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In the summer of 2023, the New York Post reports that New York’s Suffolk County SPCA found the bodies of two headless goats behind an A & W. Authorities believed they had been part of a ritual sacrifice. Two other headless goats would be found later that summer.
According to GLI news, this was part of a trend in recent years where the remains of several animals and birds used in ritual sacrifices have been discovered throughout New York State.
In 2022, several headless chickens and a dove were found in a circle with a goat skull in the center in Long Island’s Union cemetery and in 2018, a kayaker discovered nearly a dozen decapitated goats along the banks of the Chattahoochee River.
Meanwhile, TikTok has a section represented by the hashtag witchtok featuring videos on the occult and witchcraft, where people can learn how to perform hexes and other occult rituals. There are over 7.7 million videos in this section, which by October 2024 had been viewed 42 billion times.
According to an article in the Financial Times entitled, WitchTok: how the occult became big online, the videos in the hashtag had only been viewed 11 billion times in 2021.
This represents nearly a 400% increase in less than four years.
These are subtle changes taking place in our Western culture and we saw it unveiled at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
In describing the annual musical awards, the headline in Britain’s Daily Mail read “’Literally a Tribute to Satan‘: Viewers Slam Sam Smith over ‘Demonic Grammy performance as Singer dons Devil Headgear on Fiery Stage.”
Though some labeled it as shocking, it revealed that the Demonic has slid out of the shadows and is becoming more main stream and accepted in society.
Hi my name is Dean Smith and in this podcast I want to talk about one major weakness that Christians need to fix in preparation for what may well be a coming time of intense spiritual conflict.
Derek Prince Warns of Looming Spiritual Conflicts
In an article for Charisma News, James Lasher wrote about a sermon that Derek Prince gave over a quarter century ago, in October 1989, where he warned about a coming spiritual attack.
Derek Prince was an internationally known Bible teacher before his death in 2003.
Prince’s sermon was based on Paul’s warning in 2 Timothy 3 about the appearance of people who would be like Jannes and Jambres, the two magicians who served as advisors to the Pharaoh of Egypt during Israel’s exodus.
Using the dark arts, for a brief moment, these two magicians matched the power that God was demonstrating through the hands of Moses.
Though they ultimately failed, Prince makes an important point stating “the battle was not on the level of theology, but power.”
What happened in Egypt was a power encounter.
Prince then quotes verse 13 from this chapter, that reads “But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
The Apostle Paul is suggesting as we enter the last days, believers will have similar power encounters that Prince says will coincide with quote “an explosion of the occult.”
Prince pointed out that the Greek word translated impostors in the New King James, refers to ‘enchanters’.
Thayer’s Greek Dictionary describes the word this way “enchanter (because incantations used to be uttered in a kind of howl)” and Strong’s Dictionary of the New Testament says that the word means quote “a wizard (as muttering spells).”
Prince then asks this question: “Why do people enchant. What does that speak about?” Then he answers it with these words, “Magic, witchcraft, sorcery.”
Paul is saying similar to Jannes and Jambres of ancient Egypt, people at the end of the age will, perhaps secretly, embrace the occult in order to gain influence, culturally, politically and financially.
It’s a warning of a coming time of intense spiritual warfare and this means that as believers we need to check over our armor for any weaknesses that make us vulnerable to satanic attack.
How We Become Vulnerable to Satanic Mind Games
In 2 Corinthians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul specifically addresses one of those vulnerabilities.
But to understand this warning, we have to turn back to 1 Corinthians and Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, when he addressed a situation involving a man who was living with his father’s wife in Chapter 5 verse 1.
This was probably not the man’s mother, but perhaps his step mother. Because the church was overlooking the sin, it suggests the man had friends in the Corinthian church.
Shocked by what was happening, Paul says that this type of behavior isn’t even acceptable among the gentiles and firmly tells the leaders of Corinth to deal with this situation.
When Paul writes his second letter to the Corinthian church, he seems to allude to this situation again in the second chapter. Now we can’t be absolutely sure, because he doesn’t explicitly say that it is, but most commentators believe it was.
The situation seems to have been resolved and the man is no longer living with his dad’s wife. The Corinthian church has forgiven the man and Paul writes that he needs to forgive as well.
But notice what Paul says, we read:
But one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, 11 so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes. (2 Corinthians 2:10-11 NASV)
In this verse, Paul writes that like the Corinthians, he also needed to forgive this man so that Satan would not be able to take advantage of him.
The Greek word for advantage is a really long Greek word, like 15 letters long “pleonektethomen” and I won’t even try to pronounce it.
It means to outwit and includes the idea of defrauding someone, taking advantage or exploiting, literally to steal something that rightfully belongs to another.
This tells us that if we don’t forgive an offense, that we make ourselves vulnerable to satanic attack.
Then Paul zeroes in on the very area that will be attacked saying. He says we must not be ignorant of his “schemes” which is the Greek noemata and refers to our mind or thoughts.
Several years ago, a pastor translated this in a very unique way that really stuck with me. I wish I could remember his name, but he said if we don’t forgive then Satan has the right to attack us with ‘mind games.’
When we don’t forgive Satan has the legal right to play “mind games” with you. You are vulnerable to believing strange things about God and yourself. Maybe that God hates you, or God loves others more than you.
It means to convince a person that a lie is the truth and in the process robbing them — spiritually or otherwise.
You can become tormented by past mistakes and things you have done wrong.
This is because there is a weakness in your armor, caused by unforgiveness, that Satan can take advantage of.
But we need to understand one more thing about this particular offense. This was not an incident that directly affected Paul. He was not personally attacked or stolen from. It was for all intents and purposes a second hand offense.
How many of those type of offenses are floating around these days?
Are we being offended by someone’s politics, as an example, even though it is not directly affecting us.
But these mind games or skewered thinking can quite literally become a trap. We can become stuck in stinking thinking as some call it, and no matter what anyone says we can’t break free from it. We can’t get free these thoughts.
Over the years, I have talked to people who are trapped in such negative destructive thinking and it is like banging your head against the wall trying to convince them to change.
These individual, for lack of a better word, are in a mental prison.
Imprisoned Because of Unforgiveness
This is exactly what Jesus warned about in the story of the servant who was managing the King’s account and ended up being short ten thousand talents in Matthew 18.
When the servant begged for mercy after the king threatened to sell his family into slavery, the king completely forgave this debt.
Now, you don’t lose millions of dollars without individuals taking advantage of you. People the servant had lent money to were suddenly not returning his phone calls.
Despite being completely forgiven, the servant started tracking down those who owed him money. and threw a man into debtor’s prison over a hundred denarii debt.
When the king heard about this, he was outraged and ordered the forgiven servant to be handed “over to the torturers until he would repay all that was owed him” (Matthew 18:34).
In other words this man was imprisoned. HIs liberty was taken away. He was trapped.
According to Thayer’s Greek Dictionary, the word torturers refers to “one who elicits the truth by the use of the rack. an inquisitor, torturer also used of a jailer.” Unquote
Jesus then ominously warns in the very next verse, “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”
In other words, if we refuse to forgive we not only become vulnerable to satanic attacks, we will be imprisoned and tormented.
We are not talking about a real physical brick and stone prison, but rather a spiritual one where our thinking becomes twisted. But this prison is as real as one made of metal bars.
So if you are stuck in negative and damaging mindsets ask yourself the question: Is there someone you need to forgive?
It may be the key that unlocks the door of your prison cell.
Thanks for joining me on this podcast, and I will catch you again.
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