Kick Me!

In the 1985 movie Back to the Future, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels back in time to 1955 and has about a week to arrange for his parents-to-be to meet and fall in love in order to keep his future intact. He shows up at the high school they both attend to help his future father George (Crispin Glover) woo and win his future mother Lorraine (Lea Thompson).

In the school that first morning, Marty sees his (seriously geeky) father stumbling and bumbling down the hall, being followed by several boys who are having an uproariously good time kicking him in the rear end, taunting him, knocking the books from his arm, and so on. As George spins around to confront his tormentors, we see that someone has taped a piece of paper to his back that says "KICK ME!"

Although we can't help but sympathize with George, it's still an amusing scene in a perverse sort of way. We might chuckle to ourselves to think that someone could be such a schmuck as to walk around adorned with an open invitation for a swift kick in the pants. Down deep, we might even feel he deserves it for being such a schlemiel.

You would be hard pressed to find a professing Christian who was enough of a schlemiel to knowingly and openly worship Satan, practice witchcraft or voodoo, attempt to communicate with or channel the spirits of the dead, and so on. Such practices are so blatantly occult that it's impossible to imagine any person who named the name of Christ touching them with a 10-foot dowsing rod.

So, I'm pleased to report that, to the best of my knowledge, Christians in major denominational churches are not participating in ritualized goat slayings at backyard barbecues. They are not casting voodoo spells on their bosses or their children's math teachers. Nor are they trying to channel the spirits of their favorite dead celebrities at home Bible studies.

At least not to any statistically significant degree, glory to Jesus.

In the last few years, however, it seems the occult has found various far more subtle ways to slither through the cracks in mainstream Christianity and sink its fangs into what many see as an increasingly apostate entity.

I'm sorry, did I say "slither through the cracks"? Perhaps I should have said "march through the front door to a warm, welcoming embrace."

What's in a word?

The word "occult" comes from the Latin occultus (hidden; concealed; secret), which is the past participle of the verb occulere (to cover over; to conceal). Contained within occulere is a word related to the verb celare (to hide), which is where we get the English words "cell" and "cellar," and maybe a few others. Pertinent definitions can be summarized as follows:

1. Relating to or characterized by supernatural practices or phenomena.
2. Inscrutable; beyond the scope or sphere of human understanding.
3. Secret or concealed; known or accessible only to an adept elite.

Occult practices are sometimes divided into three broad categories:

1. Divination: The attempt to see or predict the future. This includes things like astrology, palm reading, fortune telling, numerology, and the use of things such as crystal balls, the I Ching, tarot cards, etc.

2. Magick/Paganism: The attempt to influence or control present events or circumstances through rituals, charms, spells, incantations, etc. This includes things like witchcraft, white magic, black magic, Wicca, sorcery, Satanism, voodoo, etc.

3. Spiritism: The attempt to contact and/or communicate with the spirit world. This involves things like necromancy (communicating with the spirits of the dead, or functioning as a medium), astral projection, automatic writing, channeling entities claiming to be dead individuals, aliens, Ascended Masters, or other entities believed to inhabit the spirit world, and so on.

And just in case you weren't quite sure how God feels about all things occult, consider what He told the Israelites as they were gearing up to enter and take possession of the Promised Land:

Any questions? Or does God have to draw us a picture?

The infestation that is spreading throughout the Church today does not stem from overtly occult practices bristling with cloven hooves and crystal balls. If that were the case, even relatively immature Christians would reject them out of hand. Rather, it stems from seemingly beneficial practices that exude a reassuring aura of sweet, soothing, airbrushed spirituality.

What's alarming, although the only ones who seem to be alarmed are a minority of fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians, is the fact that many of these spiritual practices are being praised, promoted, and embraced by an ever increasing number of some of the most well-known and respected names in Christianity today.

Nothing new under the sun

In fact, there is nothing new about these spiritual practices whatsoever. Their roots go all the way back to the third chapter of the book of Genesis where Satan (as the serpent) sweet-talked Eve into eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Satan enticed Eve by telling her that if she ate the forbidden fruit, then her eyes would be opened, and she would be like God (that is, a god), knowing good and evil. She believed she would become wise. Enlightened. She thought she would gain access to secret knowledge that God apparently wanted to keep all to Himself.

Enlightenment. Secret knowledge. Having one's eyes opened. Sound familiar? It should, because this is what most of these "new" spiritual practices boil down to. The practices have remained largely the same since the beginning—all that changes is the packaging.

I was originally planning to go into some degree of detail about practices such as contemplative prayer, centering prayer, Christian meditation, lectio divina, hearing the audible voice of God, spiritual formation, and so on. In the end, however, I decided not to because it all comes down to this:

There are practices being promoted in the church today that tend to emphasize inward-directed, contemplative, meditative techniques to achieve an altered state of consciousness in the quest for some kind of spiritual/mystical experience, and most are generally based on the belief that God is within each and every person and He can be sought and found through the cultivation of such practices. Practitioners believe these activities represent a path to spiritual insight and enlightenment, and will lead to deep and genuine spiritual growth.

At the same time, many tend to diminish, de-emphasize, and in some cases dismiss outright the biblical doctrines of sin, repentance, and redemption based solely on faith in Christ's atoning work on the cross. At their core, these practices tend to encourage people to seek a mystical or spiritual experience first and foremost, without worrying about whether or not it conforms to the Bible. For many practitioners, the Bible can ultimately come to be viewed as arcane and marginally relevant in their quest for a "real" spiritual experience.

I made the decision not to delve into the details of these practices because...well, it's not as if I wanted you to try them. I just want you to be wary of anything like them and why. My goal is simply to touch on some of the basic underlying elements and explain why I think they represent a potential danger. I just want you to be able to spot these kinds of things from a mile away...and not get one millimeter closer.

If you dig a little deeper than the dust-jacket blurbs in your local Christian bookstore, you will discover that many of these practices share some common fundamental traits—these weeds grow out of the same dirt.

Here's the dirt:

1. God dwells within each one of us. We all have a God/Christ/cosmic/divine consciousness within us (and, according to some, our only real "sin" is not realizing this).

2. By tuning into our God/Christ/cosmic/divine consciousness, we can contact and/or commune with God, experience His presence, and develop spiritually. Thus we can become better people and live happier, more fulfilled lives.

3. We do this by focusing inward, emptying our minds, chanting special words or phrases, achieving an altered state of consciousness and seeking some type of mystical experience that enables us to tap into God's divine energy.

And you don't even need to drag out that old Bible to do it, either.

Well, color me surprised.

Naturally, these practices invariably come bathed in Christian buzzwords and may be backed up by scriptural references. Twisted, tangled, and taken out of context perhaps, but hey, who wants to drag out that old Bible, right?

Certainly not a lot of mainstream Christians, evidently. After all, there's nothing like a good scriptural smoke screen to prevent some hip new spiritual techniques from sounding like a bunch of pseudo-spiritual New Age mush, which is exactly what these practices are.

If you do decide to drag out that old Bible, however, you will discover that God's truth is somewhat different.

Here's the truth:

1. Man, with his God-given free will, disobeyed God in the beginning, and ever since then all people have inherited a fallen or sin nature from their earthly fathers. Not only are we born into sin, but we are incapable of understanding how sinful we are in God's eyes because we are incapable of understanding how holy God is. This is one of man's most fundamental problems. We think we're pretty good by our own standards—but we can't even comprehend God's standard of holiness, much less attain it.

In spite of our sin nature, however, the Bible says that we do have an innate awareness of His existence:

But just because we are aware of God or believe He exists (as do Satan and all the demons), that doesn't mean we have God's Spirit dwelling within us in our fallen, sinful condition. The trend today is to naively believe that God is within every one of us, and that we just need go in and find Him and let Him out, so to speak. He's nestled cozily inside every person, and rather than humbly acknowledging that in our natural sinful state we are hopelessly separated from a loving but holy God and believing in faith that His Son died to pay the penalty for our sin, we just need to journey inward, empty our minds, chant some special words or phrases and try to "tune in" to our inner God/Christ/cosmic/divine consciousness and seek some type of fuzzy-wuzzy, feel-good mystical experience.

The Bible paints a very different picture of man's natural state, however:

This is the part that rubs the natural man the wrong way. Nobody likes to admit they're wrong—it's human nature. That's the whole point—it's human nature. We naturally want to believe that we are good and can make ourselves more acceptable to God by trying to be good people, helping others, and so on. The problem is we aren't and we can't...

It's human nature (pride, basically) that prevents people from coming to grips with the uncomfortable truth that they are sinners and need to have a change of heart about their sin and their need for a Savior. That's called repentance, and when we ask God to forgive us and believe His Son's death paid the penalty for our sins, only then can God's Spirit dwell within us. We are not saved by what we do for ourselves or for others in our own ability, no matter how good or noble or exemplary those things may be—we are saved by our faith in what He did for us:

2. Christ is not some sort of "consciousness." He is God's only begotten Son, born of a virgin (no earthly father = no sin nature), fully man and fully God and sent into the world to live a sinless life and die as the perfect sacrifice to satisfy God's justice, which says the penalty for sin is death (Rom. 6:23). He became our sin on the cross and died in our place and took the punishment we deserve, thus providing for us the only way that we can be reconciled to the Father:

And not so we can have a better life, but so we can have eternal life. Jesus didn't come to make good people better; He came to make dead people alive, spiritually speaking:

3. When we focus inward, empty our minds, chant special words and phrases, achieve an altered state of consciousness, and seek some type of mystical experience (as opposed to, say, reading and obeying God's Word), the only thing we are going to tap into is deception.

When people use meditative techniques to empty and "silence" their conscious minds, they can enter an altered state of consciousness (also called an alpha state). In such a state the human mind can only receive input, but is unable to process that input in a cognitive manner. Religions and various groups the world over have practiced such things for millennia, this process of shutting down the conscious mind and entering an altered state of consciousness in an attempt to experience the world of the supernatural.

It is this altered state of consciousness, achieved through whatever means, that is the first, most fundamental step in virtually all forms of mysticism, and thus fundamental to many occult practices.

So, before you assume the lotus position, start doing deep breathing exercises and chanting your mantra (or the phrase "Jesus loves me" for that matter), consider carefully the following New Testament admonitions:

In other words, strengthen and prepare your mind. Take control of your thoughts and drive out those that do not honor the Lord. Think about good, virtuous things. Guard and maintain careful, conscious control of your mind and the thoughts it entertains. Only let in the good; keep out the junk.

This is a far cry from most meditative spiritual practices, which stress emptying one's mind and chanting a mantra or special phrase to achieve an altered state of consciousness. In fact, it's basically the polar opposite.

Ding-a-ling: When someone introduces you to a practice that tells you to do the exact opposite of what God's Word tells you to do, a little alarm bell should go off in your spirit.

Or maybe an air raid siren.

The point is that there is no biblical support for emptying your mind of all thoughts and mindlessly chanting words or phrases. Yes, you may have some type of mystical experience. In fact, I'd be willing to bet on it. But you are leaving your mind unguarded and hanging wide open, and that makes you an easy target for whatever is out there. And I don't think many people would do that if they understood what (or who) was really "out there."

Who's in charge around here, anyway?

One of the most common questions asked by people about God (especially those who question His existence) usually goes something like this:

"How can a loving God possibly allow so much evil—so much pain, cruelty, suffering, and injustice—to exist in the world?"

I cringe when I think how many times I have heard sincere, well-meaning Christians hem and haw and struggle mightily with this one, and ultimately get themselves tangled up in a clumsy, contradictory mess because they either don't know or don't fully understand the Bible's surprisingly simple answer:

God's not in charge down here.

"Say what?!"

(That's all right. Go ahead and get it out of your system...)

"But...God is like...GOD. You know, Creator of the heavens and the earth and all that, right? What do you mean God's not in charge down here? How can you say such a stupid thing?! Well then, Mr. Smarty Pants Bible Dude, if God's not in charge here on earth, then just exactly who is?"

Satan.

In the first chapter of Genesis, God gave Adam dominion over the earth and everything in it. But when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they effectively obeyed Satan and allowed him to temporarily usurp that dominion. Don't get me wrong: God is still sovereign, and still has Satan on a leash. Remember, Satan is a created being. When Adam and Eve disobeyed, however, God had no choice but to allow Satan to claim that dominion from Adam because to do otherwise would have violated His perfect justice.

Fortunately, God had a plan from the very beginning to get it all back: a plan to restore what was lost by the disobedience of the first Adam. That plan required the obedience of the "second Adam": Jesus. And by "obedience," I mean He had to be willing to go to the cross and die in our place. Paul goes into this in depth in his letter to the Romans, but the point is this:

We see references to Satan's dominion over the earth in various places in Scripture, with Satan being referred to as "the prince of this world" (John 14:30), "the prince of the power of the air" (Eph. 2:2), "the god of this world" (2 Cor. 4:4), etc.

For one of the clearest examples of this, we need look no further than the second of Satan's three efforts to tempt Jesus in the wilderness just as He was about to begin His ministry. If any of these three attempts had succeeded, it would have disqualified Him from being our Redeemer. Luke records what happened:

In other words, the kingdoms of the world were Satan's to give. And notice that Jesus didn't dispute him on this point. Jesus didn't say "No way, José! You just think they're yours...but they're n-o-t!" Jesus recognized it as a legally valid offer, and for anyone else it would have been a powerful temptation indeed. But Jesus responded with something infinitely more powerful:

The Word of God.

Lucifer in the sky...

Even though the earth and the surrounding atmosphere is, for the time being, the domain of Satan and his legions, there's no need to despair. Jesus won the right to take it back from him by virtue of His resurrection (that is, His victory over the curse of sin and death), and will assume ownership when He appears before the throne as the only one qualified to open the scroll (the title deed to the earth) in Revelation 5. Jesus opens the scroll's seven seals one by one, and when He opens the final seal, it initiates a series of seven trumpet judgments. As the final trumpet judgment is sounded and the scroll is fully opened, Jesus officially takes possession:

It doesn't really jump out at you in some English translations, but note that in the original Greek, the final words of this passage actually mean that Jesus "has begun to reign," and some translations do render it that way. In other words, at that point it's official. It's a done deal—Jesus has taken possession of what Adam lost, and Satan is left sucking dust.

This is all in our future, though. It may not be much longer (now there's a hot topic), but the fact remains: This hasn't happened yet. So for the time being, the earth and the surrounding atmosphere is Satan's stomping grounds. It's his little corner of the universe where he has set up shop in his ultimately futile attempt to "be like the Most High."

The Bible refers to the "heavens" (plural), and from various Scriptures we can infer that there are three levels: The first heaven is the atmosphere (Deut. 11:17), the second heaven is what we typically refer to as outer space (Jer. 8:2), and the third heaven is where God dwells (1 Kings 8:27).

Another name for the lowest level of the heavens is the "astral plane." This term has become popular in the context of New Age beliefs, and is often used by people who are into such things as astral projection (also called "soul travel"). In this practice, you are supposedly able to have a self-induced out-of-body experience in which your consciousness is able to roam freely about the astral plane and is able to see and hear things in the (lower) spiritual realm.

People in the Christian community would never put it in such terms, but in fact some of the practices being embraced by many in mainstream churches today literally involve contact with the astral plane—or at least a precariously close flyby. Many of these practices involve meditative techniques that are meant to induce an altered state of consciousness and so involve some degree of exposure to the astral plane and whatever or whoever inhabits it. And I hope by now the danger is obvious:

The astral plane is Satan's backyard.

The apostle Paul reveals the insidious nature of the problem:

Look, let's call it what it is: mysticism. And it is cut from the same cloth that most occult practices are cut from: altered states of consciousness. When people enter an altered state of consciousness and seek some type of mystical experience (as opposed to seeking God through prayer and through His Word with their mental faculties fully engaged in accordance to Scripture), the truth is that they are monkeying around in Satan's backyard without the first clue about what they are dealing with.

As mere mortals inhabiting the physical world, they are just like our old friend George McFly, stumbling and bumbling around the outskirts of the astral plane with a big "KICK ME!" sign on their backs, allowing themselves to be deceived by "angels of light" who will be more than happy to lead them into all manner of spiritual deception. It's what they do—and they're good at it.

Pose as an "Ascended Master"? Done. Imitate someone's deceased family member? A walk in the park. Reveal "hidden" information that denies the deity of Christ, assures us of universal salvation, refutes the existence of hell, nullifies God's plan of redemption, or otherwise adds to, subtracts from, contradicts, or undermines the inspiration and authority of God's Word?

Piece of cake.

And by all means, be aware—that deception can be exceedingly subtle and alluring. It can all seem so sweet; so pure; so sublime. It promises to make you s-o-o much more spiritual than those straitlaced losers that do nothing but read their boring old Bibles and spout "thou shalt nots." In fact, the deception can be so subtle that it can only be discerned by one thing—the sharpest, most powerful tool there is:

We need to be on high alert, especially in these last days. We need to be vigilant...more so than at any time in the history of the Church. The nearer we get to the Lord's return, the more His true Church is being marginalized and sidelined by the apostasy of mainstream Christianity. Believe me, it's going to get increasingly unpopular and politically incorrect to stick to the simple truth of the gospel and the authority of God's Word. But at the same time, it's all the more reason for us to look up and rejoice:

And what time was Paul talking about? The last days. It's time to take to heart and put into practice the words of the apostle John:

Bottom line: Does it square with the Word? Is this new thing in line with "the faith which was once delivered unto the saints"? You know, the one we're supposed to "earnestly contend" for? Are you sure? Have you checked?

• I don't care if it's something that is being endorsed or promoted by a superstar minister or celebrity televangelist whose books/tapes/CDs/DVDs have sold 47 gazillion copies.

• I don't care if the conferences or seminars where it's being promulgated could pack Yankee Stadium.

• I don't care if the Roman Catholic Church from the pope on down has given it a big thumbs up. (Now there's a clue for you, Sherlock.)

• I don't care if it's all the rage at Megachurch "R" Us.

• I don't care if it's the latest smokin' hot move of God at some revival or some conference in some city.

• I don't care if the people who are into it confidently (condescendingly?) assure us remedial thumb-sucking Christians that they are moving in the "fullness of the Spirit."

• I don't care how many self-appointed "apossles" and so-called "proffets" in cities around the country are flopping around on the floor and going into delirium tremens over it.

• I don't care if everybody in your church's youth group is chatting about it, blogging about it, tweeting about it, texting about it, IM-ing about it, and liking it on Facebook.

Go to the Word. Read it. Search it. Study it. And flee from anything that doesn't conform to it.

Don't end up with a "KICK ME!" sign on your back.

Greg Lauer — MAR '12

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