This has gone way too far. Stores hadn’t even taken down all the demonic Halloween paraphernalia when I spotted the above display. I wasn’t surprised at the unseemly jump-start on the commercialization of Christmas. But connecting witchcraft to Christmas? That’s outrageous, blasphemous, and an apocalyptic commentary on our times. Christmas should be about Christ. Harry Potter is about witchcraft. The same Bible that heralds the birth of Christ also condemns witchcraft as an evil abomination (repugnant, disgraceful, abhorrent, outrageous, monstrous): “Let no one be found among you . . . who engages in witchcraft. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord” (Deuteronomy 18:9-13). How has such a spiritual contradiction overcome our culture?
It’s been a long time coming. The old frog-in-the-boiling-water thing. Turn up the heat gradually enough and the frog won’t know he’s burning to death. Movies, TV, entertainment, Hollywood, and pop culture long ago declared war on Christianity. But it took the wizard of Hogwarts to finally desensitize all but the most stalwart Christians. November 15, 2005 –14 YEARS AGO—a writer in the supposedly evangelical journal “Christianity Today” wrote, “In the last five years, I’ve noticed a gradual attitude shift toward Harry Potter among Christians. Though many still condemn the series they seem to be diminishing in number even as others write in praise of it.” REMEMBER, that was 14 years ago. It’s a thousand times worse now! (Click here to read my recent blog “Harry Potter Banned.”)
As a deliverance minister with 40+ years of documented spiritual warfare experience, I’ve performed more exorcisms than any living person. The majority of Christians I minister to have practiced yoga, explored Eastern religions, used tarot cards, played with Ouija boards, have seen psychics, and followed astrology. Many Christians have been co-opted by the lies of the New Age and spiritualism. Interest in occult-sourced enneagrams is exploding. Mindful meditation has crept into evangelical prayer circles. Some respected ministries are telling Christians that they SHOULD see into the spirit world and behold angels and demons with regularity. Forty years ago, when I began deliverance, less than 5% of those coming to me for help would have had this much spiritual garbage in their lives. Today, well-meaning but biblically illiterate victims by the millions are frequently caught in this web of deceit and bondage.
More than 90% of the people who objectively manifest demons in my presence are demonically bound because of the witchcraft practiced by their ancestors. Most suffering souls who seek deliverance from our ministry have had demons passed on to them at birth because their forebears were sorcerers like Harry. I say with complete certitude that anything and everything to do with Harry Potter, witchcraft, and the New Age was hatched in Hell and is antithetical to all that Christianity stands for. It’s 100% evil, worthy of the most severe biblical condemnation. There can be no accommodation with ANYTHING that reeks of witchcraft, literal or fantastical. Let’s keep Christ in Christmas and Harry Potter in hell, where he belongs.
An encouraging word: GOD’S WORD IS TRUE.
The testimony of the Lord is sure, says the King James Version (Psalm 19:7). The NIV puts it: The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy. Either way, the emphasis is on the certainty of what God says. Remember, Satan’s first deception in the Garden was to question God’s veracity with the doubtful question, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from the tree in the garden’?” That tactic has never changed: get mankind to disobey God’s law by planting doubt about the truthfulness of God’s Word. When you are tempted to sin or cut moral corners, don’t forget the first temptation of Eve, and be convinced that what God says He really means.
