Witchcraft, Cults and Domination: Church Control Thru Leadership Sorcery

Rick Yuhas: 0:00

Coming up on renewed mindsets. The devils play in the long game here. What was explicitly forbidden in the Bible has become mainstream and accepted in 2024, even within Christian circles. Our culture has nonchalantly embraced sinful behavior thanks to the influence of TV, radio, movies and the internet. One of the most deceptive shifts has occurred with witchcraft Slowly mainstreaming through the decades from the Wizard of Oz through Bewitched, the ones from Eastwick and Sabrina, we finally at a point where the mere mention of witchcraft conjures up images of wands, quidditch and Professor Snape. Well, let's conjure up some answers. Wingardium, leviosa boys. Hey, welcome to Renewed Mindsets, where we study the basics of the faith through the lens of our middle-aged experiences. I'm Rick. Welcome to the show where I help you, gen Xers and millennials, navigate spiritually through a world that looks nothing like we expected back, when cars were square and mullets were totally awesome. I am so glad you're here. So if you watch the news at all, you've got to see that all around the world, things are pointing to the truth that our civilization is entering into some kind of new phase. Now some of us know what it is and others don't, but everybody can recognize it Because all across the globe the horizon is getting darker and people seem to be filled with fear and anxiety of what's coming next. Now, if you look at all these strange events that are happening, they can either make you count your blessings or it can make you think about all your misfortune. But these events are happening at a breakneck speed and we have no control over it. It's kind of a mixed bag of blessings. I mean, what a day we're living in. As a Christian, we can say that boy, this is not good, but man is this good? These days there's a new and evolving massive deception. It's misinformation and disinformation and conspiracy theories of everything that we know about and things that we don't know about. I mean, they were seriously. Our government was talking about aliens. Omg, that's for our younger listeners. Now you would think I wouldn't want to dare rock the boat or say anything any different than the mainstream. After all the coronavirus crap that went on, I think you all need some encouragement. But even at that, what I'm about to say, I think it's going to disrupt your comfort zone If the truth has got to be told. The truth has power to set captives free from ignorance and because of this, the word of our God is both personalized and emphasized as the uncompromised truth and that offers liberty to whoever embraces it. The church today has gotten very large, like a centuries old tree with many branches that reach out in every direction. The book of Revelation mentioned some of those branches the churches of Pergamos, thyateria, sardis, laodicea, and God exposes the presence of the seducing and deceitful spirit that's involved in the life of those churches. The teachings and the practices of those churches were not only exposed, but they were condemned, and some of those teachings and practices have been condensed into what we call today as a practice of witchcraft. Even today, writing about the modern practice of witchcraft in the church, it's taboo or it's considered heretical or offensive. We forget that in the Old Testament God prohibited the practices of occultism with the children of Israel, deuteronomy 18, 10-12. But I wanted to talk about a few lines of my understanding after reading Paul's letter to Galatians. In Galatians 3, 1 and 2. Paul warned the believers that the church not be bewitched by legalists. The believers of that church have been deceived into keeping the law instead of submission to the grace of God. Specifically, the legalistic teachers had taught them that keeping the law of Moses was a condition for receiving the Holy Spirit. But in modern times, the art of witchcraft in the church has gone further with new methodologies. It's more sophisticated and hard to detect, especially by naive and unsuspecting believers. Many churches do unscriptural things and teach unscriptural things, and it happens with the underserting and unsuspecting involvement of other believers. Other believers in the dark waters are the occult world. Now, in light of that, it's important to the church, with all responsibility, to expose some of those dark arts so that believers can be warned and they can stay alert, because it's necessary that the children of God have the capacity and the knowledge to detect and discern the atmosphere of the evil one. For years, we've been taught that witchcraft is the use of black magic or white magic to influence or control or influence a certain person or situation for an advantage or an evil purpose. And besides that, a lot of believers have grown up confused, really not knowing what witchcraft is all about. Like I said at the beginning, we've been conditioned to think that it's just all fun and games. Materialism and the New Age have made things worse. Some believe that the art of witchcraft is not in existence in the church today because of the Holy Spirit that empowers her Now, without understanding that, due to the disobedience of the church leaders, the Holy Spirit may have stepped out. Yeah, when church leaders are not obedient to God's word, the Holy Spirit may just leave that building, and that leads the way for other spirits to take control, and the devil may have gained entrance into that church without anybody knowing. Other people believe that witchcraft has been destroyed by the age of the Renaissance, so it can't be practiced in the Western world, and it's a common religious practice in the pagan world though. Right, so why would it be one place and not the other? But to understand the full meaning of witchcraft you need to understand the proper definition of it. The Bible defines witchcraft as similar in nature and gravity to the sin of rebellion. It means the sin of rebellion, or rejecting the commandments of God, is the sin of witchcraft. So whoever rejects the will of God is like a witch. It's a sinful act of rebellion. Rebellion places a person on the same scale as a witch. Now the dictionary defines witchcraft as the use of sorcery or magic. It also includes anybody who practices the art of communicating with the devil or a familiar spirit, doing channeling or, you know, a medium, the people who've mastered the art of exerting an irresistible influence on other people and those who have a fascination with the invisible world. Witchcraft is the art or the practice of a witch. A sorcerer, a magician, a witch practices witchcraft. But when Christianity is practiced without the power of the Holy Spirit, it loses its protection and it falls in danger of practicing the art of witchcraft to stay useful to society. I mean, if witchcraft is real in our society, then what stops it from infiltrating our churches when our practices inside that church fall below the New Testament standard? It's covertly practiced not just in society but also in the church. Believers need to watch out for unconscious, indirect involvement by unmasking witchcraft in every form and exposing the spiritual forces that lie behind it. Witchcraft is the devil. It's the art of using the power of the devil to manipulate, to control, to influence, to intimidate, to subject others to a personal will other than God. It's the devil imposing his will on on people, directly or indirectly. Now, how can you detect the acts of demonic witchcraft in your church? Now, you need to be very careful with what I'm gonna say here, because not every time one of these happens it's because of witchcraft. The first two really deal with the authority of a pastor in the church. Okay, if your pastor seeks to control the church members by opposing any form of independent thought, any critical thinking on the doctrine and the practice in that church, or if the leaders oppose or they're in conflict with anybody who opposes a narrow interpretation of scripture, that could be an issue. But you also have to remember that he's the pastor, or she's the pastor of a church and you chose to go to that church and you agreed to live under their covering. So if you have an issue with doctrine or interpretation, you should be able to bring it to them. What I'm saying is if you bring it to them and they just go off the handle and say, listen, that's what it is, you don't question me. There's your problem. If your church practices isolation of the members who disagree with the leadership style, like they don't include them in leadership functions, they kind of keep them on the outside. They've got an inner circle that they only let people in that have well drank the Kool-Aid, that might be a problem. If the church puts a lot of stock into special church creeds and doctrines above the scripture, that might be a problem. If the pastor seeks unquestionable loyalty, even if what they're saying goes against what you know, christ said if they want obedience, without question. That's a problem. If your pastor is imposing his political leanings to influence the church members to voting a certain way, that's a big problem. There's a lot of that going on. I may have just stepped on some toes, but I'm telling you right now the church is no place for that. If your church is manipulative when it comes to getting money, donations, offerings, tithes, there's no room for manipulation. I mean, tithes is scriptural. They can ask for them, they can tell you why you should. They can tell you what's wrong with you if you don't. But your pastor shouldn't be saying well, you're obviously not a very good Christian if you don't tithe. I wonder what God thinks about that. That's that ain't right. If your churches seek to control and intimidate members through doctrines like, only this church has the truth. All the other churches are wrong. We are the chosen church. That's a problem, people, when the church lacks transparency in dealing with its members. I mean, you know, not every person sitting in a pew needs to know 100% of everything that's going on, but there shouldn't be major things happening behind closed doors. If the church teaches that it's humanly possible to manipulate supernatural powers to get any result you want, you know, I've seen it on TV get the prayer cloth. I prayed over this and wiped my sweat and this cloth is full of my sweat and if you send me $30, I'll send you a square of this cloth. And anything you pray for holding this cloth you'll get. I've seen it on TV. That's witchcraft. Those say it, claim it and get it. Twisted faith, scriptural mumbo jumbo that's witchcraft. Witchcraft is alive in our church's people and it's alive in churches that refuse to renounce the hidden things of dishonesty and darkness, churches that choose to walk in craftiness Second Corinthians 4-2. Then that church is open to the possibility of practicing covert and parallel witchcraft using control mechanisms. This works in some churches with off-limits or some form of superior knowledge and control, but it's discernible through excesses of the leaders. Basically, if the church has got a lot of things that you just can't ask questions about, only people at the top have any knowledge of it and control over it. But there's a lot of excesses that you see from the church leaders. It doesn't mean that people who have nice things are witches. It just means that some pastors can resort to a form of some kind of a perverted relationship to get knowledge about their members and then use that information to make the members subject to them. Those churches refuse to respect the humanness of believers. Introduce a new daily podcast, written and produced to jumpstart your day with wisdom from God Wisdom for the day. This daily meetup, is a way you can learn everything about wisdom from a biblical perspective. The book of Proverbs is all about wisdom from the wisest man in the Bible, king Solomon. Covering one to a few verses a day, each episode is around three to five minutes. A quick fill-up of your wisdom to start your day or end it, and by the end of the year you will have heard and understand the entire book of Proverbs. Visit wisdomforthedayorg and listen there, or hit follow for your favorite podcast app. The Lord wants us to know Him. He wants us to know when we're abandoning and betraying Him too. He wants us to love and trust Him enough to face all of that and to cry out for Him, for forgiveness and grace, to turn from what's not Him, to go joyfully with Him. But we're God's people. Jesus is our Savior. We wouldn't abandon or betray Him, and if we even started in that direction, we'd know it and stop right now. I would recognize that right off the bat I'm a recognized witchcraft, I would never do that. But what about Peter? Peter loved Jesus and he followed Him faithfully. But every once in a while Peter treated Jesus pretty bad. Sometimes Peter knew it. The night before the crucifixion Peter denied Jesus and he knew how wrong that was. He had just said he'd never do such a thing, but that night he let fear drive him. One time, two times, three times, a lady. He abandoned Jesus and a friend. But then other times Peter didn't know it. When Peter first, or when Jesus first began to tell the disciples about his suffering and death, peter took him aside and he's like heaven forbid Lord, this is never going to happen to you. Now, that's understandable. I mean, we might think it's understandable, but Jesus didn't think that at all. Jesus turned to Peter and said get away from me, satan. You're a dangerous trap for me. You're seeing things merely from a human point of view and not from God's. Now that was really paraphrased. It's Matthew 16, 22 and 23. Peter loved Jesus and he wanted Jesus to take up his kingdom, but not to have to pay such a terrible price. Now he was moved by fear and distress and a belief that he knew best and that heaven was on his side, peter decided to take things in his own hand. So when he spoke up, did Jesus confuse him with Satan? Did Jesus accuse him of being Satan? No and no, because at the start of his ministry, jesus had faced the temptation of Satan. Remember the devil said if you worship me, it'll all be yours. You'll have all authority and splendor over all the nations, without any pain, without any cross right. Luke 4-7. Now, when Peter stepped in, trying to avert the situation that he didn't want to happen, to try and control the person of Jesus that he didn't want to suffer, peter wasn't cooperating with heaven, but with Satan. In that moment, he was engaging in witchcraft. It's all about control people. It's all about control. There's three key words that expose the activity of witchcraft it's manipulate, intimidate and dominate. Domination is the ultimate purpose. Manipulation and intimidation are just alternative ways of achieving the purpose of domination. Wherever people use verbal or nonverbal tactics to manipulate or intimidate or to dominate those around them, that's witchcraft. Witchcraft is the attempt to control people and make them do what you want by the use of any spirit, which is not the Holy Spirit. And if any person has a spirit that he or she uses, that's not the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is God and no one uses God. Deuteronomy 18, 10, and 11 says no. It says let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft or cast spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. People use every one of these practices to call on spirits that aren't God and people use every one of those practices to gain knowledge or power or both. The link between witchcraft and rebelling against him, the link between witchcraft and having other gods besides him those are two things that the word of God stresses. The act of flesh are obvious. They include idolatry and witchcraft, and 1 Samuel 15, 23 says full rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Pretty much in scripture, when God mentions occult practices, he gives pretty much no details on how they were carried out, but he forbids them all. It's important to not be ignorant about spiritual things, good and evil, and it's important to know what God has revealed by the spirit and the word. We don't need to know the dark details of evil in order to recognize it and reject it. So the people that are out there saying well, you're just making that up about witchcraft, it doesn't say anything in the Bible about this. And that it doesn't say anything in the Bible, blah, blah, blah. You know magic wands, blah, blah. You know. If the Bible had every single word, there'd be too many pages, too many words. We have some discernment. We can recognize good and evil. No gods, no idols. Very simple, moses said the secret things belong to the Lord, our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of his law. That should be enough to guide us in the path of an abundant life. Yet people crave forbidden things that promise control and they can lure us to an end. I'm melting, melting. Oh, my world, my world that runs around God. Those things can entice us to look to or experiment with, or trust in or yield to whatever promises to help us get what we want, when we're not faced, confessed and turned from the desires of the flesh. Like that, it sets us up for a fall, because from the Garden of Eden until right now, the serpent has spotted it and exploited it. He said go for it, you won't die. Instead, your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God. Like God, the deceiver's mouth suggested that you'll know what you need to know to control what you want to control. The devil is witchcraft. It's been right in front of our faces all this time, yet we laugh and watch them right around on brooms. We laugh and we laugh. We laugh and watch them wiggle their nose, get their husband out of trouble with their boss. We smile and look up to teenage witches that have their own TV shows. What did I say first About throwing your children and sacrificing them in the fire? You remember that? Do you remember those long, long lines At midnight with kids dressed up like Harry Potter and Hermione waiting to buy the next book? Because it's fun, it teaches kids to read. I'm almost choking myself saying this because I like Harry Potter. That's what's bad. That is the problem with it, is it's very palatable. I mean, these were books that were written for kids. I read the first one when I was 30 and liked it, and then the movies. Of course it's gonna be good. Of course it's going to seem good. Of course it's gonna seem innocent, because if it looked like what it was, we would recognize it and we turn our backs from it. We turn our backs to it. Paul said you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish it by means of the flesh? In the past, when you did not know God, you served as slaves, which in reality are non-Gods. But now you do know God and, more than that, you are known by God. So how is it that you turn your back against those weak and miserable elemental spirits? Do you want to enslave yourselves to them once more? That's Galatians 4, 8, and 9. When the leaders betrayed God in secret, the people abandoned Ezekiel in public. The sin of the people is exceedingly great. The land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of injustice. It's Ezekiel 9, 9. Now, not everybody was corrupted there. The Lord searched out and grieved and lamented over the abominations being done, but he marked a few people as His own and he proved Himself strong on their behalf. Ezekiel was one of them. When God showed him the terrible things that he didn't want to see, ezekiel looked and he believed and he grieved and, like Paul, ezekiel cried out to God's people to turn back. Now, today, the same God has been exposing the ways that our church don't reflect Him but instead coerce His people to misrepresent Him. And here lately the Lord's been outing shunning in the church, bullying in the church, clicks in the church, racism and sexism in the church, celebrity culture in the church, all forms of oppression and abuse in the church. As I'm speaking this, I'm looking at my notes and I'm staring at the list of what I have written there and I see this big question that God was answering when I cried out to Him months ago what is this? What am I involved in? All those practices? All of them hinge on people trying to control people, to make others bow down to the dictates of a system or the will of somebody in it. All those practices hinge on people using manipulation and intimidation to gain domination. In Jesus' name. You need to obey the Lord, they said when they mean you're not doing what we want. Thank you, god, that, unlike them, we're doing your will. That person over there is not submissive to God. It's witchcraft in the church, for the Lord, who is holy, will not be party to profane his own name. The Lord, who is spirit, will not be used. When people invoke his name and try to get their own way, they're rebelling against God, they're calling on spirits that oppose him and they're cooperating with evil's dark work. You need to be willing to see what God wants to show you and refuse to pursue what he forbids. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Your response to this show just amazes me, and the generosity of some of you is humbling. Yet appreciate it. This show is a passion project for me and, like most projects, it can take a bite out of my wallet. If you enjoy and value what you hear and desire to give back just a bit, click, support Our Ministry at RenewedMindsetscom and pledge however you feel led. And now we have the merch store up and running, with t-shirts, hats, drinkware, even pillows and a cute little food bowl mat for your hairy children. It's all at RenewedMindsetsstorestore. You'll be supporting the show and getting something more back for yourself. In any case, I pray God's blessings on you and your families. And now Deep Thoughts by Rick Uhaas. I've always found that when I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the slide, then I stop and I turn and I go for a ride. Then I get to the bottom and I see you again. No, wait, that was the Beatles. Well, that's all for this week's show. You know the name of this show speaks my hope for you. It's taken from the words of Romans, chapter 12, verse 2. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. If you enjoyed what you heard, do me a favor, please, and tell someone you know about it. Send them a link and a text you know. You may even need to download it to their phone and show them what a podcast is. If it was valuable to you, it will be to them. Get renewed mindsetscom to hear past episodes, read the blog and check out the new merch. And, as always, while you're there, send me a voicemail by clicking the button at the bottom right corner of the main page. Tell me what you think about this show. I just might play it on a future episode. Until next week. I'm Rick. I love you. See ya? The intro and outro music for the renewed mindset show is Are you Ready? By Floodgate From the album Are you Ready, copyright 2002. Offbeat Ministries Incorporated. Floodgate is available on Apple Music and iTunes Click. Used With Permission.