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Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

The Dark Road to Wakanda

Thanks for joining us as we are going to go into a very timely message tonight, dealing with a recent very popular film and some of what is going on with that.

We're going to start with our scripture reading, which is found in Ephesians 5, verse 11.

Ephesians 5 and verse 11, which says, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather, reprove them.

A message for this installment is entitled The Dark Road to Wakanda.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word and to look at things that are happening right now.

Lord, I know this is controversial and for some even challenging that I would even speak on this topic tonight.

Father God, I am asking now that your Holy Spirit fill this place, fill this message.

Father God, you take control as you hang a portrait of Christ upon that nail.

All right, so this message was born out of the realization that there are many Christians, but especially African-American Christians, were very excited about the recent movie release, Black Panther, Wakanda Forever.

And so, obviously these movies have been coming out from Marvel that highlight many of the things we're going to talk about, but I think what was quite interesting to me, maybe even disturbing, is that churches, even some of our Adventist churches, or at least 1, would rent out the movie theater or sell tickets to the movies themselves for parishioners to go and see the movie.

And so I want to just, I really want to break this thing down a bit as to the danger of us getting involved with some of this.

So let's go to the book of Acts to start off with.

Chapter 19, I'll quickly go through a Bible story to set this up and to make some points.

Acts chapter 19 and verse 11 says, and God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons.

And the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them, which had evil spirit, the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches.

The spirit of God was moving on the apostle Paul.

Paul was moving mightily as he was doing healings and so forth.

In fact, Paul was so filled with the Holy Spirit that if a handkerchief or an apron of his touched people, the diseases would depart them and evil spirits went out of them.

This was not to say that there's some magic in handkerchiefs or aprons, but the Spirit of God and people understood the faith of Paul.

And his faith in Jesus and the power of the Holy Ghost would work these great miracles.

Certain vagabond Jews, And these men, their career were to be exorcists.

They were to work against devils, but they weren't true blue.

And so they went and found someone who, people who were possessed and tried to use Paul's mechanism.

So they went and they took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus saying we adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches And obviously this brings to light 1 of the key themes of what we're gonna talk about in this message.

And that is you cannot go out in spiritual warfare with someone else's Jesus.

And unfortunately, because of the world of entertainment we have, the constant distraction, the TikTok, the YouTube, the Instagrams, many of us are being disconnected from God, but We think we still have his power.

7 sons of Sceva, chief priests, they did this.

They got to the wrong demon and the demon and the devil and the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, Paul I know, but who are you?

In the original Greek, where it says, Jesus I know, it speaks of Jesus in an authoritative way, different than how it speaks of Paul.

The demon says, listen, I know Jesus, I know who he is, he's got some great power, And Paul, by the power of the Holy Spirit, as a disciple of Christ, he has power.

Verse 16, and the man in whom The evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.

The demon-possessed man beat 7 of them, and he beat the clothes off of them.

He beat them out of their clothes, and they went running out of the house, wounded and naked.

This was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus.

And the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified." When they heard this, that the demon recognized by authority who Jesus was, but he whooped the guy who was playing around with the name of Jesus?

Verse 18, And many that believed came and confessed and showed their deeds.

They realized in that moment that you cannot play with the things of God.

Verse 19, many of them also, which use curious arts, brought their books together and burned them before all men, and they counted the price of them and found it 50, 000 pieces of silver.

They took the stuff in their house that did not align with God and that was tied to the occult and witchcraft and spiritualism, and rather than even sell them, they burned them.

So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.

I remember when I was a kid, I loved comic books.

Spider-Man and Fantastic 4, my favorite, was the Incredible Hulk.

And I started reading these things back when they were in, still in some of them were in their infancy.

And I remember a guy came to church and preached a message like I'm gonna preach tonight And my mother said all your comic books have to go We had to cut up all our comic books and we tried to find ways to cut them to keep them We cut them up got rid of them and there are times later on I said man if my mother had just let me keep those comic books, I'd be able to sell them now.

What my mother made me do was the right spiritual move.

I needed to know that inherent to those books was a spirit of deception that you can't pass on to someone else, even for a price.

That's why the price of what these books were worth is mentioned here.

Verse 20, so mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.

As they remove these things, the word of God grew and it prevailed.

The church will be weak when it keeps these books, these spiritualism-affected entertainment and instruction devices.

If the church holds on to those things, it's difficult for at the same time for the word of God to grow and prevail.

In other words, there is a battle, and if among the people of God, we are holding on to the things of spiritualism, whether in superstition or in astrology or in a belief in reincarnation or of ancestor worship, If we are holding on to those things, the Word of God is going to be blunted and stunted because other spirits will be at work.

There are churches right now that are not successful in what they're trying to do because they are still playing with spiritualism.

Watch this, Acts of the Apostle, page 290.

Speaking on this, Ellen White says, "'Could the veil be lifted from before our eyes?

We should see evil angels employing all their arts to deceive and destroy.

Wherever an influence is exerted to cause men to forget God, There Satan is exercising his bewitching power.

And once you get caught up in Marvel and DC and all of this other stuff, you begin to forget God.

In fact, you start saying things like, oh I've heard all that stuff in church before because there's always a new comic book coming out and now a new movie coming out and Satan draws you in to this false storyline, this multiverse of deception.

And so you get drawn into that and you get tied there.

And all of a sudden you no longer have interest in the things of God.

And this is what the Spirit of Prophecy is saying.

Wherever an influence is exerted to cause men to forget God, Satan is exercising his bewitching power.

When men yield to his influence, e'er they are aware, the mind is bewildered and the soul polluted.

When you yield to this influence, when the comic book characters are more important to you than the God of heaven.

Let me tell you something, I've been to churches where they've blown up 16 foot balloon, blow up things of the Incredible Hulk.

And, you know, They've had Marvel themes inside the church.

There are churches outside our denomination, inside our denomination that are doing this stuff.

And I want you to understand when men yield to his influence, Satan's influence.

Ere they are aware the mind is bewildered, the soul is polluted.

The apostles, look at what she says, the apostles' admonition to the Ephesian church should be heeded by the people of God today.

Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

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The Dark Road to Wakanda

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