"Idolatry and Enchantment" Rescue Radio with Marjorie Cole

0:00 Music. Rescue Radio, because there's a war for your son. Yes, Father God, indeed, there is a war. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the victory. Thank you that your will be done, O God, on earth and through us, as it's being done and declared in heaven.

0:40 Lord God, we pray that your kingdom come, your will be done. We are your ambassadors. We are your assets on this earth to bring forth the purposes to which you have decided and determined, Father. So we thank you, Jesus, also for your wonderful gift and dying for us, shedding your blood for us, being pierced for us, being pounded to the cross for us, Father, that we might live. I thank you for that salvation, no greater gift, Lord God, no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends, for us. Thank you, Jesus, for doing that. And we thank you for giving us power over all the power of the enemy, even power to forgive. And we thank you, Lord. We take authority over the enemy, his power, his darkness, his intentions, his plans, Father.

1:24 We bind and forbid them in the name of Jesus Christ. And we thank you now, Lord God, for the divine wisdom, wisdom from on high, not lies, not treachery, not deception, but the wisdom of God that you'll fill the hearts of your people with a wisdom, understanding, eyes to see, ears to hear, heart to receive, that we will not be rebellious in these very critical times. So, Father God, now open our hearts, open our minds, our eyes, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, you know, it seems like we're still, we're in a very dangerous place these days with so many people kind of in a, just a kind of a breathe, a sigh of relief. Okay, now, but still, we haven't yet got to the real issue, the deeper issue that that is holding, binding this world in the captivity and in the claw of the grip of Satan.

2:16 And that is understanding the commandment of, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul, mind, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. I still see a lot of what we would call idolatry that's pervasive, that's even, it's inbredded, it's infused, it's seeped into every element of our own culture, of our thoughts, even of our own faith in God. In Exodus chapter 20, it says, And God spoke all these words, beginning with verse 1, saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.

2:57 You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands. To those who love me and who keep my commandments. Amen. So right from the beginning here and the Ten Commandments, it's not that God is saying, I've got to have all the control here, that I'm just some kind of dictator, because he knows when we go away from him, we turn away from him in our hearts and worship other things, Other things, other people, other situations.

3:53 He knows then that we open ourselves up to demonic control. The control of those things. That's exactly right. And so we're being controlled. God doesn't, he knows that what we worship is what we become. And when you yield your worship, which is an act of agreement, you yield that to whatever it is you're worshiping or pursuing or putting before God, which is idolatry, putting anything before God, that thing begins to control you. And those things, there's only two power sources. So if you're not worshiping God and the one true God and following Him. Then you're going to be seduced into believing all these other things and pursuits are valid and okay, which I believe this nation, we've kind of come to that place.

4:35 We have lost our way, even in our religious communities and in the church, we have kind of lost our way because we don't recognize the power of this idolatry that's still undergirding all of the problem. So an idol, by dictionary definition, is an image, a form, a phantom, an apparition, or any object of ardent or excessive devotion or admiration. And idolatry then would be excessive devotion to or reverence for some person or thing other than God. So when Jesus said, follow me, you shall follow me, he was saying that's the course, that's the way to protect yourself from idolatry.

5:20 If you follow Jesus Christ, the Son of God, do his will, seek his will. Yield yourself and your will to his will, then you will be safe from practicing idolatry. Any other thing, and there's many, many other things Satan has done in our minds to seduce us into believing that our thoughts are our thoughts and our ambitions are our opinions are opinions, and therefore we are practicing pursuing our own ideas, our own opinions, our own thoughts, our own attitudes, our own goals, and we've really failed to put God first. Not everyone, but a lot of people, and what has to happen, we've got to make an adjustment here. We've got to move from serving ourselves or following a false light or believing the things that are, you know, I mean, like Jesus says, if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness?

6:11 If we continue to think of those things and not discern the true light from the false lights and the false and the antichrist spirits and the false Jesuses, if we don't discern those things, we will be just as in danger as we ever were. Because what has to happen is that the war is between God and Satan for our affections and for our agreements. And so when we're giving our affections to something that's not God, even though it doesn't have the label demon on it at the moment, you're still in great danger. Yeah, sometimes we think of idolatry as someone just bowing before a statue. Or a sticker stone. An inanimate object or sticks or stones.

6:53 And I've seen plenty of that in other countries. Where there are millions of people gods, small G-O-D-S, that are worshiped. But you know, honey, those are very obvious. Very obvious. They might be a monkey god or an elephant god or a fish god or whatever it is. And people are taken up with these sorts of things. But we think, no, let's get right down to here in the United States of America. Yeah, where it's not as obvious. It's not as obvious that you're not bowing down necessarily to some big ugly statue somewhere. Or maybe we are. Some people are now doing that too. It's happening. It's happening. But what's happening is, well, going back to Ezekiel for a very graphic description of what was going on and how, you know, we think God is so impatient. I think God is super patient.

7:45 I think they were doing an Ezekiel. He was showing Ezekiel. He says, I want to show you something. Come follow me. And so he brought him to the door of the court. It's Ezekiel 8-7. He brought him to the door of the court. And when I looked, there was a hole in the wall. And he said, son of man, dig into the wall. And so I dug into the wall. And he said, go in and see what the wicked abominations are, what they're doing there. Now, this was in the temple, okay? So Ezekiel is following and looking through and being shown this. And when I went through, I saw there, verse 10, every sort of creeping thing, abomination, abominable beast, all kinds of idols of the house of Israel portrayed all around the walls.

8:25 And there stood before them 70 men of the elders of the house of Israel in their midst and there was a leader with them with a censer in his hand and a thick cloud of incense and he said to me, son of a man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark? Every man in the room of his idols and they said, the Lord does not see, the Lord has forsaken the land. So they were doing these things in secret and they were yet to be, they were supposed to be the leaders, the religious leaders of that land. They were supposed to be representing and leading the people into worshiping the one true and living God. And it talks about in verse 11, each man had a censer in his hand. Worshiping. It's worship.

9:07 An act of agreement. An act of incense. An act of worship through the incense. So they were praying. Their affections were going there. And it's interesting. It says, every man in the room of his idols, in the middle of verse 12. In the King James, it says, I'm reading from the New King James, the King James says, in the chamber of his imagery. Imagery. So he has a room of his idols, his imagination, and this is what is being exposed here to Ezekiel. And it says in verse 17, for they have filled the land with violence, Then they have returned to provoke me to anger. Indeed, they put the brand, well, so what they're doing is they are not recognizing the connection between the violence in the land and the idolatry.

9:56 And I think that's one of the things that we're failing to recognize too. So let's look for a minute at what those idols are for us. Yeah, and let me mention just a little bit here that he, she, they saw, Ezekiel saw 25 men with their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east. and they were worshiping the sun toward the east. And there's another place right in here where it talks about the women were weeping for Tammuz. So they were all emotionally taken up with worshiping Tammuz, which was a god of fertility. And how does this apply to us right now today in the United States of America?

10:37 Well, I think, first of all, let's look at what the idols are. Because, again, if you go back to Matthew where the Lord is talking about if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness, that there's a lot of things that are pretending to be or purporting to be or looking like they're the right thing. And so a lot of times I believe one of the biggest idols we serve is our own opinions. He says if your eye is good, your whole body will see clearly and the images will not be distorted. But if your eye is bad or sees things through a lens of distortion or indulgence, I think indulgence is a big word, perversions, another very big word, and fantasy, if we're seeing the world through those lenses of spells, enchantments, sorcery, your whole body will be filled with darkness.

11:26 And he says, therefore, if the light or what you perceive to be the light or what you're following as the light is not the true light, but is darkness or evil, he says, if the light that is in you. There's a dark light in people. He says, if the light that is in you be darkness, so that implies that there's a light that can be in us that's full of confusion, perversion, twisting, idolatry. Well, people think they're enlightened, but, Their idea of enlightenment is actually darkness because it goes against the truth of the Lord. Right, and I think we've lost our ability. Something's weird going on here that we can't just read the words out of the book and say, oh, I get it, I see it, it's very clear.

12:10 There is something interfacing, there's something coming between us and the revelation or the realization that we are still, many of us and most of the time oftentimes, practicing idolatry. Basically idolatry, the biggest idol that people worship without fear is fear. We're not afraid to worship fear. We're not afraid to take matters into our own hands. We're not afraid to say, I can't trust God, so therefore it's up to me. We're not afraid to plan our own way. And we're just, you know, we worship our opinions. We worship our conclusions. We worship our, we guide ourselves, our opinions. We're allowing our opinions, whether it's whatever, My opinion of how I see things and what I think is correct, if it's not guided by the Word of God and it's not substantiated in the Word of God, it is nothing more than hearsay and falsity.

13:06 What about the idol of our experiences? So our experiences bring us into a place of opinion. Correct. And so, but. Right. So you're making an agreement with your experience and you're saying this is real because this really happened. And, but it's, it really happened, but it's not the truth because reality and truth are enemies because, you know, but, but again, that's another subject maybe for another day. But the fact is that we're worshiping our opinions, our conclusions, and this then creates a situation where we're defining our positions. Are you for or against? Are you in or out? Jesus said, there's only two kingdoms. You cannot serve God and mammon. There's not a third kingdom of just me or I can't, you know, I don't know.

13:48 There are only two. And this is where it's going to end up, either with heaven or hell. It's not going to end up with heaven or hell plus, oh, I have my own kingdom, so I don't have to play that game with those guys. This is a true reckoning, day of reckoning. So he says, you know, if we if we define our positions, those positions will direct our behavior, and they will lead us into forming alliances or loyalties. Now, what are we going to form our alliances and loyalties with? What are we going to connect with? If we're going to find another source of power other than the one true God, all of those sources are already corrupted and controlled by the devil. Here's the deal, though. You know, we're created in the likeness and image of God. We're created for worship.

14:32 And God knows that, Satan knows that. And if he can redirect our worship from the living God to him or something else. And so basically, the whole deal, it's really all about worship because Satan, at one time known as Lucifer, he was the worship leader of heaven. And he said, you know what? I am no longer, I want to be worshiped. I want to be like God. So his whole program is to divert mankind from worshiping, knowing and worshiping the true and living God to worshiping other things, false gods, idols.

15:15 And one of the problems with being deceived is that we are deceived. So we don't realize that we've been seduced or captivated or captured by that which we have come to believe to be correct, the light or the truth. When indeed it is not the correct light, it's not the true light. So again, Jesus says how deep and impenetrable is that deception, that darkness, when Satan is beyond. He is beyond your idea of cunning and mine. The first thing that he released, actually, if you go back to the very beginning in the word, the commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me. The very first thing that the enemy released onto the earth when he got Eve seduced into eating the fruit. And if you look at that story, you'll see there are three things that persuaded her to eat that, take that fruit.

16:06 One of them was that it was beautiful, and it looked good for food, and it was there to make one wise. So it was very enchanting or enticing or tempting or alluring. It's beauty. She was fascinated, seduced by the beauty, as if she hadn't been in a garden full of beauty. But she was seduced by this beautiful, seductive. Because in that fruit, contained in that fruit, I believe was the release of the spirit of enchantment and seduction, which then puts a spell on people so they don't realize they're even being deceived. So this is where, and if you look, this was the very first thing that came off of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was enchantments and root cuttings.

16:51 So where'd you get that? Well, check it out in the book of Enoch. But the enchantments, Satan seduced Eve, enchanted her with the beauty of the fruit, beauty of the, and the word enchantment actually does mean a desire for feelings, a desire for a feeling of great pleasure. Isn't that what they describe when they do drugs? It's a high, it's a utopian, it's a wow, it's a, you know, and that's why they do it. So they're craving for the delights and the delightful feelings. The second definition of an enchantment is to be under a spell. And I believe this nation is under a spell. I believe that came, and it came from, actually, Romans chapter 11, where he says, if you don't choose between grace and good works and you keep your religious affiliations, God will put a spirit of stupor upon you.

17:41 So if you can't distinguish between grace and works, and you pursue works to be saved and to find grace, He said there's going to be a spirit of stupor, hardness of heart and stupor. And that spirit of stupor is what I believe is on the nation, that spirit of sorcery and stupor. Yeah, right. And if you read Romans chapter 1, this is a great description. A painful description. A painful description of... Idolatry, basically, we knew God, we weren't thankful, we became futile in their thoughts and their imaginations.

18:21 Our vain imaginations. And their foolish hearts were darkened. So idolatry gets us into all this. The darkness. Professing to be wise. They became fools. And change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like a corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. That's right. So we're switching out our humanity to become part of monkeys and beasts and things like that because of the depravity of the evil one. Not the depravity of man, but the depravity of the situation that we're in and not being able to truly discern it.

19:05 And so what's happening is because the enchantments and the stupor, the root cuttings, the drugs. So Satan offered in the beginning, he set up, he released the enchantments, the sorceries, the spells. And then that was enhanced and I think activated by the root cuttings, the drugs. So the pharmakia and the enchantments go together, and this nation has been deceived, duped. Drugged. Drugged, there's a good word. Drugged. Really, you know, the thing is too is that basically if you're addicted to a drug, that's your idol. Who's in control of you? And it's not just the chemical, but it's the demon behind it with the chemical. Many demons.

19:48 So Satan, again, going back to the enchantments a little bit, he was using sorcery and drugs. To mesmerize the people and put them in a stupor. This is exactly where we are as a nation. What do we need to do about this? We need to, number one, identify it. Number two, confess the sins as sins and abominations. And number three, repent and ask God to forgive us. Number four. So understanding the difference between the gospel of grace, like I said, and good works also brings this stupor upon us. And again, going back to, you cannot serve two masters. Jesus said you'll either love the one and be loyal to the one or despise the other.

20:29 And there's not a third kingdom. So you're going to have to decide, get in or get out. There is a line. There is a line. And that line is God's line. But the kingdom of God is not the same as the kingdom of darkness. You can't be in one and serve the other. You have to get in or get out. And we get in or get out. number one, the first thing we must do is recognize that we've been deceived. Recognize that reality is not the truth. What really happened, your experiences, your opinions, how you experienced life. Satan used all of that to set you up to believe lies. He set you up to deceive you into believing either I've got to take care of myself because there's nobody there for me. I can't, I can't trust anybody.

21:15 And so for the most part, he set us all up in a place where we are to having to. Put ourselves as the idol, or put ourselves as God. You know, we're afraid of God, serving God. We don't trust God. He wasn't there. What all the lies Satan told us about him. And so we have to be our own God. And this is true, true, true. So then we become controlling, we become manipulative, we become afraid. So people are anxious and afraid because they're trying to be their own God and it's not working very well. So it creates on the other side of the torture rack, a lot of anxiety and fear. But going back to the story, the stupor that comes from the pursuit of these enchantments the devices just desire to feel good you know we were you know not too not too long ago we were in the in the movie theater again we don't go there very often but you see on the walls all the upcoming movies and films and advertisement and it's just shockingly evil and vile you know just stupid folly folly foolishness fantasy fantasy is a big one evil fantasy fantasy and so darkness.

22:15 People are like children and they want to live in a fantasy world. And this is exactly where Satan is stupefied and mesmerized and seduced most people into living into a fantasy world because in a fantasy world, you can have everything the way you want it. It can be your nice little charming, beautiful world with no consequences and everything's wonderful. It's kind of like a false heaven. And so what God wants us to do is recognize that we are in a place of reality now where we have to understand that there is a judgment coming. This world is real. Satan has a plan to destroy this world. God has a plan to save it. And we want to understand what they're so breaking out of a fantasy, breaking out of that enchantment, it's there.

22:58 I mean, you just look around. Everything that's set up to make us believe we can live in a fake world and be real, but we can't. And here's another thing, too. An idol can be another person. You know, how many people, how many, you can worship your boyfriend, worship your girlfriend, there's a- Worship the relationship, yeah, worship. Worship the relationship. Well, what do they say? They're infatuated. That's kind of a first term used oftentimes. People fall in love. Jesus said, Paul writes to Timothy in the last days, people will be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. So this is another form of that. Well, that's exactly what enchantment is. We just want to have fun.

23:38 Delight, beauty, pleasure, fantasy world. Because the other world is so scary, but the other world is the real world that you're going to have to deal with. You can live in a fake world, a fantasy world, until you breathe your last breath, if you want to. But at that point in time, there's no options left. And the fantasy world is like a, whether it's in drugs or movies or another person or your ideas or your fun or whatever, you do it as a coping mechanism, and it doesn't work. God never called us to cope. He called us to be set free and live an abundant life. But the thing is, too, is like life is too painful.

24:24 We've got to have some kind of escape. Or medication. Entertainment. I think the original word for entertainment is to take away from, to put you in another state, another realm, to be entertained by people, by music, all that stuff. In its escape because here's again, let's go back to this definition. Idolatry is anything, any excessive devotion or reverence for a person, person or place or thing other than the living God.

25:05 Well, this is what we have been deceived, seduced into being and believing. Like, for example, the state of enchantment brings you into a state of being under a spell. So obviously, if you're under a spell, you're not going to be worshiping the one true God. It brings us into a state of being under a spell. It's magic. It's sorcery. It's wizardry. It's conjugating. It's hypnotism. It's mesmerizing. it's charms it's black arts it's spells again it's incantations captivations bewitching. Fascinations temptations there you go temptations seductions allurements enticement what has a fisherman done he lures the fish in using delightful things think about the lures that the fishermen use they're all shiny or sparkly or it's exactly what the fish is looking for the charms, the beauty, the sparkles, the attractiveness, the appeal, the irresistible, all of these things that we want heaven.

26:01 And Satan makes these things look like heaven. And so it's a feeling of great pleasure and attraction. You know, life is not full of a lot of pleasure. It can be. I mean, it can have lots of peace and joy. I mean, the whole thing can be filled with joy and peace and the revelation of God and the fullness of knowing that. But most people are not looking for peace. they're looking for pleasure or an absence of pain and they're attracted to anything that can give them that and anything that can give you that that's not god is an idol you know especially if it's something beautiful the hebrew word means actually something that is very beautiful but covered or muffled or secret and so again.

26:45 The Lord knows about the enemy's cunning. He knows about all of these things. He knows about the wickedness, the allurements, the enchantments, the idolatry, but they're all connected. But we have to go back to being set free from the enchantments, which is a rejection of truth, because I just don't want to live there. I want to live in my little fairy world. I want to live in my little fantasy world. I want to live in my little drug world, my little fruit world. But drugs only give you a moment of this pursuit of this delightful bliss or happiness. Only a moment, and then it takes everything. And so whether your idol is a drug or a feeling or the pursuit of an emotion or a feeling or the pursuit of money, God versus mammon. Stuff.

27:28 Anything, anything. And please, in this nation, Father God, right now, as we are a nation that is hanging in the balance right now, being weighed in the balances by the Almighty God, and we are petitioning for his mercy, we must also be willing to come back to truth. Cast down every idle, vain imagination, and come back into the fullness of your allegiance, alliance, dedication to God. And I do believe, truly, as I've seen around it happening, that the people are being called out of darkness, out of idolatry, out of their enchantments, out of their stupors, out of their witchcraft, out of their drugs and pharmakia and plant kettings.

28:10 They're being pulled back into the fullness of Jesus Christ. And I do see this. And the funniest thing is, he's beginning at the dregs and at the fringes of society. He's beginning to gather his harvest at the fringes, not in your hardcore, nice, easy living, so I can get by kind of churchy people. He's starting with the people who are broken, cast down, highways and hedges type people. And so, Father God, we ask for repentance among the nation, among the church. Let the church, God, repent. This is where God's looking for the action. He's not expecting the world to do the right thing. He's expecting the church. And so, Father, for the pastors, the churches, the people who go to those churches, The people who are so comfortable in their pews, Lord, disquiet them, trouble them like the mother eagle takes all the feathers away so the babies aren't comfortable in the nest anymore.

29:00 Get us out into that place of true worshiping of the one true God, trusting you, Lord God, and seeking you to see what great and mighty things you will do as we stand upon your holy, precious word. Your word says in 1 Corinthians 10, 14, flee from idolatry. Get away from it as quick as you can. Father God, I just pray that whatever is in our lives that we're putting our infections, our time, our money, our effort, that we're putting into more than directly related to you, Lord. You know, what we do with time and money and our thoughts and everything needs to be focused on you, Lord.

29:48 We're not here to worship ourselves. We're not here to worship other people. We're not here to worship our opinions, our experiences, persons, places, or things. We're here to worship you. Forgive us, yes, Lord. Cleanse us from every bit of idolatry that even we don't even realize that we're doing, where we realize that, man, this has got my affection, this has got my heart more than you, Father God. Because we know that if we've got affections and things that are. Other than you, there's a control factor there of the enemy, demons. And Paul makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 10 that any idol is connected with a demon. Every idol is connected with a demon.

30:33 You get an idol, you get demon, and demons. So, Lord God, we want to be free. We want to be true worshipers of you, to worship you like Jesus said in John 4, chapter 4, to worship you in spirit and in truth. Yes, Father God. And forgive us, Lord, as well as we confess our idolatry on behalf of the nation, as we confess it as Nehemiah did, as Ezra did, as Daniel did, confessing the sins of their nation. So we confess the spirit of idolatry and enchantments and sorcery. We confess these as sin and an abomination before the Most High God. We call them an abomination. Even as it's been practiced in the church, We call it out as an abomination, as an affront, as an insult to the Most High God and to the work of Jesus Christ, our Savior.

31:20 So we ask you to forgive us. We declare these things to be an abomination. And we ask, Father, for the mercy to reveal this same thing to the many people who are still yet caught up in idolatry. You'd open their eyes for the sake of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the work of his reward that he has coming for dying for all of us. That you'd open up the harvest, Lord God, that you'd bring in a great and mighty harvest, Lord God. We know that you will. We know that you are. Now turn the hearts of many back to you, Father God, for the sake of Jesus Christ. And may we then find the peace and the healing that we so crave and desire, Father God, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You have a series, an audio series, God on Trial.

32:02 Yeah. I think that deals a lot with— Fascination and stories. Fascination and imagination and idolatry. But what you do there is you present. Spiritual warfare, you spread truth. Truth. You bring interdimensional truth and experiences there in a very creative way. Yeah, it's very fun. I would just like to challenge the people to go to our website, liferecovery.com, and just start, you can listen to the audio, parts of the audio versions. Just tap into one of them. Tease yourself a little. Yeah, and just try it out.

32:44 You know, there's 28 episodes in this, and they're each, I think, about $3, $4, a nice series volume. And each episode is like 28 minutes long. So you can truly have a great time with your family, talking to them. Kids love it because they have so many questions. Because it's a drama. It's an audio. I mean, there are characters in this thing. There's sound effects. It's not just a boring somebody's reading to you a story. It's really an acted-out story. And it's interesting that back in the day, now this might be an okay thing to go back to. People used to listen to radio dramas. Oh, yeah. They'd sit by the radio at night and listen to these radio dramas with the sound effects and everything like that.

33:26 Families would gather around the radio and this, why not do this? Yeah, try it out. Gather around your computer and listen. At least give it a chance. And that is, again, it's... Get a sample. It's God on trial. Go to the website, liferecovery.com, and have a great day. Thank you. I have an emergency. What is your location? Music. I have an emergency. I don't know anything. I can't promise you're not going to be there. I can't believe it. Three, two, one, one.

34:11 Rescue Radio Cause there's a war for your soul.