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good, we might as well hang a sign over the door of our mind that says, “Darkness welcome here!”
I am no stranger to the battle with fear and anxiety. Earlier in my life, I dealt continually with irrational thoughts about my health and future – waking up with panic attacks and nightmares. When I shared my struggle with a trusted godly friend, she told me, “Whenever you imagine all the terrible things that could happen in your future, you are engaging in the sin of witchcraft by participating in ‘evil forebodings’ – in essence, predicting evil and darkness over your future.”
It seemed a bit extreme to compare my fearful thoughts with witchcraft. But as I studied God’s word, I realized that the Bible has very clear guidelines for the kind of things we should think about and meditate upon. Paul says,
Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - meditate on these things.
Philippians 4:8
Dwelling upon evil things that might happen; such as sickness, death, tragedy, etc. was the exact opposite of what God intended for my thought life. I had literally been meditating upon darkness instead of upon light. I began to clearly see how my inward habits were allowing the enemy to hound and harass me with fear.
I repented of “foretelling my future” with evil forebodings. I asked God to overtake my mind and govern my thought life, granting me the grace to “take every thought captive.” And I made a focused effort to fill my mind with light instead of darkness every
So why are we living like helpless victims to Satan’s schemes?
The following quote by Tauler captures it well:
A pure heart is one to which all that is not of God is strange and jarring.
I believe the majority of American Christians today are far too careless toward darkness and evil. Pop-culture floods our minds and senses with things that are not of God. But for most of us, the glamorized sin that surrounds us is not strange and jarring. It’s normal and accepted. In fact, we go out of our way to enjoy and participate in it. We spend a huge amount of our time and money on it. We allow it to capture our mind, emotions, and attention; then we wonder why our lives are filled with fear, anxiety, defeat, and depression.
Take, for instance, the recent vampire movie, Twilight.
Countless Christian young women have claimed this movie as a healthy, God-honoring form of entertainment. “It’s such a pure and beautiful love story!” proclaim the throngs of Christ-professing girls who flocked to the movie on opening night and snatched up the DVD as soon as it hit the video stores.
Loads of Christian movie review websites praise Twilight as a wholesome love story. Youth pastors and Christian influencers alike have lauded it as a harmless and even edifying flick. Twilight (from all I’ve heard) is a sweet and artistically portrayed love story that doesn’t show graphic images of the vampires “doing their vampire thing.” So it doesn’t surprise me that Christian young women are falling for it left and right.
But here is the question that no one seems to be asking. . .is there really such a thing as a pure, wholesome and God-honoring vampire movie?
There shall not be found among you anyone who... practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD.
Most of us who have grown up in church don’t consider ourselves vulnerable to witchcraft or Satan-worship. But sometimes we overlook things that seem “harmless” but are, in reality, associated with the kingdom of darkness. Anything that we allow into our lives that is associated with witchcraft or the occult opens a wide door for the enemy to gain access to our hearts, minds, and bodies, and to block the spiritual blessings Christ has for us. Something as seemingly innocent as reading your horoscope in the newspaper is actually not innocent at all – it is participating in the occult practice of fortune telling. Movies about séances, vampires, or communicating with dead people might seem like no big deal – especially if you “don’t really believe in it”. But watching those movies is, in essence, participating in the occult practice of “calling up the dead” or the demonic practice of brutal torture and blood-drinking.
The Bible makes it clear that there can be no fellowship between light and darkness. (see 2 Cor 6:14) In the book of Acts when the Gospel of Christ was preached, those who believed “came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly.” (Acts 19:18-19 NKJV)
If there is any object or activity in our life that is associated with darkness, the appropriate way to deal with it is to destroy it completely, as they did in Acts. Here’s the rule of thumb that works best for me: “when in doubt, don’t mess with it.”
I would encourage you to ask God to reveal to you anything in your life (past or present) that is associated with Satanic activity. In addition to seemingly “harmless” vampire movies like Twilight, here is a brief list of some other things that fall into that category:
Horoscopes, hypnosis, palm-reading, tarot cards, ouija boards, zodiac charms, fortune-telling, pagan paraphernalia (like Buddha statues), clothes or jewelry with skeletons, skulls, monsters etc, and anything that promotes superstition, witchcraft, séances, and the like. Don’t exclude “funny” movies, music and books from this list. Even if the movies are seemingly lighthearted (like the Will Farrell remake of BeWitched) anything that tinkers with spiritual power (outside of the power of God) falls into this dangerous category. This would also include T.V. shows (Charmed, Buffy, Angel, X-files, etc). The shows might be ridiculous and you might not take them seriously, but they still display messages of darkness and ungodly spiritual powers. Once these breaches are identified in your life, they must be removed and destroyed. Ask God to forgive you for allowing these things into your life, and to reclaim any territory that was given to the enemy as a result. God’s Word says:
He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly.. who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from seeing evil, he will dwell on high; his place of defense will be the fortress of rocks; bread will be given him, his water will be sure.
Isaiah 33:15-16
God provides amazing strength, blessings, and freedom for each of us. But in order for us to walk in His light, He requires His sons and daughters to live by a sacred decorum; to come out from the world and be separate, and touch not the unclean thing. We are to ruthlessly remove all uncleanness, all darkness (no matter how small) from our lives. As set-apart young women, there is not even to be a hint of these things in our daily existence.
How do we live this kind of holy, upright, God-honoring life? Not by instigating rules and formulas for ourselves. Not by joining a nunnery or becoming a back-woods hermit. Rather, by yielding to the transforming, supernaturally enabling power of Christ in us. By allowing Him to completely re-make us from the inside out. By submitting ourselves fully and completely to His transforming work. By taking every thought captive and meditating upon the things of light rather than the things of darkness.
When we yield our bodies to become the holy, undefiled dwelling place of the Most High God, He comes and makes His home within us. When we allow Him to remove everything carnal, dark, sinful and selfish that stands in the way, that’s when He enables us to live a strong, fortified, victorious life; unharmed and unhampered by the enemy.*
playing with darkness
the danger of taking evil lightly
NEW ARTICLE SERIES:
POP-CULTURE SAVVY
learning how to be in the world but not of it
by Leslie Ludy
And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
(John 3:19)
Therefore “Come out from among them and be separate,” says the Lord. “Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.”
(2 Cor. 6:17)
A friend of mine was struggling with spiritual attack upon her life; waking up with horrible nightmares and battling fearful, irrational thoughts on a nearly constant basis. One afternoon as we met together for prayer, she casually mentioned that she’d just come from a movie. When she told me which one she’d seen, I was taken aback. It was a horror/suspense film, and though it was one of the “milder” ones, it still was all about demonic darkness and death.
Suddenly it was obvious to me where her nightmares and fearful thoughts were coming from. By filling her mind with darkness, she was leaving herself wide open for the prince of darkness to wreak havoc upon her soul and subconscious. It’s a bit like sitting outside on a muggy Minnesota evening covered in sugar-water instead of bug-spray. You might as well hang a sign on your forehead that says “Mosquitoes welcome here!” And when we bathe our thoughts in evil instead of
moment of the day moment of the day or night. This meant a purification process of the music I listened to, the movies I watched, the conversations I participated in, and the books I read. Anything that caused my mind to think about evil, darkness, tragedy or death – no matter how “mild” it seemed – was to be ruthlessly removed from my life.
The result of this life-change was truly astounding. Very soon, the panic attacks and nightmares were gone. The irrational fears had been replaced with abiding peace. And, like the Proverbs 31 woman, I was truly able to smile at the days to come rather than continually dread what might happen in my future.
I discovered the secret to fearless, peaceful, victorious living when I learned how to meditate upon light rather than darkness.
Most young women I know are stymied in moving forward with Christ because of the constant badgering of the enemy. Whether it be fear, anxiety, depression, guilt, confusion, insecurity, family problems, health problems, financial problems, or spiritual defeat, the enemy has gone out of his way to keep us completely preoccupied with our problems and unable to live the glorious, radiant set-apart life God has called us to live. We spend most of our time stumbling through the darkness instead of being the light of the world.
Christ said,
Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Luke 10:19
IS THERE REALLY SUCH A THING AS A PURE, WHOLESOME AND GOD-HONORING VAMPIRE MOVIE?
Pop-culture has been obsessed with vampire movies for the past decade or so. Some are bloody and gory, some, like Twilight, are far more subtle. Movies like Twilight make the idea of vampires seem hip and harmless. But are vampire movies really harmless?
I recently got a little history lesson on the origin of vampires. What I found out was nothing short of utterly repulsive.
The very first vampire story (Dracula) was originally inspired by the real-life demonic antics of a man named Vlad the Impaler – a Romanian ruler in the 1400’s.
Wikipedia says,
The atrocities committed by Vlad in the German stories include impaling, torturing, burning, skinning, roasting, and boiling people, feeding people the flesh of their friends or relatives, cutting off limbs, drowning, and nailing people’s hats to their heads. Also in these stories, his victims included men and women of all ages, religions, and social classes, children and babies. One German account includes the following sentence: “He caused so much pain and suffering that even the most bloodthirstiest persecutors of Christianity like Herodes, Nero, Diocletian and all other pagans combined hadn’t even thought of.”
The article goes on to describe Vlad’s preferred means of torture and execution (impalement) in shocking and deeply disturbing detail. Vlad’s Romanian surname "Drăculea" means "Son of the Dragon" and is derived from his father's title, Vlad the Devil. The word "Dracul" means "the Devil" in modern Romanian and the suffix "-lea" can be translated as "son of".
In other words, Vlad, the original vampire, in name and in deed, was “the son of the devil.”
Fiction writers and Hollywood have morphed and modified vampire stories to include all kinds of variations from the original Dracula. But the bottom line is that vampires stories glorify evil and darkness. They originated from something horribly perverse and demonic. And no matter how a movie like Twilight might try to gloss over the demonic side – it’s still there. No matter how pure the love story may be, a vampire movie cannot be God-honoring.
Deuteronomy 18:10-13 says,
In order for us to walk in His light, He requires His sons and daughters to live by a sacred decorum; TO COME OUT FROM THE WORLD AND BE SEPARATE, and touch not the unclean thing.
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