Don't Invite the Devil to Your Party

Dr. Ray: Hello and welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, Dr Ray Self; very glad you're with me, this is going to be a real exciting show. Recently I was very blessed to be in Crown Point Indiana ministering in a three-day prophetic event at Living Stones Church, pastored by Dr. Ron Johnson. What an incredible church with an amazing group of people full of the love of god. As part of this prophetic event, I was invited to be on the Ron Johnson Discipleship Podcast interviewing about the value of the prophetic gift. I really believe this is a fascinating interview and I want to play this for you today, this podcast is brought to you by the International College of Ministry, an accredited Holy Spirit-filled online college, enrolling now at icmcollege.org. Let's listen to the interview and God bless you.

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Dr. Ray: Hello and welcome to Self Talk, I'm your host Dr. Ray Self, so glad you joined me. Don't forget to rate, subscribe, download, and do all that good stuff so we can share this message. This show is brought to you by the International College of Ministry, a Holy Spirit-filled seminary online, enrolling now at www.icmcollege.org. So I wanted to talk to you today about don't invite the devil to your party. That's a strange topic but it's on my heart and I want to want to share it with you. In scripture, there's a story that has a principle behind it which I think affects us still today and it comes from the book of Exodus. And the story is when Moses went up to Mount Sinai to get the ten commandments, he's gone for a long time, the people get frustrated you know; they want a god, they think God has deserted them, so they convinced Joseph to make them a golden calf, a god that they can worship that, that will lead them you know, wherever they need to go. So Joshua collected a bunch of gold and jewelry and he fashioned up a golden calf that they began to worship.

Well obviously, that angered God a lot. In Exodus chapter 32, verse 10, the scripture says- God's speaking here- “Now then, let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them that I may destroy them and then I will make of you a great nation.” He was talking to Moses. And before that, he said, “The Lord spoke to Moses,” in verse seven, “‘Go down at once, for your people which you brought up from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.” In other words, God was very angry. Why was he angry? Because God is a jealous god. “You shall have no other gods before me,” one of the ten commandments. So what did they do despite all he had done for them? They decided that they needed another god because God had deserted them and therefore, to meet that spiritual hunger, that spiritual need that they had, they made themselves a god. Well, that's back then, right? Does that still happen today? Yes, it does. Sometimes you know, gods can be, we can have many idols in our lives but the principle which, which really speaks to my heart is that God hates anything spiritual that's not of him.

Now, and you look throughout the history of Israel, God put up with a lot of stuff but anytime Israel would turn to another god even though it'd be a false god, God was ready to destroy them or send them into captivity. So the other, my- the other words that I'm trying to get across you today is God has a pet peeve and this pet peeve is anything spiritual that's not of him. God hates and the devil loves it. Now how can we do something spiritual that's not of God? Well, I'm not talking about you turning into, to practice uh, Buddhism or whatever, what I'm saying is that we do things inadvertently that are spiritual. It's all over our society and in my opinion, and I believe the bible speaks very clearly of this, these spiritual practices are very offensive to God.

Well, the big one, the big one is yoga. “Well, I do yoga because it's a good exercise for me. It stretches, it gives me strength, it teaches me balance…” Yoga means union with god. This is the word, what it means it is comes from a Hindu religion. It's Hinduism. The worship poses - which you do these poses in yoga, I think there's the cobra, the panther, or whatever - but these poses that are done in yoga are actually worship poses to Hindu gods. Now the other side of the coin is a Christian will say well I'm not worshiping a Hindu god, I'm just exercising. No, you're not intentionally worshiping Hindu god, but your actions unintentionally are and it's offensive to God. When you get involved in anything spiritual- we have a natural spiritual hunger within us. God created us with a spiritual hunger we have. That, that's just as part of our DNA. You see it throughout society. We're, we're fascinated with the occult and magic and wizardry. You can't see a movie or read a book without this fascination with, you know, the Harry Potter stuff and in anything supernatural. We have, we practice astrology, we go to psychics, we get involved in mysticism, even parts of martial art are mystical; you know, there's this mystical power you'll see in the martial arts movies. These mystical powers that these martial artists develop where they, they create these forces forced with their hands and they, they throw it out, and they do all this stuff. Even Star Wars, which I love Star Wars, talks about the force which is again, this mysticism. Um, you know, astrology, psychics, transcendental meditation, there's so many things.

Um, when I was a kid we used to play with ouija boards, there's tarot cards, it's all spiritual. It has a spiritual context to it. Martial arts I believe- I'm not a martial artist but you, you bow to the east and you call, you use the word master and you try to, to get this spiritual energy flowing through you; well that's not the Holy Spirit, what spirit is that? Yoga tries to enlighten your body. I think there's a spirit called Kundalini which rests in the base of your spine and it's supposed to come up and if you do enough of this exercise and, and you still your mind enough, you become enlightened with this spirit. The problem is this spirit, it's not the Holy Spirit of God, it's not Jesus Christ, it's another spirit and God hates it. I'm just telling you God hates it. You say “but, but my heart is clean.” Well, I know your heart's good, I know it's not intentional, but if we're practicing you know, astrology has a spiritual aspect to it, psychics have a spiritual aspect to it, and back when I was in college, transcendental meditation was, it was a huge thing; some of the New Age stuff about connecting with the uh, nature you know, this, this we are one with the world. All this kind of stuff is a false god. It's worshiping, getting involved with false gods, and what you see in scripture is God hates it, the devil loves it.

So how could you invite the devil to your party? Well, you do that by worshiping a false god. It may be completely unintentional in your life. Now I will tell you something, I have sinned intentionally, I have sinned unintentionally, but it's still sin. The point of this is, it's pretty simple. Here's the, here's how you know if it is anything spiritual: if it has a supernatural, spiritual aspect to it, then it's going to offend God. If it's supernatural and it's the Holy Spirit glorifying Jesus, our way to God, that's fine, God loves them. But if it's supernatural and it has a spiritual aspect to it, it is offensive to God and it angers God. 

I remember back in elementary school, I'll never forget this, we were practicing ESP; remember ESP? Extra Sensory Perception. And I remember my teacher would ask one person to, “I want you to think of a number between 1 and 10” and then the person sitting next to them was to practice ESP and be able to tell what that number was, okay? I also remember once back in college, we were practicing manipulating people with our minds. I remember there was a guy sitting under a tree and I was with some other students and we all decided that we were going to focus our mental energy toward this guy and get him to do something against his will, it's weird stuff. All this stuff that is supernatural, spiritual, it can be you know, connecting with nature, transcendental meditation, yoga. I'm going to tell you yoga is one of the worst because it is clearly, clearly connected to Hinduism which is a demonic- it’s demonic, folks. You're just, you're just opening up a door.

And so all these things that we do I think are because of a spiritual hunger. The fascination that kids have with wizardry. You can't even walk into Disneyland without being approached by a wizard. “Well it's all fun and games,” but no, there's actually a supernatural aspect to it and it's feeding a natural spiritual hunger that our kids have, that we all have. That spiritual hunger that we have should be filled by the Holy Spirit, it's a spiritual hunger God put in us to be filled by him, to be connected to him, not these other gods that we build, not these other golden calves. And so when we have a golden calf in our life and we are involved in anything spiritual, supernatural, mystical, uh, some secret societies do this kind of stuff. There's a lot of stories about the Masons, all this kind of stuff. It grieves the Holy Spirit, it angers God and it invites the devil to your party and that's what I'm trying to say today. You say, “Well I'm not sure I've ever done anything like that.” I promise you if you'll do this prayer or say this prayer, Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ, if I've been involved with anything spiritual that is grieving you and offending God, please remind me and show me what it is because Lord, I'm sorry and I want to repent of that. When you say a prayer like that, I really believe and I know in fact I don't believe, I know that the Holy Spirit will show you. He will show you if there's anything you need to repent of. You know, the Holy Spirit convicts us of unrighteousness, he convicts the world, he also convicts us of unrighteousness. So when we're doing something that's offensive to God, the Holy Spirit will show us so we can repent.

So what do you do? You know, if you say well Dr. Self, I think I've, may, was involved with uh, you know, I used to hang out with psychics and practice astrology and uh, some of the New Age stuff; and maybe you were involved with the Wicca movement, all that kind of, kind of stuff. I see in the bible that God obviously didn't like sin but of all the sins that man ever did, the only time he was so angry he wanted to destroy a nation was any time the nation got involved with something spiritual that was not Him. Could have been a golden calf, it could have been when they worshiped Baal, whatever they were doing. If it was spiritual and it was not about God himself, it's offensive to God, it angers God, it says come on devil, I'm in rebellion to God, you can come join me and that's, that, that's an invitation to him. 

So what do you do? First off, you pray to get revelation of it and hear me, hear me before I do this. I'm not trying to condemn you, I'm just telling you what I think scripture points out. If you've been practicing yoga and all this kind of stuff, I think the Holy Spirit will convict you. I don't think it's my job to convict you, I think it's the Holy Spirit's job to convict you. There's so much spiritualism involved in yoga that it's just, it's just to me it's the poster child for things that we shouldn't do. And uh, I know I'm stepping on toes right now, forgive me, I still love you, I hope you still love me, just check it out. You can uh, there's even- uh, I've seen videos from a Hindu priest laughing at Americans who think that yoga is not spiritual. So this is what we do, the bible says in First John if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. So what do we do, first off we recognize “Oh, the Holy Spirit showed me- Lord, Lord, I used to practice astrology all the time. Lord, I renounced my practice of astrology. I renounce- Lord, I practice yoga, Father, I renounce my practice of yoga. Lord, forgive me. I confess my sin to you. Lord, I ask you now in the name of Jesus Christ to forgive me. I choose to repent, turn away from that. I repent; forgive me, Lord. I receive your forgiveness now.” And when you say that prayer, the bible says that God is faithful to forgive you and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. And then the cool thing is the devil's invitation to your party is now gone away. It no longer exists. The devil said, “you know what, I had invited you to come join me and now that invitation is null and void.”

You see folks, when we're in agreement with God, we're in agreement with his word, we're in agreement with the Holy Spirit, the way the Holy Spirit is leading us, then God joins us in our plans. God joins us we worship him, we're in obedience to him. But when we rebel against God, maybe unintentionally, we are giving an open invitation to demons to come into our life. And so sometimes you wonder why these keep- things keep happening to me? Why is this happening to me? Well, you might need to shut the door and cancel the invitation. Cancel it. Cancel it. And I hope that this show maybe has helped you or convicted you. You know, if you, let me just say this kind of in closing: If you've ever been involved in any deliverance ministry and you know I have, and I know if you're a Holy Spirit-filled Christian you're probably familiar with deliverance ministries. Almost every deliverance ministry on the planet has got a checklist of things to repent of and you know, astrology, tarot cards, ouija boards, magic 8-ball, martial arts, masonry, you know, Mason, the Masonic Lodge, Freemason, you know, so many things that- supernatural; you know, witchcraft, transcendental meditation, uh seances, all this stuff, check, check, check. Repent, repent, repent, repent, repent. Renounce it because God hates it and so what we want to do is close the door to the devil and open the door for more of Jesus, more of the Holy Spirit, more of life, and life more abundantly. That's God's will for us. I hope this show has been a blessing to you. Let me, let me close with a prayer.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for each person listening to me today. And Lord, I- I'm not trying to be legalistic here- Lord, I'm speaking the truth Lord, and I hope that people hear that I love them and I care about my listeners and I care about people, Father. Lord, I know you love us too but Father, now anybody listening to me, Father, show us, Lord, anything we've done that is grieving you that we need to repent from and renounce and ask forgiveness for, Father; even if it's ancestral, Father, forgive our ancestors who were involved in, in the occult or anything that was just pleasing to you, Father. We renounced all this activity, Father. We return from it, Father, and we receive your forgiveness, Lord. So Father, thank you for each person listening to me. I ask you to bless them, come upon them, anoint them to be all you call them to be and I thank you, Father, that the devil's invitation to join our life is canceled by the blood of Jesus Christ. It's canceled by the name of Jesus, the name above all names. Canceled! And the door is open for your glory, for your blessings, and for your honor in. Jesus’ name I pray, amen, amen.

Thank you so much for joining me. Hey, check out my books, you know, Redeeming Your Past, Finding Your Promised Land; also Hear His Voice, Be His Voice. If you want to get some cool, cool courses on my website, do this, go to my website, icmcollege.org. Browse the catalog, browse the catalog. I have some fantastic counseling courses, prophetic courses, theology courses, with over 200 courses there. If you see a course that you would like to take, all you have to do is email me, Dr. Ray Self, d-r-r-a-y-s-e-l-f@gmail.com, drrayself@gmail.com all lowercase. Tell me the name of the course you want, make a $35 donation to my scholarship fund. I like to help people get educated. I give money over to, to Africa and India, and Peru. I also help pastors in need. Just make a $35 donation, icmcollege.org, to one of our funds, email me the course you want, and I will send you the link for the full six-week, maybe eight-week course, college course that's valued at over three hundred dollars, okay? For 35 bucks. That's an offer. I love you much and if you can help support this ministry, that would be great, we are a 501c3. I love you much, God bless you, adios, amigos.

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