Christendom and Western civilization are entering their final warfare before Armageddon. In these deliberate studies of principalities and powers, we will be exposing the occult, revealing knowledge of the doctrines, words, rites, eulogies, phrases, and definitions that demon worshippers use. The only intelligent way to interpret our times is to present a biblical interpretation.
Jesus prophesied that His church shall prevail. In Matthew 16:18, He said, "Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Today, the church must rise up to the greatest action of its entire history.
Welcome to this very special class on deliverance. In this class where we are studying principalities and powers, we have a special study called "What is Kabbalah?" Before getting into Kabbalah, I want to emphasize that the only purpose we have in showing you this particular study is that there are some sophisticated occult manifestations in the intellectual world that some of us possibly don't realize exist. Some very celebrated people are practicing the occult, and maybe they hardly know what they are practicing themselves.
We believe, and we are sure from the teaching of the Word of God, that those who practice the occult are lost and not saved; you cannot worship the devil and go to heaven. The purpose of these classes is to warn all of us about playing with the occult and to help us lead others out of it.
I've been asked questions several times in this class regarding Dungeons & Dragons, which is a relatively new game in this country. Here is their master guide. In this guide, the front piece is diabolic, depicting the devil with all of his horns and fangs. It speaks for itself. This is the super guide they use. One of the pages shows a character on horseback shooting people dead with a ray gun. In two different magazines I have with me, some of the quotations from the game refer to "Hell Pits of Night Fang" and say that players summon the devil to defeat opponents.
Though they begin by playing a game, they are involving themselves with powers beyond themselves. Psychology Today noted that there is hardly a game in which the players do not engage in torture, rape, or highway robbery. It mentioned a man who plays the game for 40 hours a week, describing it as an intoxicating situation that you just can't get away from. The game teaches that you get more advantages if you are evil than if you are good—that being evil is easier and the best way.
The article goes on to describe many terrible things about it, including sexual problems. One of the worst things said was, "The more I play D&D, the more I want to get away from this world that we live in." The rulebook explicitly mentions spells, witches, and demons that players become involved with.
In these last days, the devil will seek to doom and damn anybody he possibly can in every way he can. I believe we should teach America to stay with the Bible and to stay with the truth. There is so much truth in the world to embrace. People who study games like this often know nothing about the historical truth of their own country or others. If you don't know historical truth, you don't know how to live today. You cannot recognize the decline of a nation if you haven't seen how other nations have declined in the past. History is a strong pillar of truth.
There are many better ways to occupy our time than playing games for 40 hours a week, especially games that move into the occult. In that area, you open your mind to Satan, and he can deceive and destroy you.
In Lesson 12, "What is Kabbalah," I'd like to read you one verse of Scripture first. 1 John 4:1 says, "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world."
If God tells His own people not to believe every spirit, how much more should we be warning everyone? If you just believe everything that comes along, you will find yourself completely messed up inside. We must analyze spirits, see the source they came from, and see what their ultimate goal is to determine whether they are of God. This is a warning from God for us not to let the occult become a part of our lives.
Many of us who haven't studied the occult much will ask, "What is this thing called Kabbalah?" According to Webster's Dictionary, it comes from a word related to intrigue. It has to do with a plot and something that tremendously influences a person's mind, involving them in its secret teachings.
Kabbalah targets a limited, elite group—often very influential or highly educated persons. It functions with a secret design, and even its doctrines are very difficult to come by because the people involved are not ready to divulge their operations. It is an occult religion or philosophy developed by certain rabbis, based on mystical interpretations of Scripture. I will be referring to how they use Scripture as a basis for practicing their occultism and trying to find hidden meanings. Kabbalah is a system of secret arts and mechanics designed for a closed group, not for popular consumption.
The Kabbalah is hidden knowledge and experience. Its doctrines were handed down orally through generations so that outsiders could not discover them. Rooted in early Jewish history, Kabbalah is a traditional framework for laws, legends, and ideas associated with the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). Interestingly, the word cabinet—which we use often, such as the President's cabinet—evolved from the word Kabbalah and implies a deep discussion by a select few.
Kabbalah has three main aspects:
The Kabbalists say all Scriptures have hidden meanings. This is the heart of the issue: if you start looking for hidden meanings everywhere, you are going to come up with something incorrect. The Word of God is simple; it means what it says, and it says what it means. You don't have to go any further than that.
For example, the biblical phrase "no fire on the Sabbath" is interpreted by them to mean: "fire is light, so to turn on a light is to be warm," and they start making Scripture mean something else entirely. If you drift from the absolute and the natural, you are going to end up in the occult.
God reveals things to His people through His Spirit. If we have a desire to know but refuse to seek it God's way, the devil will step in and say, "I'll give you something," and he does. Esoteric searchers looking for hidden secrets of divinity and spirituality often terminate in the occult. Metaphysical concepts of human destiny can lead to the occult. All deep mental concentrations must be God-directed, or Satan will intrude and misguide a person.
You would be amazed at the number of messed-up intellectuals who have found a "highfalutin" philosophy that directs them right into the occult.
In Kabbalah, mysticism is an acrostic system. They might take the initial or final letters of the words in a phrase, join them to form another word, and then give that new word an occult significance. Or they might expand a word into a phrase using each letter as the initial letter of a new word.
Another method involves transposing words or replacing them with artificial equivalents obtained from anagrams. A popular method involves folding the Hebrew alphabet in half and substituting letters on the upper line with those on the lower line to "interpret" a scriptural passage.
These formal methods were used for two prime purposes:
For example, through Gematria (creating equivalents from the numerical values of words), they would assign numbers to letters. They might say a word adds up to 17, and another word adds up to 17, so they must be divinely connected. But God does not depend on numbers to reveal Himself. I would rather look at the mountains, the sea, and the stars and say, "There He is," than assign numerical values to letters to try and prove perfection.
The Talmudic teachers and the Kabbalists vied with each other in Jewish circles, both attempting to discover maximum data and proof of the authenticity of the Scriptures. But if you try to prove the Scriptures through natural or mystical means, the devil will take over that job and help you do it. God doesn't need any proof; He lives within us.
The Kabbalists emphasized the text itself—the letters, words, and numeral equivalents. The Karaites, another movement reacting against Talmudic interpretation, were extreme literalists. Their concern was limited strictly to the surface meaning of the text. For instance, the Karaites would light no fires on the Sabbath, even in the coldest climates, because the Torah commands it. The Talmudists, however, asserted it was acceptable to light a fire the day before and let it burn on the Sabbath.
People will go to great lengths to play with the Word of God to justify their actions. But God's Word is not to be played with; it is to be believed, acted upon, and shared with others. When we share this gospel with the whole world, Jesus is going to come!
The Kabbalists conceived of God's attributes as actual emanations flowing out of Him. They believed these emanations were produced by a voluntary retraction or self-limitation of God, which they considered the "birth pangs" of creation.
To the Kabbalist, God is infinite, boundless, and limitless (the Ein Sof). They believed there were ten emanations repeated on four levels, resulting in forty regressions from God down to our material world. These four realms were termed the world of supremes, the world of angels, the world of celestial bodies, and the world of material action.
What is the spiritual value of Kabbalah? How many Jews and Christians, in esoteric searches for truth, have wandered into Kabbalistic labyrinths? Can such wanderings be justified?
The true value of the Kabbalistic emanation doctrine must be rejected on two counts:
You don't have to count numbers to find the truth of the Word of God. As Colossians 2:18-19 warns: "Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God."
God warns us not to let any person beguile us into thinking we will receive a reward for seeking supernatural secrets related to angels or hidden mysteries. These people are vainly puffed up by their fleshly minds and are not holding fast to Christ, the Head of the body.
Furthermore, 2 Peter 1:20 says, "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation." We are not supposed to bend, stretch, or move the Word of God to make it mean what we want. The Greek word for private can also be translated as secret. We are not to use Scripture for secret interpretations—which is exactly what Kabbalah is all about.
In the occult, people seek to know hidden mysteries, and Satan uses this as an easy way to lead them away from the true living God. The devil will always offer you something "good" to keep you from receiving what is best. God is telling us to always choose what is best.
When people begin with Kabbalah or other occult practices, they often seem like intense seekers wanting to know more about God. But the devil takes advantage of that and leads them astray.
You can take anything to an extreme. The Word of God wants us to stay balanced, to know the truth, and to let the truth set us free. The heart of God's revelation, from Genesis to Revelation, is about sharing the Word and bringing newborn souls to Jesus Christ. Any man who tries to dive into excessively "deep" mystical realms will end up further out than he can handle. But if you simply share the Word, you can live a rich, happy, and rejoicing life.
Pray for people who are in the occult and don't even know it. When they experience a little tingle of mysticism, they think it's spiritual, when actually it is the devil manipulating their souls and keeping them away from God.