Five years ago I was delivered from the darkness, set free of all my sin and shame, and in Christ I now stand. It is an honor and a privilege and a great love, to teach you something about darkness and to teach you something about the power of God that set us all free.

Deuteronomy 18: 9 – 14 says “When you come into the land which the Lord your God has given you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his sons or daughters pass through the fire, or who practices witchcraft, or soothsayer, one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls upon the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord and because of these abominations, the Lord your God drives them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, for these nations which you will dispossess listen to soothsayers and diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you.”

I bring out this scripture to kind of help put aside a myth and a misunderstanding that magic, witchcraft, and conjuring of spells is not exactly real, it’s some sort of trick, or some sort of mumbo jumbo. The truth is, it does work, but it does an evil work. But God says, “Don’t do it.” He is not denying that it can’t be done, He is not denying that there are people who use such things, but He doesn’t want you to do it. He wants you to know who has all the power, who has all the authority, and whom to who you should seek is Him and Him alone.

The bible even tells you that it is so. In Exodus 7, the living God is fixing to bring Israel out of Egypt. In verse 10, God is speaking to Moses, telling him what He is going to do, and He is going to send him to the Pharaoh. “So Moses and Aaron went to the Pharaoh and they did so, just as the Lord commanded. And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants and it became a serpent. But Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers. So the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their rods. Every man threw down his rod and they became serpents. But Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.”

It can be done. Magic will work, although not as well as what God will do because through God’s power, Moses’ serpent, or rod, ate up all the rest. This continues on, as God performs more miracles, the Pharaoh keeps asking the magicians to perform the signs. It comes to a halt when God creates lice from the dust. The magicians aren’t able to do it. And they say, “It is the finger of God that has done this.” But the Pharaoh’s heart is still hardened in unbelief.

The interesting thing to know is, although the magicians could duplicate, to make it appear that they had power, they could create serpents, they could turn water to blood, they could bring forth frogs, but they couldn’t bring the relief. Pharaoh always had to ask, “Moses, entreat your God for me, that He would take these things away from us.” NO REAL POWER, just an illusion.

The trick to magic is, it wants you to think there is a power out there. A power that you can grab hold of, a power that you can control, manipulate, to serve yourself, and do what it is that you want to do. But the trick is, it really doesn’t work.

I have been to several rituals. The most frustrating was, when we would cast a spell, they would go wrong. Not saying that some of them didn’t work. I had seen some of them call for rain and rain showed up, and we would dance like fools in the rain, and held our little parties. But a lot of times these spells come with dire, dire consequences. Because the power that you are calling upon when you cast these spells, when you use this magic, is demonic, evil, and not of God. So we would be tormented and afflicted for days on end and nights with demons, visions of horrible things, and finding ourselves waking up in the mornings and not even remembering what we had done and only hearing some strange recollection from somebody else at the party or at the ceremony. Then we would be casting more spells, doing more rituals, doing more ungodly things, trying to be free from that first spell that we cast. It was a never-ending cycle.

I was so deluded and so paranoid on some nights that I would have to drink myself to sleep. I consumed a lot of alcohol just to set it free, just to go to bed. At nights, my girlfriend at the time couldn’t even stand to sleep next to me because she said it was like sleeping next to a corpse, cold, dark, with no life. This would go on for days. We would cast another spell and I might be free for a little bit, but then one of my friends may have succumbed, and entered the torture and torment of a demon. And we would be casting spells for them. More rituals, more rites. It never stopped.

A funny thing about the Wicca, they consider it a challenge because to them there isn’t one God, there are many gods, and each person has to find their own way to be happy, to be enlightened, to learn how to use the spiritual energies and forces to get to their utopia. When you are just going along blindly, and you don’t have a hierarchal structure, you are not going to get anywhere.

I was easily persuaded to partake in the rituals. I was in college. I was studying science. I had seen many of the wonders man had performed. We put a man on the moon. With a bomb, we could level a city. With a microscope, you can see things that you have never seen. So, it was reasonable to believe that there were things out there that I didn’t understand, that could really be. I was looking for answers, looking for God, not sure what I was going to find, but thought I would have a good time doing it. The appeal to the witches’ covenant, to the Wicca group, was that they were so accepting of anything. They accepted me, a person that was often bullied for short stature and not dressed in the hottest or latest of fashions. It was an acceptance thing. There was a lure to the power that I could change something, that I could lay waste to my enemies, that I could overcome those things which would hinder me from doing what I wanted to do. It was always about me. I never cared about anything else. How could I be happy? How could I be loved? What would satisfy any desire within my heart?

One of those biggest desires was sex. Along with the rites and rituals in a Wicca covenant, there is a lot of sex. A lot of people are abused sexually because of these things. I was not abused. Did partake in some things that would be deemed ungodly and abominable? Oh yeah. Did I abuse other people? Oh yeah. I remember one night at a party, this one girl was so desiring to be a part of our group that she took off her shirt, exposed her breasts, and danced before everybody, figuring that she would be accepted by the group because she was offering herself to us. One of the other ladies assaulted her and sent her crying from the party. I found myself in her presence, trying to find out what was going on, and I sensed the weakness. Somebody was willing to degrade himself or herself to us and give themselves up completely just to be accepted, just to be a part of the group. Just to have somebody teach them how to have access to the powers, to bring them to the rituals so they could see what was going on. She was willing, and did admit to submitting to me, that I could have her and share her with whoever was in my charge. I seriously considered it. Then one of the people who were watching over me, one of the high priests showed up and asked me what was going on. I told him a little bit. He had that sly look and I knew that had an opportunity to go farther. I said to the young lady, “Why don’t you go with this man. He’ll take good care of you. He’ll see that your needs are met.” To my credit, I did not defile her. I did not abuse her or degrade her. To my shame I turned her over to somebody I knew who would, just to advance myself. I thought if I could go higher, if I could get up into the ranks, if I could have access to more knowledge, to some of the books, then I might manipulate a power and set myself free from everything and rule them.

I did have access to a book. One of the books I read so blasphemed God that it scared me. It scared me very, very much. I had to cry out to God, “I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want this.” God didn’t answer me right away. It took about two months. During that time, while I was waiting, I continued in the debauchery and the rituals. In 1996 we were approaching Halloween. Halloween was a big day for us with lots of parties, drinking, drugs and sex. There were lots of new faces, a lot of people who wanted to be in, a lot of victims, a lot of prey, a lot of people to be manipulated and were willing to do it just to be a part of what was happening. So began a new time with a new set of rituals, a new time of fresh meat, male and female. We had homosexuals, bisexuals, and worse. Unspeakable. Things at that time I wasn’t ashamed of and participated in, but now I hesitate even to speak of them. There are things out there that you really don’t want to know about. You don’t even want to have a part of it. It’s painful, and it hurts, and it doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop, unless someone comes and sets you free.

My prayer was shortly answered after this big to-do of Halloween of 1996 of which I am thankful I don’t remember much. A young girl came into my life and told me a little bit about Jesus. She introduced me to her Father, took me through the Book of John, and during this time I noticed I wasn’t being harassed by the demons. I could actually see light, and I could actually feel and desire a real love, real acceptance. But it wasn’t quite mine yet. I wanted it to be, I so desired to be accepted, so desired to be loved and to be free of demons that had haunted me for so long.

When I was seven, I almost killed my mother. By ten, I was trying to commit suicide. By sixteen, I had made a choice, because a teacher in my school said, “There comes a time when you have to make your own decision as to what is right and what is wrong.” Somebody in authority told me that I got to make the decision and my reaction was, “What can I get?!” The problem was, he didn’t have the authority, and neither did I, to decide what was wrong. It has already been determined, by one God, by one Maker of us all. In our scriptures, back in Deuteronomy, the end of verse fourteen says, “The Lord your God has not appointed such for you.” You do not have to partake of false powers or silly spells with costs greater than what they will produce.

You can have what is real. You can have all the power. You don’t even have to use it for your own good because the Person with all the power is going to take care of you. Steadfastly, immeasurably, poured out pressed down, and throw some more on top of it. Like a double Big Mac with extra-large fries and a cake and you still have room for the sundae. One day in a church, I could not resist the Holy Spirit any longer. I could not hold on to the pew, I could not plant myself down n the chair hard enough. I could not block out the words of what the pastor was saying. I had to stand up, and surrender, to Jesus Christ.

The interesting thing about Jesus is, He has all the power because God has given it to Him. The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and the two are one. They don’t fight, they don’t bicker, and they are not in a power struggle. They have this power and they use it to touch people’s lives, to love you more than you have ever desired. Can you imagine that, to be loved MORE than you have ever desired or ever been able to conceive? He will love you more than you have thought, more than you have ever seen, and more than you have ever dreamed. An eternal undying love, it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing.

With Jesus Christ you find the real power. You find the power to forgive your sins, to take away your shame, to take away your guilt, your burdens, your fears, and the darkness that has enveloped you. You see that with Christ Jesus, you don’t have to jump through hoops, you don’t have to cast any rituals, and you don’t have to defile yourself. You don’t have to degrade yourself and you don’t have to keep doing it over and over. Jesus just asks believe, believe and pray, and it will be done. It is a wonderful thing to be able to believe, ask God, and know that He is going to take care of it, versus breaking out the spell book, gathering the ingredients, grabbing the right people, waiting for the right lunar cycle, waiting for the blessing from the high priest, casting it, and hoping that it is going to work, that you didn’t do something wrong, that you didn’t leave something out, or the gods, the spirits were going to reject you because they didn’t have to fulfill their obligations to grant your entreaties. They don’t have to, they will, but mostly to inflict you.

Jesus will. He says, “Come, and I will give you life.” If you want this life and you want this freedom, you just have to believe it, you just have to take hold of it, cherish it, and live it every day. You can have it now. You don’t have to wait. No hoops to jump through. There are plenty of people here to help you. Plenty of people here to love you, to pray with you, to teach you the truth, to encourage you and lift you up, to refresh you, and to heal the broken-hearted. I can say this congregation has done so, for I had a prideful fall and I stumbled, and by the Holy Spirit I was led to this wonderful congregation. You can see the love poured out in our pastors, and you can feel the love of God. You can always have this love in Jesus Christ, our Savior. Come on down, wave your hand. We don’t care about what you have done, and we care about where you are going to go. We care whether you are going to live in this darkness forever and ever, burning and suffering, and never set free. We care enough that we will go outside of ourselves, and we will lay down our own life, we will give what we have. If we don’t have it, we will go to the Father, and we will get you the help. We will all go to heaven together, and we’ll have a party there, because contrary to what many in my generation think, hell is not going to be a big party. Your buddies may be there, but you are not going to see them. Hell is so bad, even Satan will be tortured day and night. There is no stopping it, unless you go to Jesus. You are invited to come to the altar. Come to a saint. You are not going to be judged, you are going to be loved. Jesus Christ is going to forgive your sins because He has already paid the price. You are going to be set free, and you are going to be equipped and edified, and Jesus will always be there with you, always, now, and forever, unfailing. And it is wonderful.