first fruit offering, tithe. It doesn't come through that; it comes through Jesus. Now, because of Jesus, you may want to tithe, that's a whole nother story. Because of Jesus, you may want to give a first fruit offering, but the blessing's not in the offering, the blessing's not in the tithe, the blessing's not in circumcision, the blessing's not in anything but Jesus. And so, what we do is, we're, we're looking for “Well, if, if I just um, if I, if I confess this enough times, if I say this enough times then I'm going to be blessed or have my healing.” Well, is this what God has directed you to do? Is this something the Holy Spirit has asked you to do? Are you trying to manipulate God? And that's the million-dollar question. 

Now listen, I believe that we should– the tongue is very powerful, but I want to be careful that I'm not just saying, “Okay, I found a way, I got it, I got it, I got it. So if I want to have um, a raise in my job, I just need to say, ‘I have a raise in my job. My boss is going to give me a raise. My boss will give me a raise this month. I, I, I think that I have a raise. I thank you that, that I'm getting more money. Money cometh, money cometh, money cometh, money cometh.’” Well, where's that in scripture? What is that? What is that? That's manipulation, that's, that's us taking control. But if I go, “Lord, I pray the word. Lord, I believe what you said. Lord, I believe that Jesus said that I should have life and have life more abundantly. Lord, I thank you for that abundant life.” Now see, I'm not manipulating God, I'm just I'm believing what he said. “Lord, uh, I thank you that I've been redeemed from the curse of the law, that I, that I am above and not beneath, I'm the head and not the tail, and I'm blessed coming in and blessed going out. I'm blessed in the country, I'm blessed in the city. All the work of my hands are blessed.” Now, what am I doing there? I’m repeating the Word. I'm speaking the Word out by faith, but I'm not developing some magical formula that I think can somehow manipulate God and to give me my blessing, because when we come up with these magical formulas - hear that word, magical - we're getting into inadvertent witchcraft. 

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't develop your own method for your blessing. Your blessing comes through Jesus Christ and what He has done for us on the cross. Jesus died to give us a blessing, Jesus died for our healing, Jesus died, uh, to take the curse of the law from us and then He rose from the dead in victory and I have risen with Christ and therefore, I am healed, therefore, I am blessed, therefore, I am above and I am not beneath. Why am I– why do I have all these things? Because Jesus. Because I believe what Jesus– who He is, He's my savior, this is what He's done for me, this is what He's accomplished for me, and I'm standing in faith on Jesus. And Jesus, my Lord, my savior; and my victory is through Christ. It's not through some magical method that I've developed, or I've heard somebody tell me, “if you do this method, then you're going to get your blessing.” Methods, in a way, deny Jesus. Jesus is our answer. Our method, our formula, is not our answer. Does that make sense? That's exactly what the Galatians have done. They came– they had their own magical formula. “Okay, we got Jesus, but to really get it, we got to be circumcised and we got to observe all these days, months, seasons, and years.” Galatians 4:10. Paul said, “I fear for you.” And that's what I'm saying is. Do not try to manipulate God. But believe in Christ. Listen to the Holy Spirit, obey the Holy Spir– Now, if the Holy Spirit tells you to Mar– March seven times around the wall of of a city and on the seventh day blow your trumpet and this is what the Holy Spirit says to do and you know the Holy Spirit has told you to do, that– that's just obeying God, that's not some method you came up with. That's just listening to the Holy Spirit, okay. But so many times our flesh is always looking for a way or a method or uh, a formula to get on the inside track with God. And you see this in a lot of religious traditions, I see it in the Catholic Church, “If you do this, if you say this, if you say enough Hail Marys, if you if you do the Eucharist, if you, you do the, the…you pray your Rosary, that's how you going really get your blessing,” those are methods. It's not a method. 

We're justified by faith, we're redeemed by faith. He who knew no sin became sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. So in Christ Jesus, I'm righteous. Righteous means I'm in rightous standing with God, and when I'm in right standing with God, I'm a child of the King and I have the king's resources, I have the king's authority, I have the king's blessing. Why? Because I am in Christ Jesus, he who knew no sin, became sin, and He made me righteous, and I believe that, and I stand in that, and that's where my blessing comes. I hope this makes sense to you. I know I got a little preachy today, but hey, you know, I'm a preacher, what can I say? Thanks so much for listening to me today, and let's just pray. Heavenly Father, forgive us for trying to manipulate. Lord, I don't– I know sometimes, Lord, that we try to manipulate your blessing without knowing we're doing it. And Lord, we just don't want to manipulate, or try to manipulate, or even try to control you, or try to force. Lord, we believe in you. Lord, we trust in you. Lord, we surrender our will to you and we believe that Jesus Christ has provided for our healing - and my healing - He's provided for our blessing, He's redeemed us from the curse of the law, He's taken our condemnation, He's taken our shame, He took our guilt, and He gave us forgiveness. And Lord, we stand in that. We believe that. We accept that, and we walk by that and we live by that, every day, Father. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen, amen. Thank you so much for listening. This is Dr. Ray Self. God bless you.

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Hey, thank you for listening. This is Dr. Ray here. I want to give you a final word. Don't, don't get all freaked out about what I just said. Relax, relax. You know, I don't think any of us uh…intentionally want to try to manipulate God, or manipulate His blessings; and that's what I was saying. We don't– don't try to manipulate His blessings, but I pray that what we'll do is get our focus back on Jesus every day, and being led by the Holy Spirit every day. That's what God wants us– He wants us to, to live by faith, be reminded every day of who Jesus is, what He did for us. And remember, we're He– the crucifixion is over. It's over, it's done. We rose from the dead with Christ, Paul made that clear in Romans chapter 6. We have risen with Christ, and because we have risen with Christ, all these blessings in God's favor is yours. You must stand and believe that. And believe that. Don't have to manipulate it, don't have to do things to make it happen, just - that's what the Galatians were trying to do - just believe you have already received it and praise God for it, amen? Amen. Again, if you can help us with this show…you know what I'm looking for, guys? I need some partners. We need– I need a group of people that will stand with us and partner with this show, with our ministry. Now, we're called Spirit Wind Ministries Inc, 501C3. I'm looking for people who would just commit to $25 a month. I need partners to commit to $25 a month, that'll help us do the show, it'll also help us with our scholarship program. We give away thousands of dollars in free education every year. A couple years ago we gave away $96,000 in free education - which we don't have the money for…And, if we can get enough people to just say, “I'll commit to 20 or 25 dollars a month,” that would be so much. So helpful. And the way you can do that is just go to icmcollege/donate. icmcollege.org/donate. And just make it a recurring payment. If you'll do that, I'd appreciate it. Only do it if you have peace in your heart about it and by the Holy Spirit. Thanks again for listening to Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. God bless you.