Abominable Practices

God established standards for His people, who are known by His name. His people are to be set apart from the other nations of the world; the heathen nations, who know not God. God’s Law, commonly referred to as the Law of Moses, was given to set forth God’s standards for His redeemed people. Their way of life was to be noticeably different from those who worshipped other gods. As a people who represent the sovereign God of the universe, their culture must reflect His character.

A people who have been redeemed out of slavery to sin must not return to the abdominal practices of the heathen, who have rejected all knowledge of the true God. Those who have rejected God must and will worship something, however, and they choose to worship the things and the spirit beings of fallen creation. This results in even more human degeneracy and blackout of their souls.

The One Who created the universe and all that is in it is the only One who can redeem humanity from our status of total depravity. He has done this by providing a Savior; His Son, Jesus Christ. Other gods cannot save. They offer no solution to our congenital sinfulness. They have no righteousness of their own, just as we do not. God the Son is perfect righteousness, and He gives us His righteousness when we believe in His complete atonement for our sins. There is nothing for the individual human to do for salvation except believe in the finished work of Christ. We then have eternal life, we have the Holy Spirit to enable us, and we have in ourselves the character of Christ. That character is what we must cultivate, not the religions of other gods. Other gods require sacrifices and acts of human depravity to appease their dark demands. Other gods promise superior “spiritual” experience by distorting the soul’s comprehension of the world. Other gods prioritize intellect, emotion and sensuality, which are ego-centric rather than God-oriented. These categories of cultivation are lusts of the flesh. They glory in man rather than God.

We humans are not, and never will be God or gods. We also are not and never will be angels. We are category: human species. God created us and has a plan for us, which involves an eternal relationship with Himself. By believing in His uniquely born Son, we become his sons. Royal Family of God.  No other god can give us that. What other gods give is worldly psycho-babble and erotic titillation. That way of life ends in despair. That way of life brings self-destruction. That way of life is heathenism. Avoid it.

When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer  or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this. Deuteronomy 18:9-14

God’s authority has set boundaries for the free exercise of human volition. We can choose to break through those boundaries by means of demonism; but in doing so, we blaspheme God’s holiness and we hinder the work of the Holy Spirit, through Whom only we can truly know and worship our creator/redeemer. Our purpose in earthly life is to learn to live our lives in the manner prescribed by God Himself, thereby proving to Satan and the fallen angels that God’s way is superior. We can achieve that goal only by our obedience to God’s system of authority. God’s way IS superior. Our life IN CHRIST is eternal, supernatural, and brings into our souls the happiness which belongs to God. No power is greater than the omnipotence of Jesus Christ. All other gods are shoddy counterfeits with phony religions, designed to destroy the faith and dignity of humankind by reducing us to babbling fools who try to make magic. To achieve worldly success, sexual thrills and greater intellect, depraved humanity will do anything. The demons know they can even entice reversionist humans to sacrifice their own offspring, alive, in fire. How that must grieve our Lord to see his highest creation whoring after such evil beings. It need not happen, but such practices continue to this day, and otherwise intelligent people will actually partake. God doesn't look lightly on these things. Notice His word for them: abominations. Detestable things.

Demonism is the source and dynamic of pagan idolatry. I Corinthians 10:19-20, I Timothy 4:1-2, I John 4:1-6, Revelation 16:13-16. These terms have meaning in every generation. They don’t go away.

“Pass through the fire” – Molech was the chief deity of the Ammonites. He was a god of human sacrifice, including children. The ancients would heat up this brass idol with fire until it was glowing, then they would take their newborn babies, place them on the arms of the idol, and watch them burn to death. Some hysterically compare the practice of aborting pregnancies to the willful burning, by the child’s mother, of her living, screaming infant.Those who make that comparison have never been mothers. Those parents who performed this horrendous act were doing so to appease an evil god, because they had been deluded by demons into thinking it would bring them some kind of reward. It may have even had erotic effects, in the moment. Such is the evil that disdains the value of human life, when influenced by Satanic ritual. Abortion is a sordid, nasty, desperate act of a usually distraught woman. Nobody is doing it for fun or superstition, or to gain anything from a god. Interrupting pregnancies would not produce living babies to feed the demons. Both acts are sickening, but they are not the same.

“Divination “—(by lot)-foretelling by other than human means. consulting an oracle.

“Fortunetelling” – soothsaying. sorcery. palm-reading. tarot cards, tea-leaves, ouija-boards, astrology.

“Omen interpretation”—enchanting. hissing, whispering spells, muttering chants to achieve some end.

“Sorcerer” – Witch-enchanter-practitioner of magic and the dark arts.

“Charmer” – One who fascinates. mesmerizes by enchantment.

“Medium” – Consulter with familiar spirits (demons)- mumbler, ventriloquist.

“Wizard” – Knowing one. conjurer. ghost.

“Necromancer” – One who makes worshipful inquiry of the dead, or physically consorts with the dead.

“Inquiring of the dead” – Séance.

These practices tend to overlap. Many so-called “New Age” teachings and methods are just these same occult arts, perhaps called by other names. The New Testament clearly includes drug usage in the definition of witchcraft (Galations 5:20), with other idolatrous acts. Earth-worship, the worship of astronomical bodies, mind-expanding exercises and substances are all part of Satan’s counterfeit religion. Humans are usually not wise enough to realize what we’re getting ourselves into, so God graciously laid down some rules. What we are to do is AVOID anything that is not clearly taught as God’s will in God’s Word. We cannot justify for ourselves what He has expressly forbidden.

These rules followed, in the same Mosaic discourse, the rules for the kings of Israel. They would eventually have a human king, and he would have important responsibilities as the delegated authority over God’s chosen people.

We will see that King Saul actually tried, at first, to establish and enforce the banishment of all witchcraft and occult practices from the land. Saul’s spiritual weakness, though, and his personal arrogance, would lead him to break his own law, adding to his list of failures as Israel’s King.

The timing of this study is a work of God, coming as Halloween approaches. Almost everyone now accepts that holiday as fun and games for the children, though adults are at least as involved these days as the kids are. The fact is, Halloween is a celebration of evil, and Christian people would do well to realize that before bringing it into our homes and into our local churches.

Because Halloween is a fact of our culture, and because there are innocent children involved, they will receive a treat at my house, and a gospel tract to take home.