by R.E. Strange – Oct.13, 2000
An Observation: The sorcerer’s art is alive and well in religious circles. It is so subtle as to be undetected by the unsuspecting. We must be ever vigilant in not surrendering for one moment our minds to the workers of the black art, lest we be so seduced into an eternal sleep of death. We are in great need of a rebirth of the power of discernment rooted in the pure and unadulterated Word of God.
Revelation 9:21, “Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.”
II Timothy 2:18, “Who concerning the truth have erred, saying . . . and overthrow the faith of some.”
I shall, by the help of the Spirit, connect the word “sorceries” of Revelation 9:21 to the word “saying”in II Timothy 2:18.
Treachery of false doctrine has been among us blowing as a mighty gale for a long time. These winds are now blowing stronger than ever overturning the faith of many causing them to perish as a battered seaman deep within the brine of everlasting hopelessness and destruction. Let all take warning. There are none exempt from danger inherent in all false doctrine. The very least of false doctrine is as leaven that will grow until it corrupts the whole, given enough time.
Preachers of righteousness that claim to have the true revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ should recognize the truths in God’s word; for it is the revelation of Jesus that illuminates the whole house giving light to the Word of God. If the Word is not so illuminating, we must look to the source of the light or we must look for the cause of the hindrance to such illumination.
You will notice in Rev. 9:21, there are four evils spoken of that are named from the second table of the decalog (Exodus 20:2-17) that men actively commit from an evil heart, which we are commanded not to do. They are namely: not to kill, commit adultery, not to steal and to not bear a false witness. They are all named in this passage of Revelation except for the ninth commandment, which is there replaced by the word “sorceries.” It should be known that in the spiritual sense, bearing false witness is sorcery as it is the purpose of the practitioner of sorcery to stealthily subvert by the power of persuasion, another’s opinion, faith, focus, the mind or delude from reality.
How does a sorcerer work his charm? He works his charm by the power of speech, or his “saying,” noting particularly the word in II Tim. 2:18. The word “Sorceries” has a Latin root, “sermo” from which we get our English word “sermon.” In the Greek it is “pharmekia” from which comes the word “pharmacy or “medication” which was used in olden times to relieve the mind of suffering and reality.
Sermons can be used for good purposes, such as to bring the message of salvation to the lost. Of course, medication can be used for good purposes including evil as well. However, here in Revelation 9:21 sorceries was a matter which had not been repented of. There had been a great need of repentance from all of these mentioned evils including that of the evil “sermo” or evil medication of sermons. It is sorcery. In this sense, this “sermon” or “medication” is used to seduce the minds of men from reality by means of speech or oratory. All sorcerers use the power of persuasion through speech to seduce the minds of men from the presence of reality. To deceive another in the spiritual sense is to bear a false witness. It is sorcery. It is witchcraft.
Paul asked the Galatians, “Oh foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?” You can be sure that it was no coven of witches that came into their midst, mixed up a witches brew and worked some hocus pocus on them casting them into a spell. It was instead by those, who probably had good intentions as they perceived it, worked their witchcraft with the power of speech in their sayings, their oratory, their preaching, that had the effect of causing them to depart from the truth.
Here is an example of how it is done: The worker of this art must first keep the mind of his listener intently upon what he is saying by his words. By various inspirations that appeal to the affections of another, the hearer eventually becomes unable to think from reality. His mind becomes so focused upon the soothing, persuasive voice of the seducer, that he voluntarily surrenders his own mind and objectivity, being seduced from reality. By so detaining the mind from objectivity and reality, a persuasion is so much infused into the victim that is contrary to reality. In the end, it becomes reality to the listener. Thus, the listener is stealthily seduced from truth and holding to what is false or unreal. The hearer is subverted as the sorcerer bears a false witness by his sayings.
The spiritual realm of the mind of the sorcerer’s victim is thus by these means infused with the spiritual fascination of the sorcerer. He is now medicated or seduced by the power of the “word.” In this same chapter of Revelation verse five, the power of this persuasion is the sting of the scorpion upon its victim. “. . . and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.” The medication received from the sorcerer/scorpion has a deadly affect, in the spiritual sense, upon their victims.
Let me underscore what I am saying by pointing out a glaring example that Apostolic people will instantly recognize. Let us hear a good man that has good intentions and probably has a burden for the lost and a desire to see people brought to the salvation knowledge of Jesus as he preaches to sinners. Hear him:
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, for God the Father, sent his only begotten Son to die for you. The Son having made satisfaction in the eyes of his Father went back to heaven from where he came. Afterwards, the Father and the Son sent back the Holy Spirit. For God eternally exists in three coequal persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.”
Every Apostolic would instantly see the error in this saying since the error is so glaring. However, where does that come from anyway? They got it from the Word of God, of course. All false teachings in Christianity are derived from the Word perverted.
Did the Holy Ghost open up this intent of the Word to that preacher? No. The speaker has first been seduced by a sorcerer himself, thus taking on the same spirit. The sinner does not know the difference. Hence the saying of Jesus in Matthew 23:15, “. . . for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.” Believing that he is saved, the poor sinner is seduced by the sorcerer, becoming a victim of his sting. The sorcerer has in this case, born a false witness against his neighbor. He has broken the ninth commandment in the spiritual sense, causing greater harm and peril on the sinner than he was in before the advent of the sorcerer.
The threat that the devil fears the most is that of a body of people to come into the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ as given to Apostle John on the isle of Patmos to the church and to individuals. The devil would have our attentions focused and held to many made up human precepts while the true reality of God’s Word is something else beyond their own carnal imaginations. While our minds are so captivated by those things that he has drawn us to, he is stealthily working to seduce us from the truths that we have received and further, to keep us from coming into truths that God is presently opening to us in these, the last days. All truth is a threat to the devil when it is believed and acted upon. Therefore, it is his evil purpose to keep us from those truths.
Many preachers of the Word look into The Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ and see a big computer in Belgium and see the Antichrist, computers and computer chips and see the mark of the beast. They see the bottom of the Euphrates River dried up by a dam in Turkey so that the Chinese Army can come invade Israel. They see Israel returning to animal sacrifices in a seven-year tribulation by which they are saved. They see an army coming from Russia riding on horse back in a river of blood in the plains of Megido reaching up to the horse’s bridle and see the battle of Armageddon. Still others see the book of Revelation as a thing of the past, calling themselves “Preterist,” calling these many precepts the Word of God.
For many years Apostolic preachers have kept our attentions focused upon natural Israel and all of these things. Where and from what source could they have been so seduced? One might protest, “I got what I preach in my prayer closet, also in fasting while seeking God for illumination of those things.” Then I would not be presumptions in saying that C.I. Schofield, Clarence Larkin, Hal Lindsay, Jack VanImpe, Tim LaHaye and others got it the same way. I would say that the sting of the scorpion has claimed many victims. The devil desires above all things to subvert the truth in the Word and supplant it with helicopters, dried up riverbeds, Nero was the Anti-Christ, Matt. 24 was fulfilled by Titus and such like. He desperately must keep our attentions upon those things through his sorcerers lest our eyes are opened and we truly behold “The Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
I remember as a child the great anxiety we sensed when Israel became a nation. Many preachers, focusing our minds upon Israel becoming a nation, told us that the Lord’s return could be any moment after the United Nations approved their charter, establishing Israel as a nation.
In June of 1967, I heard one preacher say, “If those Jews cut the barbed wire that separate old Jerusalem from the new, I will never preach another sermon. It is all over for the church. There will never be another soul saved.”
It was in June during Youth Camp in the Texas District that the Jews overran the other half of Jerusalem. The District Superintendent of that time, later told me, “We had to call the parents of many of those young people to come get them, as they were mentally breaking down.” Pandemonium struck many of the Youth Camps and even in the Camp Meetings. People sold homes and all possessions preparing for the rapture. They had been seduced, medicated, subverted by the sting of the scorpion, the black art of the sorcerer.
In the latter decade of the eighties a book appeared on the market, “Eighty-eight Reasons Why the Rapture in 1988.” Anxiety swept through Apostolic circles like a bad summer cold. There were some that sold their homes and possession at that time. They were deceiving and being deceived. The Y2K scare was another deception for many since they saw something in the scriptures to believe that it was a cause for concern. I know Apostolic Churches here in the Texas District that put on Y2K seminars, creating great anxiety in the hearts of those to whom Jesus said, “Peace give I unto you, not as the world give I, but my peace. Let not your hears be troubled, neither be afraid.” Except there be divine intervention, the cycle of seduction of the “sermo” or “pharmekiah” from the devil’s potion of witches brew, will continually build in ever increasing volume of heresies that will destroy the work of God in many Apostolic ranks.
The sorcerers have seduced most to look intently at natural Israel without spiritual light, drawing their attentions to a supposedly rebuilt temple, finding the ashes of a red heifer, armies on horse back from Russia, etceteras. This is done so much that the true Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ has been aborted with the subsequent destruction of the purpose and will of God among them. They have been stealthily seduced from seeing the light of God’s truth shining upon His divine Word in His Holy House. The devil knows that once the Light of the Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ (Rev. 1:1) shines in the house upon the Word, his days are over. He is dedicated to subvert the Word by whatever means.
The business of the devil is to keep our minds sidetracked from the truth of the Revelation of Jesus and medicated with the medication of his sorceries, leading us away from the reality. It is a diversion as a drug that desensitizes the spiritual mind from true reality. The Word of God then becomes a mystery having our minds darkened by the delusion of artful sorcery.
It is the purpose of the enemy of our souls to stop the growth to maturity of the Sons of God. He sees what is just ahead for him and his kingdom of darkness. He is using good men, whom we all love, that brought us the basic Apostolic truth of repentance and faith toward God. Paul asked the Galatians saying “who hath bewitched you…? Who was it that caused them to not continue running well? We all get a good start. But who has seduced us to believe a lie? Who has medicated our minds so much to cause us to become stunted in our growth and subvert the power of the Kingdom of God. Destruction of the old is upon us, up out of which is going to arise “a tent which God hath pitched, and not man.”
Rev. 18:23, And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.
24 And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
Deception comes by the black art of the practicing sorcerer. How many souls are being deluded by their enchantments this night throughout the Apostolic church World? Many enchantments by which the churches are being stealthily seduced away from the simplicity which is in Christ are being perpetrated by these practitioners of deception.
The book of Revelation in its entirety was written to, written for and written about the true Apostolic Church in which Jesus is unveiled, seen walking among them as their light. (See Rev. 1:11-16). The seven churches to whom the revelation was written were the microcosm of the whole Apostolic Church of all generations. The book was never written to, for, nor was it written about the Roman Catholic Church. What we see in chapters 17 and 18 of Revelation is a picture of a true Apostolic church in its last state of apostasy who failed to repent as Jesus admonished them, time after time, in his message to her as seen in Rev. chapters two and three.
Some may say, “I do not intentionally bear a false witness of the Word of God. If I knew it, I would not do it.” In that case, I would say that you should not be preaching anything that you have not received from heaven. If you are preaching something that you have not received as fresh manna from the hot ovens of heaven, you are only preaching a hearsay that is not admissible as evidence. It is only a tradition that has the effect of destroying those that would otherwise hear the Word and believe it unto salvation or further maturity in Christ’s Word and work.
What a sad state of affairs that the Pentecostal minister has fallen to that he comes to depend on other preachers’ cassette tapes, CDs and DVDs, or a sermon subscription service or someone else’s material for a sermon. Sadly, we have many of those preachers in Pentecost today. They lack the love and discipline to deny themselves long enough for a season of fasting, hours of praying until they get something fresh from heaven’s storehouse to feed their auditors.
In the 24th verse above, this apostate Apostolic Church is seen with the blood of the Prophets and Saints and all the slain in her. Not that the Prophets and Saints were physically murdered, but rather it is that the blood of the Prophets is shed when they are rejected. When they are rejected, it is tantamount to slaying them, as it is the act of rejection that their lives and testimony is wasted among them of that church. The blood of the saints is shed when they are destroyed by the lies that is perpetrated and fostered by a church that has inculcated error.
Rev. 22:14 Blessed [are] they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
Rev. 22:15 For without [are] dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
Let us not be a false witness of the Word of God thus becoming a spiritual Sorcerer by preaching and teaching from the Word things that are not there. Preterism in any form is not there. Replacement theology is not there. Divine Flesh doctrine is not there. Tim Le Haye and Clarence Larkin’s version of Dispensationalism is not there. To preach it as truth is to make a lie. To love it is to (loveth) a lie. All of these things including an army of much error are sorcery, enchantments, or as Paul said to the Galatians, it is bewitchment. It is threatening the very life and vitality of the church as we now know it; the remnant excepted.
We are living in an age that has brought much error upon the whole church world. We must pray asking our Lord to spare us from the evils associated with perverted Word. The waters are treacherous as we sail along toward heaven’s distant shore. The lights of home are now upon the horizon. Let us not fail to bring our vessel into safe harbor, since we are now so close. There will be no lies in heaven. Neither will there be those there that love them. There is judgment pronounced upon all that will add to or take away from the Word of God. Let us therefore purge out the old leaven of the Word that we may become a new lump. Let us become new skins suitable for the new wine of the Truth and Spirit of the Word.
Faithfully Yours,
R. E. Strange
Leave a Reply