If you will, take your Bibles
and turn with me to Galatians chapter 5. As we continue in
our study of the book of Galatians, Galatians chapter 5, this morning
we'll be looking at verses 19 and 20. The title of the message this morning
is The Sins of Idolatry and Witchcraft. the sins of idolatry and witchcraft. Now, the Apostle Paul, let's
read these verses together, beginning in verse 19. Now the works of the flesh are
plain, manifest, that these are adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation,
strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murder, drunkenness,
reveling, and the such like, of which I tell you before, as
I also told you in time past, that they which do such things
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Now the Apostle Paul
in these verses is again giving us a list of the sins that are
plainly revealed. Sins that are plainly revealed
to every one of us. Every one of us go down this
list of sins and we all know these are evil. We know that these are not right. And this is because God wrote
this on our hearts. Even from a young child, especially
from a young child, we know and feel our conscience more as a
young child than we do when we're older. Why is that? Because over
the years, we've seared our conscience to feel that these things are
evil. We've done them so much that it just is natural for us
to do it, and we feel no shame in it. But we know, every man
knows, that these are sins, that these are not right. Because God wrote it on our hearts.
We were born dead, blind, and ignorant of the things of God. And rather than hearing the conscience
that God gave us, we would rather take pleasure in our sins. This is the heart of every one
of us. I usually say it's the heart
of every man, but I don't want you to start thinking about other
people. I want you to know it's you I'm talking to. Because I'm
talking to myself. You see, we got that in common.
We both are born with a wicked, evil nature that is full and
corrupt of sin. But I'll tell you this, only
those who have been resurrected by the Spirit of God in their
souls and been given a brand new nature that is holy, Only
those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified
for our sins and raised again from the dead, only those of
us who believe on Christ truly understand the nature of our
sin. I didn't say fully. I just said
truly. I truly understand that these
sins are my nature. I understand that I am guilty
of all of these sins. We not only know that these are
sins, but we who believe are now given the power to overcome
these sins. Overcome these sins. We have the Spirit of God now
dwelling inside of us, and we have a new nature that now rules
over our heart, so that these sins that we once loved and enjoyed,
we no longer have the affection for those sins. We no longer
love those things that we once loved. And therefore, in every
one of us who are believers in Christ, there is a constant warfare
going on. Constant. It doesn't stop. It's
day and night, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Constant struggle within our
own breasts concerning our old nature and our new nature. Constant
struggle. We who believe desire only to
be righteous. You see, I just don't want to
be semi-good. I don't want to just get by.
Friends, I want to be as holy as God is. That's how holy I
want to be. I don't want any of my sins.
I don't want any of it. And those who are alive under
God, this is how we feel, this is how we see things, that the
old nature in everything it does is contaminated. There's a law
in Leviticus, I believe it's Leviticus 15, of the issue, of
a man or a woman's issue, which is either blood or something
oozing off of their flesh. When they touch something, that
thing or person, whatever it was, became unclean. Under the
law, it became ceremonially unclean. Well, that's a picture of us.
Everything we touch, the issue of our sin goes out, and we defile
whatever it is we touch. Even though we would do good,
what's present with us? Evil. Evil is present with us
even when we would do good. Oh, wretched man that I am. Is that not the cry of every
awakened sinner who believes on Christ? You bet it is. You bet it is. We loathe ourselves
and we adore Him. We adore Him. And even though we believers
do sin, even though we are not as we long to be. Our conduct is not what we desire
to be, but we know this, that in every believer there is a
mark of grace. There is a mark of difference
between a sinner and a sinner saved by grace. There's a mark,
there's a difference. And the difference is this, God's
people are led by the Spirit of God. Look at this in Romans
chapter 8. Flip over to Romans chapter 8
and look at verse 12. Romans chapter 8 and verse 12
says, Therefore, brethren, We are debtors not to the flesh
to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh,
you shall die. But if ye through the Spirit
do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. For as many as
are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Are you led by the Spirit of
the living God. Do you have faith completely,
absolutely, in Christ Jesus alone? You see, that's where the Spirit
always leads us. To faith in Christ. It never
turns us from Christ to look back at ourselves. Never. When we are saved by the grace
of God, we cease to look at us, because all we see is sin. We
cease to look at our works for any comfort, for any assurance. We always, constantly, led by
the Spirit, look by faith to Christ. That is it. That is what it is to be led
by the Spirit of God. Believer in Christ, you are not
indebted to your flesh. Sometimes I think we act like
we're indebted to this body. Like we owe this body something.
When this body yells, what do we do? We run right after it.
We go and take care of it. Nothing wrong with taking care
of your body, but I'm talking about sin. This flesh loves to
run to sin and you don't owe your flesh anything to run to
sin. We don't owe our flesh anything.
But only to Christ our God and King do we owe everything. Everything. If you are led by
the Spirit, you and I do strive to mortify the deeds of this
flesh. But if there is anybody who has
no love for righteousness, No love for holiness, you will
die. Now, we're all going to die physically,
but this is a spiritual matter. This is a spiritual death. It
is an eternal death. It is a very serious thing. Sin
is not to be trifled with, friends. Sin is a dangerous thing. Because
all sin is worthy of hell. All sin is worthy of hell. And believers, we do commit sins. I know this. I know this from
me. I know I commit sins. Every day,
every moment, we commit sins. But these sins are not the pattern
and tenor of our life. If you look at me at any certain
point in my life, I'll tell you what, you'll find many reasons
to say, man, that guy's a wicked man. If you notice me at certain
times in my life, I'm sure you can point it out. And I can do
the same with you. If we look at David, when he
committed the sin with Bathsheba, if we just only look at that
one portion of David's life, what conclusion could we make?
Man, that guy's lost. That guy doesn't know God at
all. But what was the tenor of David's life? It wasn't that.
David didn't constantly revel in this. He fell into that sin. But how long was it before God
brought him out? It wasn't long. And it's the
same with us. Everyone who falls, everyone
who believes in Christ, yes, we fall into sin, but God lifts
us up out of it. We don't stay in it. God's people
don't. I know a man that constantly
living with women, constantly. And all the while he says, oh,
I'm a believer in Jesus. The whole tenor of that man's
life is sin, the whole tenor of it. He has no love for the
gospel, no love to come and sit with God's people, no love for
anything of Christ, and yet he says, oh, I'm a believer. I don't think so. I'd be worried
about you. Why? Because the tenor of your
life is not after holiness. You don't desire that. God's
people do. We desire to be led of the Spirit.
And we are plainly opposed to these sins. Now, last week, we
did look at these first group of sins in verse 19. I mean,
verse 20. Wait, I'm in the wrong book now.
I looked at that and that didn't look right. Verse 19 in our text
in Galatians 5. Now, the works of the flesh are
clear and plain. These adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
these are sexual sins. And these sins I mentioned last
week are first because they're the most common among men. They're
the most common among us all. But they are not to be seen as
casual. Man in this generation Sex is
nothing more than a casual glance or a thought, and it really doesn't
bother anybody. God help us. There's no more
shame, is there? It's casual to people. And these
sins burn within every one of us. This is not uncommon to any
one of us. But we who are believers in Christ,
we must flee from these things rather than be burned up by them.
Because I'll tell you, if you toy with them, you'll be burned
up by them. And I'm talking to believers
too. Paul was talking to believers when he said, flee fornication
in 1 Corinthians 6. He was talking to Timothy, the
pastor Timothy, when he said, flee youthful lusts. Well, preacher, I'm above that.
I got a handle on that, and that's no problem. Preacher, I'm too
old. Oh, really? If you've got your
mind and eyesight, you're not too old. You're not too old. You watch television for 10 minutes,
and I know. I know. These things flare up in our
minds and we cannot stop them from coming. Martin Luther said this, he said,
I can't stop the birds from flocking, but I can stop them from nesting.
We can't stop these thoughts from coming, but we can flee
them. We can stop them from nesting
in our minds. Well, and the second group that
I wanted to look at hurriedly now is these two, idolatry and
witchcraft. Now, idolatry. Most people, when they hear this,
think of little idols, people bowing down to them, worshiping
these little idols. Well, that is idolatry. That
is idolatry. And we can see this in many countries.
I mean, you go to Mexico and they've got statues of the Virgin
Mary right there in their yards. And man, they bow down to these
things and worship these things all the time. And I'll tell you, we who truly
believe in Christ, we know this is saved by grace. We have no
interest in bowing down to those statues, do we? You don't have
these little statues at home and you don't want to bow down
to them. You don't have any interest in worshipping them because you
know they are nothing. You know they have no power to
save you. So we don't do that. But there
are some who name the name of Christ that do bow down to these
statues. They bow down to crosses and
pictures. And I'll tell you, it seems very
religious, doesn't it? You see the man in the long robe
going down and speaking in Latin, a language that's dead, you can't
understand it. He doesn't understand it probably.
Waving some smoke in the front and beautiful buildings and nice
golden crosses with a weak effeminate man hung on there. They got the
Virgin Mary and all the saints and stuff, and they just think
that that is appealing to our flesh. It's appealing to this
old nature to have some kind of ceremony or ritual, isn't
it? I have a man always trying to tell
me, he said, man, you need some excitement in your church. All
you do is stand up there and preach. That's not exciting.
You need something exciting. Why? He's looking for an idol
to worship. He's looking for something that
His flesh can enjoy. That's what idolatry is. These acts of religion appeal
to the flesh. And I'll tell you, believer,
listen to me very carefully. Hearing another gospel than the
gospel of God's grace in Jesus Christ and associating or consenting
to false religion is idolatry. It's idolatry. You mean we can commit? Yes,
we can commit idolatry. Matter of fact, we do. Some people
won't bow down to gold statues, they bow down to gold itself. Money, they bow down to that. Some may be faithful to prayer
and worship and reading of the Bible for the sole purpose of
easing their conscience. That's idolatry. People come
in here or come in a church and they just hear the preaching,
they sacrifice their time, they get up in the morning, they get
dressed, they give their little coins or money in the offering
and they say, well, I've done all I can do My conscience is
clean. Now then, I'm going to go sin
until next week. Idolatry. Idolatry. Idolatry is also the worship
of the flesh. It is the sin of the flesh to
think that if we do something religious or give something to
the church, that we can somehow buy room to sin. Isn't that what
the Catholic Church believed before in the indulgences? They used to pay the church money
so that they could be pre-approved forgiveness. Kind of like a loan.
You know, they'd pay And the priest would say, OK, I'm going
to forgive you for whatever you're going to do. And you can just
go and do it and have a good conscience. That's idolatry.
And friends, it happens to us. It happens to us. We do the same
thing. We may not be as blatant, but
there are times we use the mask of religion to disguise our sin. The second thing is witchcraft.
This is the occult. This is the summoning of spirits
or the working of supernatural power. Witchcraft is the sin
of looking into things that do not belong to us. Go to Deuteronomy
29. Deuteronomy chapter 29. Verse 29. The secret things belong unto
the Lord our God. But those things which are revealed
belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the
words of this law. What does this say? This was the temptation of the
enemy from the beginning, friends. He said to our mother Eve, Thou shalt not surely die, but
God knows in the day you eat this fruit, you shall be as gods, knowing good. and evil. He was tempting her to look into
things that did not belong to her. He said, you'll be magical,
you'll be powerful, you'll be God's. Is that not the temptation of
witchcraft? To take the place and power of God over men? It
is. It is. And this is passed to all of
us. By nature, we are lured to magic,
aren't we? When you see people doing magic
tricks, everybody's interested. Everybody's interested. And I'll
tell you, there's a difference between somebody doing illusions
or somebody doing a trick and people who are trying to work
real magic, but that That allurement has the same value to our natural
flesh. We are drawn to witness things
of supernatural miracles. It is our nature to try to control
and have power over our elements, over the flesh, over our bodies. It is our nature to desire these
controls and it's our nature to desire to look to the future,
isn't it? Isn't that just our nature to want to see what's
next? Yes, it is. Want to know what's
next? Well, friends, these things don't
belong to us. Supernatural powers don't belong
to us. They belong to God. He gave them
to His apostles, but He ceased to give them after the apostles.
Why do people still long for it? Speaking in tongues and all
of these miracles that they want to do, that we know is a farce,
it's a joke. It's witchcraft. Pentecostal religion is witchcraft.
Nothing more than a witch doctor standing up there hooting and
hollering. That's it. Horoscopes, palm reading, New
Age movement, Buddhism, free will, self-help, man-centered. Religion is witchcraft. Why? They desire the power of
God. They desire to have power over
their own destiny rather than yielding to God as sovereign.
Witchcraft. Well, if you come down here and
say this prayer, everything will be alright. What is that but
an incantation? Is that not an incantation? Of
course it is. You're saying by saying this,
you're going to make God do something. Or you're obligating God to do
it. No. That's witchcraft. Sorcery. These things are to
be shunned by every true believer in Christ. These are not harmless. These are not funny. Some lady read a horoscope the
other day and I couldn't help. It was just silly. And I laughed
out loud. I felt ashamed when I laughed
because that's not funny. It's not funny. She's dealing
into things that she has no idea Those things don't belong to
her. The future doesn't belong to her. Well, pastor, we're not
going to do that. We don't have anything to do
that. I'm glad that we're so safe from witchcraft and sorcery.
Oh, really? Let me ask you this. Have you
ever asked the question, what is God's will for my life? You
ask that? What are you asking? Are you
not asking somehow for us to tell you what's going to happen
in the future? You're wanting us to look in
some crystal ball and tell you what's going to happen. I don't
know. I don't know. I can warn you of what may happen.
I can warn you of what eventually is going to happen because that's
revealed to me. That's in the Word of God. I
can tell you what this book says. But I can't tell you exactly
what's going to happen to you. You may sin against God and go and
live a prosperous life. You may sin against God and you
may suffer all your life. I don't know. I don't know what
holds the future for you. I know this. If you do not believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will suffer eternity in hell
because God said so. And if you believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ with all your heart, God will save you and you will
live eternally with him. I know that. Why? It's revealed
to me. It's not witchcraft. I'm just
telling you what God says. God's will is this, that we believe
on the Son of God. Have faith in Christ alone. May God keep us from these sins.
Make no mistake about it. If we're going to be kept, it
must be by the power of the Holy Spirit, because we can't keep
ourselves from anything. I pray that God blesses to our
hearts. We're dismissed.