Derek Prince - The Satanic Power of Sorcery
Then there is sorcery. Sorcery, I think, and this is not always used this way, operates through objects: potions, charms, anything that is called lucky, like a lucky horseshoe, all that is occult. People carry things that give them luck. It also operates through, you know, love potions. It is very, very common. "I want this man to fall in love with me. So I go to the witch doctor and get a potion, put it in his food and after that he’s going to fall in love with me". And, of course, to a certain extent, it works.
We, Ruth and I, were in Zambia together with brothers and sisters. We offered a prayer for all ladies who were barren and could not have children. For Africans that’s a real disaster. About 400 ladies gathered in front of us. Before we prayed, someone asked the question, they were all professing Christians "How many of you went to the witch doctor for a potion to deliver you from barrenness?" and all but two of them raised their hands. See, we are not dealing with something that’s very rare and uncommon.
Sorcery also operates through music. You remember that we saw that very probably Lucifer was in charge of the music of heaven. He knows a lot about music. He knows its power. And a lot of contemporary music, what’s been called ‘acid rock’ and others, is simply sorcery. You watch a young person that’s been listening to that for an hour and their eyes are stare-y, they’ve lost contact with reality.
And then another main branch of sorcery is drugs. The Greek word for sorcery is directly formed from the Greek word for a drug and the whole drug culture with all its accompaniments of acid rock and so on, is just a clear example of sorcery at work in our culture. And almost all those people as they come to Jesus will need to be delivered from that power. In fact I have come to the place myself where I doubt whether it is much use working with people in that particular strata of society if you don’t understand how to deal with demons.
Let us look at just one picture of sorcery in Revelation 9:21. Well, this describes a future scene, I believe, in human history when God’s judgments are being manifested and falling on the wicked and it says in verse 20 and then 21: But the rest of mankind who are not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons and idols of gold.
Notice, idolatry is the first thing. Gold, silver, brass, stone and wood, which can neither see nor hear, Notice which goes with idolatry. They did not repent of their murders or their sorceries, or their sexual immorality. And the word sorceries, the alternative translation in some versions is "drugs". And together with sorcery goes sexual immorality and violence. And the tremendous upsurge of violence in our contemporary civilization is largely the work of sorcery. So when you want to pray about it, don’t just pray about the branch, you have to deal with the root.