Our king is still on the throne. It's an important point for us to recognize. Before you refute, before you prove false a belief system, you have to understand what that belief system actually is. So before you refute it, you've got to figure out what do they believe, because that's what I want to refute. Not what I think they believe, but what they actually do believe. Let me lower this just a little, maybe that'll cut back on the feedback. If it causes more problems, let me know, because I'm not a tech guy. But whatever the case, Wicca is not really the worship of Satan, it's not Satanism, at least not the direct worship of Satan. It's much closer to the worship of nature. Many witches do worship nature, or at least try to derive from nature some supernatural or paranormal power. Okay? And why am I talking about it? I'm talking about it because we no longer live in Jerusalem. Now we live in the land of Canaan or in Sodom and Gomorrah. Okay? America is no longer a Christian culture. Should I raise it up? All right. It looks like we're still getting something there. Maybe if I move this back, if I get back here, is it better back here? No? Okay. We'll hope for the best. So whatever the case, You know, we know who doesn't want this message preached. But the reason why I'm preaching this, there are estimates. Adherence.com tries to track how many people are in all the world's different religions, and they estimate that the number of Wiccans in the world is about, and they say it's a very conservative number, about 800,000. More likely it's over a million, okay? Wicca is very popular in Great Britain, becoming very popular in Europe and is on the rise, has been on the rise in America since the 1960s and the counter-cult movement. I remember when I worked for the sub-base police department and uh... there was a murder on base where a navy guy named drizpal killed uh... uh... two uh... sailors he shot them you know one one round in the head each and then uh... he left base we had busted him in between the murders not knowing he had shot somebody we arrested him in between for driving while intoxicated and we confiscated his pistol And, but we had no idea that back in his dorm room or whatever you want to call it, back in his barracks, there were two dead guys. And then he went off base, drove off base, because we didn't, we just turned him over to their command, their command's supposed to. That's the way the Navy wants it. And instead of the command making sure he didn't go anywhere, they just let him loose. And so he left base. and went to a pawn shop that used to be on Callow and 6th Avenue and asked to see a 9mm. They gave it to him. He put the magazine in and then shot two more people, killing one of them. So he killed three people, gravely injured another. And through the course of the investigation, he killed himself in Vancouver, Washington, in a hotel. He ate half a Half a bag of Doritos and half a diet soda. I'm still puzzled why he would go with diet soda at that point. And then he shot himself. I'm like, if you're going to shoot yourself, I mean, why watch the calories? But whatever the case, you know, a very unfortunate event. But I remember Lieutenant Spencer, who later became the Chief, he was transplanted from Long Island, we're still friends and we stay in touch and all. But I remember Lieutenant Spencer was telling us they couldn't figure out, he excelled as a sailor until he got hooked on the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, and then he started calling himself an assassin, which was his board game name, but he would call himself the assassin even when he wasn't playing. It was almost like he would play these fantasy role playing games and he could never get out of that fantasy. That fantasy became his real world. And so guys made fun of him for being weird for doing that. And then he eventually assassinated two of them. And the rest is history. Well, when he said that, two fellow police officers in a small department of only about 100 police officers were offended and started freaking out and this and that, and everybody's wondering, why are these two guys so upset about this? And so as time went on, we started finding out that these two guys in our police department were practicing Wiccans. They were practicing witches. And so all of a sudden it made sense for why the guy was wearing a skull ring and things of that sort. But basically, this is back in probably, I don't know, 1990? And you could have two police officers in a department. And by the way, they weren't fired for being witches. So, I mean, this is becoming part of mainstream American culture. And so we need to talk about this. I want to look at Deuteronomy 18, verses 9 to 12. Deuteronomy 18, verses 9 to 12. This is the second giving of the law. to the second generation of Jews, the first generation died out in the wilderness, and now they're going to be entering the promised land under Joshua and conquering the promised land. And God tells them, when you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. there shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire, some are sacrificing their children to the false god Molech, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. Almost all of these are pretty much They're either synonymous or they're second cousins of each other, okay? What's being described is the entire world of the occult. Okay? And witchcraft is included, although you can call a witch a sorcerer and one who conjures spells. Many of them consider themselves mediums or spiritists and call up the dead. And then God's Word says, "...for all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you." So what God is saying is, look, I'm driving the pagans out of the land of Canaan because of all these horrible occultic practices. If you partake of these horrible occultic practices, I'll drive you out, too. Now, a lot of people would say, well, this is Old Testament, it's the Old Testament law, so it doesn't really apply to us. Let me tell you, look, God is telling the Jews I'm upset with the Gentiles for doing this, and I'm punishing the Gentile nations for doing this, and I'll also punish my people for doing it. So this is something that transcends the Mosaic Law. This is something that applies to Jew and Gentile cultures. that if you attempt to gain wisdom or knowledge or power from the spiritual realm apart from God, okay, you have declared yourself an enemy of God and God is going to act. Look at Deuteronomy 29 and verse 29. Deuteronomy 29 and verse 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. You know, human nature, just like it was way back in the garden, you could eat from any tree in the garden, just not one. And what's the first one Adam and Eve hang out by? The one they're not supposed to eat the fruit of. And so here's God saying, look, what I've revealed to you, my word, cherish it, love it, learn it, study it, pass it on to your children and your grandchildren. I have revealed so much truth to you that you could never find through the five senses. But be content with that, because the secret things belong to me. And what the witches are saying is, no, we're not content with God's Word. In fact, we don't even like God's Word unless we can twist it totally out of context to make it support our pagan views. But we're not content with the Word of God. We want the secret things. We want to tap into secret formulas and secret traditions to try to access power and gain power over nature And that's what we're here for. We're not here to worship the God of the Bible. So what I want to do is look at the modern witchcraft movement. Now let me say this. Josh McDowell has an excellent book, Handbook on Today's Religions, and I use it. for teaching my world religions course, but his chapter on witchcraft is very outdated. Okay, and no slam on Josh McDowell. He's a great scholar, but whatever the case, when it came to witchcraft, he went pretty much by what was the traditional medieval witchcraft. So there's black magic and white magic and there's witches and warlocks and stuff like that. The modern witchcraft movement looks nothing you. like medieval witchcraft okay and uh... uh... basically there's no such thing as a warlock anymore even male and female witches call themselves wiccan or witches they don't call themselves warlocks anymore uh... they also claim that there are they refuse to acknowledge and i think that there's probably self-styled wiccans that probably do use occultic powers for the bad of mankind that would be black magic but they claim anybody who's into black magic is closer to satanist they're only into white magic so it's kind of like they're only into the light side of the force for for those who have uh... love star wars and stuff like that so they're basically saying we will use these powers of nature which we know are occultic demonic powers we only use them for the good of mankind not for the bad of mankind so automatically they're going to deny anybody who partakes in black magic as a satanist or not a true witch so the current movement there isn't this white magic black magic uh... distinction and uh... we've got to remind ourselves though if you tap into a cultic secret demonic powers even if you're trying to do it for the good of mankind you're still way way way outside of God's will It's just like winning a football game through cheating. You might win the game, but you cheated. It wasn't right. And our God doesn't allow cheating in this sense. You know, obviously any kind of cheating is unethical, but tapping into demonic powers is not exactly what you should be doing to please God. So I'm just going to give a little expose on modern witchcraft, and then we're going to try to spend the bulk of our time refuting Wiccan beliefs. through a, you know, kind of a philosophical, ethical refutation, but then also a biblical refutation as well. Very common, and by the way, witches are, they make up small covens, there's no hierarchy. there's no like one head witch of all the witches or one head committee that says hey you gotta believe this and you gotta believe that so uh... so it's very decentralized small covens small groups they gather no hierarchy it's decentralized they often claim to be a continuation of an abiding but hidden form of ancient witchcraft this is very unlikely okay this is like some idea that that today's witches have been in hiding for hundreds of years if not thousands of years and that they've had this long line of witches is very unlikely there's a reason why they're called uh... neo-pagans because now they're a new group of pagans arriving on the scene although they want to trace their roots yeah the roots of their ideas go back to ancient times but not really the roots of their movement so there hasn't been like successive generations of uh... of Wiccans uh... they're opposed to traditional religions especially Christianity uh... very experience based they de-emphasize reason So, if you just, if you have an experience and you just feel real good about that experience, you don't test the spirits with reason or with the word of God. Okay? You just experience for the sake of experience. They believe that all life is sacred, that there's a life force in nature, and that the distinction between matter and the spirit is not real. Okay? And so they want to tap into the life force of nature, okay? You know, we've seen how we've been able, through modern technology, tap into nature, whether it be the power of wind or fossil fuels or electricity. We've been able to tap in and get some powers through natural means. Well, they're trying to do that. through like paranormal or supernatural means. They wouldn't view it as supernatural. They would kind of think that this is just maybe a sixth sense or just part of nature that most people haven't tapped into, but the witches are in the know. With them, they deny absolute truth, most witches say, what's true for me is true for me, doesn't have to be true for you and vice versa. So, they deny absolute truth. So, they might say to you, well, Jesus might be God for you, but He's not God for me. He might be Savior for you, but He's not Savior for me. So, they deny absolute truth, and then they also deny absolute morality. Okay? What's right for you is right for you. It doesn't have to be right for me and vice versa. Okay? And they think they're very tolerant by doing that. We're going to see that no human beings can live consistently with those two denials. The denial of absolute truth and the denial of absolute morality. But that will come when we refute it. It's tough to pin them down on what their worldview is. Some of them are pantheists. they believe that only one being exists and that one being is God so God is everything from the two greek words pan for everything and theos for God pantheism God is everything so some of them believe God is everything and since man is is part of uh... the universe man is God uh... some of them are polytheist and they actually believe in many gods most which is at least in the west are probably not polytheists. They probably don't believe in many gods, but they probably believe that what some mistake for gods are just manifestations of the one non-personal force god. Okay? So they're probably pantheistic, most of them, but there probably are some who take the gods literally and believe there are literally a multitude of gods. Some are panentheists. And that means everything in God. So they view the physical world as God's body and the soul, God is the soul of the world and the world is his body. Okay? So everything exists in God rather than God being the universe. So when you look at this, a good theologian will tell you when you look at this and you see that If somebody says they're Wiccan, they haven't told you hardly anything, because it's so decentralized. What does that mean? Is this Wiccan a Pantheist, a Polytheist, or a Panentheist? And so theologians have had a really tough, tough time trying to answer the question, which witch is which? Okay. For those who didn't know, that was a joke. Okay, but whatever the case, they come from all different worldviews there. Write that down, Nathan. But they come from all different worldviews. Now, it's popular for them to worship the mother goddess and her companion, which they call the horned god, okay? The mother goddess could be anything. Could be the moon, the earth, the sea, the life force, or energy of nature. They sometimes refer to the mother goddess as Gaia, Diana, Artemis, which is another name for Diana, Lilith, Sophia, Isis, Sybil, Venus, Kali, Luna, Aphrodite, Astaroth. That's the female goddess. And then there's the horned god, which is represented by the sun, the woods, the hunt. uh... animals often referred to as Osiris, Pan, Thor, Woden, Amon Ra, Dionysius, Apollo supposedly he dies and is reborn every nature so there's a big emphasis on the seasons that in the winter everything the vegetation dies and then it's rebirth and comes back to life in the spring and the summer and uh... and their feast days are all focused on that often they will talk about five elements uh... and five elements of nature and that you try to derive powers from them, fire, earth, wind, water, sky, and this might be, you know, some of the elemental principles that God's Word speaks against people looking to those elemental principles. for power. But Wiccans basically, they either worship nature or at least believe they derive power from nature. Okay? So again, they're not Satanist, but they are in the world of the occult, which is demonic. So at best, you can say they indirectly serve Satan's kingdom without being fully aware of who's behind the deception that they've fallen for. They're very eclectic. They borrow and mix beliefs from different pagan religions, such as astrology. Ancient astrology, ancient man used to worship the stars. More medieval and contemporary astrology, instead of worshipping the stars, we acknowledge that the stars are inanimate objects, but modern astrology says that the stars control our destinies, okay? And so you'll even have Christians looking at their horoscopes. in the newspapers and stuff. He's like, hey, you gotta stay away from that stuff. It's not a game. It's demonic. And obviously, the stars do not control our destinies. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob does. Okay? You know, He works all things for the good of those who love Him, those who are called according to His purpose, Romans 8, 28. Divination, whether it could be fortune-telling, tarot cards, could be, you know, palm reading, whatever, they're trying to receive information from the spiritual realm and uh... information you could not learn through the five senses uh... they're into magic sorcery uh... uh... some are into spiritism and uh... and channeling spiritism with you know the old seances where you tried to contact the spirits of dead relatives and then I believe that if you really make contact it's with demons, fallen angels, impersonating your deceased loved ones. Channeling is more contemporary form of that, where you allow yourself, voluntarily allow yourself to be possessed by a demonic entity that speaks through you. Well, you know, wiccans pretty much it's almost like with the exception of a few horrific satanic rituals other than that they haven't met an occultic practice they haven't heard of an occultic practice they didn't like so they're very eclectic they're more than willing to borrow different uh... different occultic and demonic practices from uh... from different uh... groups of occultists uh... so hence they're often called neo-pagans Only in general are there beliefs. a lot like ancient Wiccans or Druids. Most of them are kind of more newer touches put on ancient pagan beliefs. Wiccans may believe the gods are either symbolic or real. If they believe they're symbolic, then they're probably either pantheist or panentheist. In fact, there's even been some Wiccans who are theists, who believe there is a personal god out there, but it's not the personal god of Christianity. But more than that, more likely they would be pantheists, polytheists, or panentheists. They perform magical spells and incantations. You know, that's why there's a perversion of biblical Christianity that's getting very close to Wicca. And you got guys out there on television with tens of thousands of people coming to their church services, and they've learned their magical incantations. They demand things in Jesus' name. Take totally out of context what that means. It just means praying in accordance with Jesus' will. so that you have his authority. Well, these guys, they're building their own kingdoms. They want to get rich. They want to get healthy, wealthy, and prosperous. And they turn the Holy Spirit into a formula, a non-personal force. And so, but those are the kinds of incantations that we should stay away from. Most witches believe in reincarnation, that you'll have a a tremendous amount of different lives. After you die, your soul will be reincarnated in another body and you'll go on and on until eventually you unite with the world soul. Most witches in the West that I've talked to And I haven't talked to enough to where I could say that this really represents the entire Wiccan movement, but most of the ones that I've talked to are more into reincarnation, just being among humans. So in other words, maybe other animals reincarnate, but a dog probably comes back as a dog, but they're not big on like Hindu reincarnation where you might come back as a slug or you might come back as a rabbit and all. So I don't know if that's representative of the whole movement or not, but they do believe in reincarnation. They observe seasonal holidays and festivals, the summer solstice in late June, The winter solstice in late December, the shortest day of the year. Halloween is real big to witches as it is to Satanists. It's one of their highest holy days. And that's why there's so much of an emphasis on occultism in Halloween today. But they really consider that one of their great day of victory for them. Again, as I mentioned earlier, witch or wiccan refer to both genders. Warlock is obsolete, so you don't have male witches called warlocks anymore, okay? And then, witches claim that they only practice white magic, black magic is not acknowledged. Now, let me say this. These guys deny moral absolutes. They say there's no such thing as right and wrong. but it's wrong to accuse them of black magic because they don't do black magic because black magic is wrong. okay so for people who don't believe in moral absolutes they sure act like there's moral absolutes they sure do act like there are certain things that are absolutely right and there are things that are absolutely wrong and they think they're absolutely right and so they won't partake in uh... in black magic and uh... and harm try to harm other people so you can see here where they say there are no absolutes but they don't act that way okay we have to understand that that when people deny the Christian worldview, they still have to live in the same universe we live in, God's universe. See, there's no, this is not the price is right or let's make a deal where there's another door, another universe and all. This is the only real universe there is, is the one that the God of the Bible created. So they can deny things like absolute truth and absolute morality, but their actions speak louder than their words. They live like Christianity is true. This is what Cornelius Van Til, a great Christian apologist, referred to as living on borrowed capital. from the Christian worldview. Because the atheist bank account is empty. There's nothing there. And so just to live in this world, they have to borrow capital from Christianity. Radical feminism is often promoted in Wiccan circles. There's a big opposition to patriarchy. In fact, Wicca has almost completely taken over the feminist movement. I would not say most feminists are Wiccan, but I would say most radical feminists are at least very fond of Wicca and Wiccan beliefs. But they're opposed to patriarchy. They'll often say that the reason why we've had so many wars and so much mayhem in the history of mankind is because men have been in charge. And if women would just be in charge, we would have a state of paradise. And the Christian response to that is, look, if Jesus is in charge, We will have a period of peace and righteousness until Jesus comes back. It's gonna be a mess whether we're led by males or females and Many witches are feminist and and lesbians. I'm not saying I'm not saying if a female is a Wiccan, and by the way most Wiccans, a high percentage of Wiccans, about 70% are female. But I'm not saying because someone's a female Wiccan they're automatically a lesbian, but there's a higher percentage of female Wiccans that would be lesbians than the general population of females would have. Some of today's leading witches, Mary Daly, she's a former nun and a theology professor at the Catholic School, Boston College. I think she has tenure so they can't fire her. So she's a former nun, she's a lesbian, a radical feminist, and an eco-wiccan, which means she's really big on saving the planet and doesn't want to see Americans driving around in cars and having electricity, things were destroying the earth. So a lot of her ideas are very socialistic, if not communistic. There's Caitlin Matthews, a priestess of the Fellowship of Isis, the ancient Egyptian goddess. There's Miriam Starhawk, a leading proponent of goddess worship, a Wiccan priestess and licensed minister of the Covenant of the Goddess. She teaches at Matthew Fox's Institute in Oakland, California. Matthew Fox was a Catholic priest and he was very new age in his thought, so the Catholic Church had enough traditional Christianity and enough biblical basis, at least, to realize that guy's gotta go. So they kicked him out. And then the Episcopalians, probably the Protestant branch, the closest to the Roman Catholics in a lot of thought, but But they were more than willing to accept him as a priest. And so when he has his masses, you get tribal, occultic peoples, witches, all kinds of demonic things in his cosmic masses. and Mary M. Starhawk takes part in that. There's Virginia Mollenkopf. She's a feminist who claims to be an evangelical, claims to be a Bible-believing Christian, and she's not technically a witch, yet she does worship Sophia and promotes Wiccan ideas. But she claims to be an evangelical. I'm telling you, The evangelical movement is hurting. If I had two hours to just sit down with you and just tell you about some of the problems we're having in the evangelical church, I mean, we got guys taking gospel miracles now. some of our favorite apologists, taking gospel miracles and saying, no, that's just poetry. When Jesus was crucified, the saints didn't really rise from the dead. When Jesus called himself the I Am, the soldiers didn't really fall on their backs. Jesus wasn't really crucified on Passover. John just said that, took poetic license. And one guy, he died now, but he claimed to be an evangelical and said, Peter never walked on water. Matthew was just trying to teach us a lesson there. about keeping our eyes on Jesus, and that has nothing more to it. You've got guys who claim to be evangelicals who are now denying eternal conscious torment, and saying that God just annihilates the wicked, basically. You've got guys who claim to be evangelicals who say that God does not infallibly foreknow future free choices. So if you chose to stay home and said, OK, the Super Bowl doesn't start until 3.30, but I'm just going to hang out in my pajamas the whole day. This is Super Bowl Sunday. I'm not going to go to church. That God didn't infallibly foreknow that. He knows your character, so he might have been able to take a really good educated guess, but that's all prophecies are. He doesn't infallibly know the future. There are guys who call themselves evangelicals. So, that's why I'll be going to North Carolina, so expensive to go and present papers at these meetings, arguing that I don't even know what evangelicalism means anymore. supposed to be Bible-believing Christians. We don't even know what it means anymore. But you get people like this, like Virginia Mollingcott, worshiping the goddess Sophia, and she claims to be a Bible-believing Christian, and there's probably some evangelicals who say, well, I disagree with her, but yeah, she's one of us. Yeah, look, let me tell you, she ain't one of us. That's bad English, but that's good theology. She ain't one of us, okay? And then, uh, Lori Cabot, the official witch of Salem in Massachusetts, and, um, And so, but Wittgen's view, traditional Christianity is intolerant and detrimental to society. They really focus on the Salem witch trials. If you listen to them, you would think that, you know, two million witches were killed during that time period. In reality, I think there's only been 24 confirmed deaths from it, so it's not quite as widespread. You know, people in the name of Christianity have done some pretty weird things and some pretty bad things, but when you compare it with any other worldview, Boy, am I glad I'm a Christian. The atheistic communism slaughtered over 100 million people in the 20th century alone during peacetime. That's not counting wars. Neopagan Nazism. The Nazis' views were very similar to Wiccan beliefs in a lot of areas. And they killed, what, 20, 30 million. And they were only around a small amount of time. Had they been around longer, the numbers would have been higher. But they'll also blow out of proportion the number of so-called witches that were killed in about three or four centuries in medieval times by the Roman Catholic Church. My first response to that, like Dan Brown's book said, over five million females. were killed during like a 300-year period of time by Christians. He doesn't draw a distinction between Roman Catholic and Protestants. He acts like he's never heard of the Protestant Reformation. But Dan Brown in his book, The Da Vinci Code, says over 5 million. Now, when they made a movie out of it, Ronnie Howard was smart enough to drop the number down to about 150,000. But that's still too high. It's probably somewhere between 20,000 and 80,000 male and females. not five million females. If it wasn't five million females, since most of us can trace our roots to Europe, half of us wouldn't even be here. Okay, when you look at the population statistics back then, that would be, I mean, you'd have, the population would not be what it is today. And so they blow these things way, way out of proportion and act like they're the tolerant ones or the Wiccans and we evil Christians are killing them left and right. I mean, this kind of propaganda is getting so big that I saw on Facebook two homosexual males holding signs that said, uh, Muslims, it said something like Muslims and, uh, gays and Muslims united for peace. Okay? So, but they've heard all this anti-Christian intolerance. It's been a long time since anybody professing christian faith that i know of in the name of christ ever executed a homosexual in the old testament the jews god ordered them to execute homosexuals uh... but the fact of the matter is that's the name of the game in islamic countries To this day, they're executing homosexuals. So it's like, I kind of felt sorry for the two guys. I said, boy, if this union ever takes place, these guys are going to be dead in a heartbeat. But this idea that Christianity is so intolerant and Islam is a religion of peace, what in the world are our leaders smoking? This is Isaiah 520. What are those who call evil good and good evil? There's only one solution to the predicament that man is in and its consequences. And last I heard, his name is still Jesus. Okay? But everybody's out there selling everybody a bill of goods. And they say, oh, Christianity's intolerant. Let me tell you, Barbara Marx Hubbard, she worked for the Jimmy Carter administration. Her views are very much like the Wiccans. She's a leading New Age author. And she calls for the extermination of one out of every four people on the planet Earth. Because they do not believe that man is God and they're not open to it because they believe there's a God and you're not him. So she's talking about exterminating every traditional Christian, traditional Muslim, and traditional Jew. And she's smart enough, by the way, to know that not everybody who claims to be a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew really holds to their traditional beliefs. But the ones that do, she wants them out of the way. Now, if that's tolerance, okay, you know, then I'd be begging for intolerance. But they consider traditional Christianity intolerant and detrimental to society. They promote sexual freedom, you know, probably not opposed to polygamy, definitely not opposed to the homosexual lifestyle. They promote the new morality and worship of the earth. And then they have the Wiccan Reed, the rule that they live by. They say there's no absolutes, but they've got this absolute rule that they live by, that ye harm none, do what ye will. Well, they sure treat that like like an absolute. By the way, I don't think that's a bad principle when you apply it to government. Because I don't think it's government's job to deify itself and become an all-seeing power and it's supposed to punish us for every little tiny sin. I don't want to see teenagers go into prison because they lied about their homework and said that the dog ate it or whatever, okay? It's not the government's job to punish every sin. And so, I mean, the Founding Fathers, their view of liberty was like, yeah, as long as you're not infringing on anybody else's rights, you've got the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. But that's one thing to say, what should the government, what did God institute the government to do, which has a very limited role, versus what is a sin in the eyes of God? Okay? And I will argue with anybody that there are some times when we commit a sin and nobody else is hurt. by it, and deep down inside, if we have any conscience left, some of us are a little laid off Hitlers, we've quenched the voice of our conscience so we don't hear it anymore, we've stifled it, but if we've got any conscience left, even if you sin, in secret, and no one else is watching, and no one else is hurt, you still feel guilty. And it seems to me that persons are more important than rules. God gives us rules to protect persons. Persons are more important than rules. So if you break a rule and you didn't hurt any per—you don't think you hurt any persons? If you feel guilty, it's because you hurt at least one person, I would argue you hurt three persons. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He rebelled against them. So whatever the case, it sounds really nice, but if they actually follow it, they might be a decent citizen, although that's questionable, but certainly they're not going to be pleasing in the eyes of the all-holy, totally just God. There's five major witchcraft groups. You can look at that when you get a chance. Circle Inc., Covenant of the Goddess, Feminist Wicca, which is nationwide, Gardnerian Wicca. Gerald Gardner was one of the forerunners of the modern witchcraft movement, based out of Long Island, New York, and Saxon witchcraft, based out of Charlottesville, Virginia. Still, even with these big organizations, most covens are independent and operate in secret. In fact, you know, right now, as we speak, there are probably covens of teenagers that are meeting because of some role-playing game or some video game or computer game that they were on that they learned about the occult, got interested, and then started reading more stuff. And so most covens are self-styled. Okay? And... Now, many covens have gone the route of receiving the tax-exempt status so they can receive donations and give people a tax exemption for it. And we now have Wiccan chaplains in the United States military as well. A lot of the evangelical chaplains tell me about how difficult it is to preach the Word of God, because if you're going to have Bible studies for Christians, you have to also leave the chapel facilities open for Wiccans to have studies, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Even Satanists, if there's some Satanists, believe me, the military doesn't have, our government doesn't have the moral fiber anymore to say, no, no Satanists allowed. And so I asked evangelical chaplains what they do, and they said, well, we just have our Bible study. I just, nobody says I have to announce that or put it in writing that these other groups can meet. But if the other groups do want to meet, there's no way that I have no power to stop them. And pray for I know a friend. Just pray for chaplain, Evangelical chaplains in the military. This has been going on for decades. Even my records, just as a corporal in the Marine Corps, the CO's remarks were very religious, comma, still manages to do a good job. I received a lot of persecution for my faith, though most officers respected me for my faith, but it only takes one or two at each duty station to make your life miserable. But there are chaplains, constantly evangelical chaplains being passed over for promotion. There have been lawsuits against the United States Navy and the United States government. There have been chaplains who have been retired early with a full retirement. and told not to tell anybody about what's going on. But believe me, in the court of law it has been proven time and time again that the United States government and the United States military does not like evangelical Christianity. Now keep in mind, I did not say they don't like Christianity. There are all kinds of phony baloney belief systems that claim to be Christian, but even atheists like Christopher Hitchens acknowledges that if you don't believe that Jesus is Christ and Savior and that He died on the cross for your sins and rose from the dead and He's the only way to be saved, even atheists like Christopher Hitchens before he died said there's no way you can meaningfully, in a meaningful way, call yourself a Christian if you don't believe that. So even the atheists know that the church down the block that doesn't really preach the true Jesus of the Bible anymore, even the atheists know they're pretenders. They're not true believers. So let's take a look at a really quick refutation of Wiccan beliefs and practices. The denial of absolute truth is self-refuting. See, when you make the statement there is no absolute truth, you're making an absolute truth claim. Okay? There is no absolute truth. Ask them, is that true? If it's not, I'm just going to ignore you. But if you say that it's true, it can't be true because it's self-refuting. The denial of absolute morality is not livable. You see, they say things like, it's wrong to call my actions wrong because there's no such thing as wrong. Well, if there's no such thing as wrong, Christians are never wrong. Leave us alone. Okay? They condemn the Salem witch trials as wrong and as evil, yet they want to say there's no such thing as wrong. So, again, you know, see, as a Christian, I can call things like the Holocaust evil. If I were a Wiccan, I wouldn't be able to call it evil. And believe me, with all the power that governments have, with all the military hardware that they have right now, and with all the advanced technology to spy on humans, this is not the time to say there's no such thing as right and wrong. If there's ever a time we need to condemn the evil actions of our government leaders, now is the time. Their hyper-environmentalism where they worship the earth actually hurts the environment. I'll just give you an example. Forest fires, let's say every one of these square tiles on the floor represents an acre worth of trees. And so these are just hundreds of acres of trees throughout this whole floor here. Let's say that's Washington State or Alaska or Oregon, okay? And... When we allowed a lot of logging, loggers were not idiots. They would say, well, my son's probably going to get my company after me, and then his son after him. So whenever I cut down trees, I'm going to plant new trees there. But what you had, a lot of these tiles don't have trees anymore when the logging community's gone, OK? So when there'd be forest fires, major forest fires, eventually it would run out of fuel because it would come to a tile that doesn't have any trees. now with the environmental movement uh... attacking the the uh... uh... the lumber industry uh... you don't have any of these tiles anymore these fires never run out of fuel they just keep spreading and spreading and spreading because there's more and more wood to be burned okay so it's actually doing more damage this is why God gave man dominion over the earth something that uh... Wiccans loathe, but God gave man dominion over the earth. We're to be faithful stewards. We're not to worship the earth. We worship the earth. We're going to destroy this planet and ourselves in the process and then go to hell, really. But if we consider the earth a gift to us from God and are faithful stewards of it, that is the way. The exercise of dominion God has given us, that is the effective way to do it, and that's what's best for the environment. So don't worship the earth, be faithful stewards. Then the intolerance of the new tolerance. See, traditional tolerance was freedom of religion and freedom of speech. You tolerated people who disagree with you so long as they don't break any laws and infringe on other people's rights. Okay? That's freedom of religion, freedom of speech, that's traditional tolerance. The new tolerance says this, all beliefs are equally true and all behavior is equally wholesome. Oh, by the way, if you disagree with us, we can't tolerate you. We want to take away your businesses, we want to fine you, eventually we're going to imprison you, and then maybe even execute you. Okay? I'm telling you, by the way, this is not the time to scream that our government has the right to torture prisoners. Okay? If you realize how anti-Christian our government is, okay, that might not be a Muslim guy naked and being tortured in his cell. That might be a Christian guy ten years from now. Okay? And I at least want the right to say, if we send our young men and women to a foreign country and they get taken prisoner, I want the right to say, we don't torture our prisoners, you don't have the right to torture them either. But I'm telling you, our government is so intolerant towards Christianity that we have got to understand that they don't tolerate us. any longer. The failure of the Wiccan worldviews, whether it's pantheism, polytheism, or panentheism, only theism, belief in a personal God, adequately explains reality, the origin of the universe, the validity of human reason, that our thinking ability works because we were created in the image of a rational God, morality, design in the universe, meaning in life, even human rights. If any other worldview other than the belief in a personal God who created us in His image so that human life is of value, is of infinite value, Unless we hold to theism there, and especially Christian theism, there is no basis for human rights. And then modern Wiccans, they claim to be ancient pagans, but in reality they're neo-pagans. It's not the old craft. It's a newer Americanized belief system. The biblical refutation, Genesis 1.1 says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God is distinct from his creation. We're told God doesn't change, but the world changes, Hebrews 1.10-12. We're told there's only one God, Isaiah 46.9, 1 Timothy 2.5. So there is one eternal, unchanging God who created everything else that exists. We looked at Deuteronomy 18, 9 to 12, and Deuteronomy 29, verse 29. Look also at Isaiah chapter 8. Isaiah 8, verse 19. God says this, and when they say to you, seek those who are mediums and wizards who whisper and mutter, should not a people seek their God, should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? So, basically, God's Word says, look, if you got something, some problem or some question that you can't find the answer to, a problem you can't solve, go to God. And if God doesn't give you an answer and doesn't solve the problem, just be content with His will. But don't attempt to try to contact the spirits of the dead. Don't contact witches or mediums. It's only going to lead to demonic deception. Romans 1. 18 to 25, this is where Wicca came from, and every belief system outside of true biblical Christianity. Romans 1, 18 through 25, Paul says this, against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful. but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, and the lust of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. You see, God, the invisible God, has revealed His existence and His power to us through the visible creation, that which He has created. But if we are ungrateful and we reject that, and we suppress that truth, and then we profess to be wise and we speculate, the end result is not going to be atheism. That's just a halfway house between Christianity and paganism. The end result is going to be paganism. I'll go on record saying, if I understand Paul correctly, if you refuse to worship the Creator, you will worship the creation. All these guys think they're real smart. What did Richard Dawkins do when Ben Stein put him on the ropes and the movie expelled? He said, uh, maybe aliens did it. Okay? So that's going to be the next stage of atheistic evolution. To rescue atheistic evolution from the facts is going to say maybe aliens did it. I used to say evolution needs God, but God doesn't need evolution. For evolution to work, you have the superseding, the miraculous superseding of so many scientific laws, God would have to exist in order to make evolution work. But once you acknowledge that God exists, he didn't have to use evolution. He could have created the world in six literal days if he chose to do so. It's the same with aliens. Now I've got to update my argument. Aliens need God, but God doesn't need aliens. If aliens exist, they still need God to create them. But if God exists, he could have just chosen to create this big, vast universe, which is what I believe the Bible says. He just created this big, vast universe, and the only place where you have sexual beings that reproduce, intelligent sexual beings that reproduce, is right here on the planet Earth. But whatever the case, professing to be wise, they become fools. Galatians 5, 19-21, certain sins that people willfully, habitually commit them, they shall never inherit the kingdom of God. Sorcery is one of them. By the way, we get our word pharmakia from it. I mean, it's from the Greek word pharmakia, we get our word pharmacy from it. And so drug abuse was all part of the occult. It's only in modern times that we separate drug abuse from the world of the occult. Revelation 9, 21, 21-8, 22-15 say those outside the New Jerusalem, those in outer darkness, It puts in that category the sorcerers and those engaged in the world of the occult. Our king is still on the throne.