I'd like to begin with a definition this morning of the term occult. I designate anything

as belonging to the occult which involves dealings with the world of spirit or of

supranormal forces, dealings which are not oriented on Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the Bible.

Anything that falls under that designation is what I mean by the occult.

And with that definition, I'm assuming the reality of a spirit world

and the reality of those supran normal forces.

I'm assuming that the church makes a very grave mistake

as it has sometimes in recent days

by saying that those kinds of things only happened in another age or that only

godly people can perform miracles. That's a mistake that opens the church up to a terrible

evil force because it refuses to simply see the reality in front of it.

The definition is also intentionally very broad so as to include everything from blatant Satan worship on the one hand,

which we have a lot of in these Twin Cities,

and the simplest use of horoscopes, say, at the other end.

As examples of what I mean by a cult, I would include seances,

necromancy of all sorts, communicating with the dead,

PSI, ESP, all forms of super-normal psychic phenomena, real magic, as opposed

to sleight of hand tricks, fortune telling, casting of spells, wearing of charms, use of wegee boards, astrology, etc.

That's what I mean by the occult.

And what I would like to try to do this morning is show you from the scriptures, first, that

God is opposed to his people being involved in any of these things. And second, why he is, and third,

what the positive alternative to these kinds of activities

...