THE OCCULT BATTLEFIELD

The Occult Battlefield
By Eddie Smith

“Pastor Eddie,” invoked the church secretary over the office intercom. “The principal of the high school would like to speak with you.” I picked up the phone, greeted the principal, and asked her how I could help.

She told me how she and school security officers were discovering that more and more of their students were turning to the occult. Some, she suspected, were doing so out of curiosity. Others were being led by fellow students. And still others seemed deeply involved in witchcraft, Satanism, and the like. “I've heard about you and your wife and your ministry,” she said. “Do you have any idea why a substantial number of our kids would be moving in this direction?”

“Have you attended church lately?” I asked.
“Yes, indeed. We rarely miss a service,” she replied.

“Have you seen the power of God demonstrated in your services?”
“Well, uh ... not really.”

“That's why. Your students are looking for demonstrations of spiritual power. When few are seeing it in their churches, many naturally will look into the occult.” Young people naturally look for spiritual power.
~~~~~

The occult level of spiritual warfare is where people solicit demons for spiritual power. The truth? Pretending to accept a partnership, the demons immediately plan their solicitors' destruction.
At the onset, these demons willingly capitulate to human manipulation. The youngest child, knowing the procedures, can persuade demons to perform; and perform they will, like trick ponies, until they gain control. Then they begin to manipulate, break down, and ultimately destroy the human who sought their power. Deception and betrayal are their tools….

Occult-level spiritual warfare refers to our intercessory confrontations with demonic forces that operate through Satanism, witchcraft, New Age practices, shamanism, false religions, secular humanism, media that glorifies the occult, blood sacrifices, and so on. This level of warfare—fighting with our feet off the ground, so to speak—tends to be tougher for two reasons.

First, although some victims (especially the young) have been seduced and trapped by subtle demonic deception, many others have openly, willfully solicited satanic power.

Second, the very nature of occult involvement is about seeking other “gods” and/or endeavoring to become as God. Even worse is lusting to possess “godlike power” and giving oneself over to manipulating persons, situations, and objects. Whether it be out of a desire to manipulate for good or for bad, all of this is at the heart of witchcraft. We are to have no other gods before Jehovah (see Exodus 20). God reserves lordship for himself.
New Age religions, in all of their facets, are empowered by occult-level spirits. These are the belief systems promoted by Rhonda Byrne (author of The Secret), by Oprah Winfrey, and by many others. Foundationally, the basis of this worldview is that you and I are our own gods, and we need look no further than within ourselves.

It’s foolish enough to believe what is straightaway false. It’s even more damaging to blend falsehoods with truth. It’s tragic that many actually consider there to be a “Church of Oprah,” because the Oprahfication of Christianity is blindness-inducing and blasphemous.

Recently, Oprah was asked, “How were you able to reconcile these spiritual teachings with your Christian beliefs?” This was her response.

“I was able to open my mind about the absolute, indescribable hugeness of that which we call 'God.'
I took God out of the box because I grew up in the Baptist church and there were rules, and belief systems, and doctrines.

I happened to be sitting in church in my late twenties. And I was going to this church where you had to get there at eight o'clock in the morning or you couldn't get a seat … a very charismatic minister … and everybody was into the sermon. And this great minister was preaching about how great God was, and how omniscient, and omnipresent and 'God is everything.' Then he said, 'The Lord thy God is a jealous God.'

And I was caught up in the rapture of that moment until he said 'jealous,' and something struck me. I was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight [years old], thinking God is all, God is omnipresent, and God is also jealous? God is jealous of me?

Something about that didn't feel right in my spirit because I believed that God is love, and that God is in all things.
So that's when the search for something more than doctrine started to stir within me. And I love this quote that Eckhart [Tolle] has, one of my favorite quotes in chapter one [of his book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose], where he says, 'Man made God in his own image.

The eternal, infinite, and unnamable was reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as ‘my God’ or ‘our God.’’ And I think that's very eloquently put by Eckhart….That is exactly what I was feeling when I was sitting in church that Sunday listening to the preacher. And it's been a journey to get to the place where I understand … that what I believe is that Jesus came to show us 'Christ consciousness.'

Jesus came to show us 'the way of the heart,' and that what Jesus was saying [is that he will] show us the 'higher consciousness'…. Jesus came to say, 'Look, I'm going to live in the body, in the human body, and I’m gonna show you how it's done. These are some principles and some laws that you can use to live by, to know that ‘way.’' And when I started to recognize that, that Jesus didn't come—in my belief, even as a Christian—I don’t believe that Jesus came to start Christianity. So that was also very comforting….

There's a wonderful book called Discover the Power Within You by Eric Butterworth, which helps me reconcile the two. So that might be really good for those of you who are Christians...."

That’s what Oprah had to say about Jesus Christ.