Does the Devil Influence You Through Celebrities?

Growing up I remember it was a really big deal for pastors and Christian leaders to show us this video called “Hell’s Bells”.  It was about all the rock and roll bands and how they all worshipped the devil.  They’d show us all the hidden pentagrams in the album art and play the songs backwards so we could here “worship Satan” come blaring out of the speakers at us.  Of course we all thought it was a little crazy because who listens to a record backwards anyway.  But it always stuck with me.

If you do a google search of celebrities who worship Satan you’ll find a lot of weird websites that make a lot of assumptions.  But there are articles with singers like Lady Gaga and Ke$ha who come out and say they worship the devil.  The one that really jumped out to me the most was actually a video made shortly after Beyoncé’s Super Bowl performance.  Take a look

With everything we’ve talked about the past few weeks regarding the devil being very much alive and real, what’s your first reaction to this type of thing?  Do you believe that there are celebrities today are involved in the occult and worshiping Satan?

There are a lot of symbols shown.  Do you think it’s just coincidence?

Do you think people are reading too much into it?

We see lots of people interacting with Beyonce and Jay-Z while performing, and also buying their CD’s and clothing filled with the occult imagery.  Do you think they know what it is?  Do you think they care?  Do you think people actually are affected by it?

What do you think of the “possession” piece?  Do you think that’s possible?  If Beyoncé believes it why wouldn’t we?  She says things like  “I felt something come into me.”  “when I see a video of myself on stage I ask ‘who is that’”,  “I have out of body experiences.  I’m not aware of my face or my body.  I black out”. That’s pretty scary stuff to me.  For a singer with as much talent as Beyoncé to come out and say “I don’t know who that is on stage” is scary to me. 

Now I’m not trying to tell you to go through away all of your Beyonce and Jay-Z music.  What I wanted to do is have you stop and think about it for a minute.  Whether you think the music has an effect on you or not, does it make you look at them differently and view whether you want to support them differently?  The Bible tells us that only demonic spirits possess people.  Pick up a book of stories from missionaries or even visit some parts of the world today and you’ll see firsthand the impact of true devil worship on the lives of people.

As we come up on Halloween and all the scary things that come with it.  Stop for a minute to really look at the ugliness and influence that the devil is trying to have on this world.  No matter how he disguises it, the devil’s end goal is to take the place of Jesus.  His entire being is built on selfishness, greed, lies, and personal satisfaction.  With that comes the ugliest kind of people.  And at the end of the day whether you believe it has an effect on you and your friends or not, think about what the opposite would be.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things” Philippians 4:8

How the Devil Interacts with Us

So, we believe the devil is real right?  It kind of goes along with believing in Jesus.  If you believe in the story of Jesus and the bible, you have to believe the devil is real.  So if he’s real, what does he do? 

Do you think that Satan interacts with people today? 

How does he interact with people?

What do you think of when we talk about the devil interacting with people?  The first response is usually something along the lines of the Exorcist or the Conjuring, demon possession where we have a preist standing over someone with a bible and cross.  Maybe if you’re not that graphic you think th devil just causes bad things to happen to people like cancer or car accidents. 

I recently came across the video below about three girls who believe the devil is real and are trying to do something about it.

The bible tells us several stories about people who came to Jesus to deal with demon possession.  There’s the demoniac on the island of the Geresenes and the boy who had seizures and he disciples couldn’t heal.  A lot of times we read these stories and think that these things probably don’t happen anymore.  They’re as foreign to us as watching possession movies like The Haunting.  It’s a scary story, but how real is it in the end?

If we believe that the devil is real, do we believe as much as these teen girls do that we can fight him?  Can we as individuals through our faith in Jesus Christ work to stop the devils work.  Sure we laugh when the girls talk about “sexually transmitted demons”, but how far off base are they?  We chalk up so much of the bad things we see around us to Satan’s work.  We pray and believe that God will help us and heal us and protect us.  We have faith in a God who is loving and caring and gracious.  And who has also told us that if we have faith like a mustard seed we can do anything.  And the Bible shows us how the disciples went from no faith and the inability to perform miracles to a point after Jesus left where they could do anything. 

Think about your faith in how you see and feel Satan working around you.  How will you approach it?  How will you stand up against it?  How will you work to strengthen your faith so that you do not fear Satan’s attacks and could even give hope to those around you?