Latest / Rethink Revive with David Leake / Desensitized to the Devil? Navigating Occult Influence on Pop Culture

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Desensitized to the Devil? Navigating Occult Influence on Pop Culture · Rethink Revive with David Leake

• 0:00
  Dave Leake: So apparently you can sell your soul to Mephisto on Fortnite shows on Disney, plus, are about witches and Wiccans. I know we're at Halloween. All these horror movies are out. To what degree Should Christians be concerned?
• 0:11
  Dave Leake: What's a big deal? Is there stuff that maybe isn't that big of a deal that we're being too religious about? Or is this stuff a serious, genuine threat?
• 0:16
  Dave Leake: We're gonna talk about the fascination with Satan today in pop culture. So if you'd like to hear more, tune in. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Allison Park leadership podcast, where we have our culture creating conversations. My name is Dave, and
• 0:30
  Jeff Leake: my name is Jeff, and we're glad you've joined us today. Do we have any shout outs to Dave? We
• 0:34
  Dave Leake: want to just quickly, you know, do some gratitudes. Thank you. If you, if you've been a listener for a while, and especially want to give a shout out to Tiffany.
• 0:41
  Dave Leake: Tiffany A, B, who gave us a kind five serve you on Spotify. We would also love to give you a shout out. If you can leave us a or that's actually Apple, sorry, Spotify, we can't see the description, but if you want to leave us five serving, we'd love to give you a shout out as well.
• 0:54
  Dave Leake: Hope you're having a good fall season. We're getting to the end of the year kind of crazy, yep.
• 1:00
  Dave Leake: And around this time of year, we start to get into conversations about all kinds of creepy things, horror movies, weird commercials, and,
• 1:09
  Jeff Leake: yeah, we're recording this the week of Halloween. Basically, it's in about a week, it's
• 1:14
  Dave Leake: gonna probably be released around before Halloween. Maybe Richard back when we released before Halloween. Great. Maybe you can listen to this on Halloween if you want to, if you're in a spooky mood. So
• 1:23
  Jeff Leake: we did an episode about Should Christians celebrate Halloween last year, and I think we we just sent that out by email, just to remind everybody of that, because that's always a conversation that comes up during this season of the year, especially for families. So we're not really going to talk so much about Halloween today, because we're going to talk about some of the dark, you know, influences, or
• 1:46
  Dave Leake: fascination with the occult and Satan in our culture today. Yeah,
• 1:49
  Jeff Leake: right, that's become a big thing in pop culture anymore, by the way. We should say Dave and I are father and son. We both are on pastors on staff at Allison Park church.
• 1:58
  Jeff Leake: We're glad you've joined us for this. We know we've had some rather intense episodes over the past three months, Christian nationalism, Marxism. We talked about abortion in the last podcast. So we've had a lot of conversations around that. And this, this is an intense topic, but probably not as in incendiary I guess you'd say to to debate as much as it is, just both interesting to talk about, to see the trends, and then there's sort of a warning, I guess you would concerning. It's concerning. Yeah,
• 2:31
  Dave Leake: it's concerning, for sure. So okay, so there's a, basically, there's, there's this, there's this game. You're probably familiar with it, if you are familiar with video games at night. Generally, it's very kid friendly, innocent kind of a game. It has shooting, but it's not bloody. It's not gory.
• 2:47
  Jeff Leake: So it was silly, all the rage, especially, what two or three years ago, and
• 2:52
  Dave Leake: it's still pretty popular.
• 2:53
  Jeff Leake: I mean, I'm not, and it's, it's, it's an online thing where you compete with other people. You're basically, you know, war with people online, right? Yeah, and
• 3:04
  Dave Leake: you're like, you like, build structures, but it's like, so it's like a shooting game, but the lightest hearted shooting game you could possibly, okay, it's pretty, pretty tame, pretty innocent.
• 3:11
  Dave Leake: Fortnite is become this sort of crossover hub for all kinds of things, Batman and Star Wars and Marvel superheroes and, you know, so explain
• 3:24
  Jeff Leake: that to someone, because I've never played Fortnite. So typically a video
• 3:28
  Dave Leake: game. So like, if you think about a video game like Mario, it's like its own story and its own brand, and Mario just does stuff with Mario.
• 3:36
  Jeff Leake: But that's the one video game I
• 3:37
  Dave Leake: do. Okay, so you know about Mario? Yeah, Fortnite started to do these crossovers where they are bringing in other franchises to help the notoriety of notoriety of both. So, like, so
• 3:49
  Jeff Leake: your character or avatar or whatever, yeah, can be Batman. Yeah, exactly,
• 3:54
  Dave Leake: yeah. And, and they like theme it out. And they've also had a lot of, they've had a lot of pop, like pop artists and stuff. Like, there was a guy, Travis Scott, who performed a concert in Fortnite, okay? And there's, like, millions. So
• 4:07
  Jeff Leake: it's a truly interactive video. Yes, it really is. Yeah. So it's not just like a stale thing that you're going through the levels, no, but it actually is online and out there and morphing and you're interacting, yes, okay.
• 4:18
  Jeff Leake: And
• 4:18
  Dave Leake: they're updating all the time. Well, for Halloween this year they they're doing a crossover with Marvel, and there's a character from the Marvel universe that's basically the devil. His name is Mephisto, and he looks like that.
• 4:31
  Jeff Leake: You're on video, yeah, you're listening. You can't see this, but if you're on video on YouTube, just
• 4:35
  Dave Leake: imagine a standard devil. And he looks just like that, with evil smile and side
• 4:40
  Jeff Leake: hair, mullet, sideburns.
• 4:43
  Dave Leake: You make him sound worse than he is. Yeah,
• 4:46
  Jeff Leake: red skin, yellow eyes, so a necklace with a skull, so
• 4:52
  Dave Leake: right now, sharp teeth. He's in this game. And you can, like in Fortnite, you can, you always drop out of like a ship and. You land somewhere on this map, you can drop to the underworld, and if you go you can actually sell your soul to Mephisto, okay, to get, like, bonuses and stuff, which is kind of crazy. It's in this game that probably a lot of, like, eight year olds, 10 year olds kind of thing are playing, and it's just very casually. So,
• 5:16
  Jeff Leake: so when did Fortnite get an underworld? When Mephisto joined? That's
• 5:21
  Dave Leake: a great question. I actually don't know. I think it's kind of recent, because they changed their map.
• 5:26
  Dave Leake: Described it
• 5:27
  Jeff Leake: as the tamest fight video game out there, with an underworld that seems like, whoa, like at some point, I don't think underworld was the beginning, right? No, no. Well, usually
• 5:36
  Dave Leake: it's like green grass and like a desert area, it's like a broken down tower.
• 5:38
  Dave Leake: But I think they're probably theming it out more this year.
• 5:43
  Jeff Leake: So you go into the underworld and you meet Mephisto, who's a Marvel character, who's representative of evil
• 5:49
  Dave Leake: of the devil. Yeah, okay. And you can literally go, he's on his throne. And you, like, offer most of your life you, but it's like, sell your soul.
• 5:57
  Jeff Leake: What is your soul in Fortnite?
• 5:59
  Dave Leake: It's like your health points,
• 6:01
  Jeff Leake: okay, it's how you stay alive. Yeah, yeah. So you give him your health points, and you, what do you get in exchange?
• 6:08
  Dave Leake: You can, you can get, like, a weapon, if you want, a random weapon, or, I think it like, resurrects your your party, or gives them, like people you're playing with, gives them bonuses. So, I mean, it's supposedly, like innocent and light hearted, but it's kind of intense, yeah, and this just brought up a conversation of, like, there is this obsession and this fascination with Satan right now in our culture, like it's, like, it's all over the place. And I think even to people that aren't Christians, it's kind of creepy, like, it's, it's intense, there's so there's a song, I think it's called paint the town red by doja cat where, like, she's like, dancing with like, the Grim Reaper. And there's these, like, demons and skeletons crawling in people's room at night while they're sleeping, and it's all red. And it's not like, it's not even like, silly. It's like, intense.
• 6:58
  Dave Leake: It like gives you like it gives you like shivers when you when you see that kind of thing. So
• 7:06
  Jeff Leake: this is, I guess I'm playing the curious one in this one. Dave, I don't know what a doji cat is. What
• 7:11
  Dave Leake: is that? Doji cat is an artist, okay, yeah, girl, she's a girl.
• 7:16
  Jeff Leake: She's a girl. Okay?
• 7:16
  Jeff Leake: And what kind of music does doja cat say? Music? Okay, she plays pop music and explain what she did. Again,
• 7:22
  Dave Leake: she has a music video in a song that's probably like the most creepy, demonic music video I've ever seen.
• 7:29
  Dave Leake: Like, I, it's, I, yeah, you don't work. I wouldn't suggest watching it, but it's, it's very it's very disturbing.
• 7:35
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, it is. It's in it's in vogue. Like, I just know this from news reports, but I remember at the Grammys a guy named Sam Smith, like, about a year ago, or something, performed as the devil. Was that, was that like his? Yeah, we actually have a quick video clip if you want to throw that up. Yeah, let's, let's. We're going to add a new feature to the podcast. We got some pictures on this one, and we're going to show a little quick video clip, so if you're not on video, you'll be able to hear it, but
• 8:01
  Dave Leake: you can watch on YouTube if you'd like to. Yeah, you can. And
• 8:05
  Jeff Leake: people would find that where
• 8:08
  Unknown: we'll link the last time Grammys they as Smith, now prefers to be called identified as Satan. Katy Perry performs Dark Horse at the Grammys blood sneakers lil NAS X's collaboration with our collective mischief. The 666 pair of sneakers feature gold pentagrams inverted crosses, as well as human blood inside the soul.
• 8:33
  Jeff Leake: Okay, yeah,
• 8:35
  Dave Leake: but this, this is just the kind of stuff. It's everywhere, like it's it's all over even, like, I know Fortnite is probably the most innocent, but like, even Marvel, you know, Captain America and Iron Man has developed a fascination with the occult.
• 8:49
  Jeff Leake: How? So, okay, so
• 8:50
  Dave Leake: there's a number of superheroes, like, there's, there's one, okay, the name sounds bad. When she first came on, she didn't, she wasn't really witchy, but her name was the Scarlet Witch. She was someone that could use, like, trying to think what they call, like telekinetic powers and Avengers two. Well, she slowly became more and more like, Oh, she's using spells and witchcraft. And they released Doctor Strange to a year or two ago that was a really, really heavily occultic movie. And then one of the side characters from the Scarlet Witch, one division her show was this witch named Agatha. And she has a show now all her own. Agatha all along.
• 9:30
  Dave Leake: Okay, give us a picture of a yeah, probably seen this. And know
• 9:34
  Jeff Leake: this girl from other things that she's been in, right? And so she's never witchy. And so
• 9:38
  Dave Leake: one of the main characters, so she's a main character, she's a witch. One of the main characters in the show, Agatha, is Marvel, yes, one of, one of the main characters in this show is the son of Scarlet Witch who died, and the son's super Your name is wicked, wicked, yeah. Like, like, as in, witches, modern witches. So there's, there's just, I mean, I think. There's always been this stuff floating out there and Marvel, but it's sort of been on the fringes, but like, there's nothing celebrated. Oh yeah, it's, and it's, I mean, yeah, that in addition so to, just to kind of give a picture of the show, the producers are talking about how this show is a is also going to have. They call it a gay explosion, like a celebration of the character Wiccan is, like, I think is a gay character, and one of the first gay characters in Marvel.
• 10:29
  Dave Leake: And they're, they're introducing a lot of gender fluidity and sexuality into shows like this.
• 10:31
  Dave Leake: It's on Disney, plus it's just, it's crazy, like the level of fascination and just how chill everybody is with the occult and Satanism. So
• 10:44
  Jeff Leake: how does that the occult and the LGBT themes? How do they merge? What that starts like? Okay, I'm a complete, completely unaware of all of what you just said. Like I'm hearing this all for the first time because I'm not aware of, I don't watch the Marvel stuff, and I'm not really into pop music. So how does that? How do those two things come together?
• 11:07
  Dave Leake: I don't think that they go together like they're thematically combined. It's just, it's, it happens to be the agenda of the show. That's what the creators are going for.
• 11:19
  Dave Leake: Okay? And it's in this all about which is show, I'm just saying, like, I don't think that they're inherently connected, but it's, it's just, it sounds evangelistic, yeah, that's how it feels. Okay, so,
• 11:32
  Jeff Leake: so a gay explosion, like, you could see gay representation on a show, but they're trying to recruit people,
• 11:39
  Dave Leake: they're they're trying to celebrate and have, like, oh, like, they're so casual. There's a lot of, there's gay characters that are getting, like, kissing scenes on screen. Okay? It's just, it's just a pro.
• 11:50
  Jeff Leake: I mean, way of,
• 11:51
  Dave Leake: it's sort of a kids sort of, it's not a kid show, but it's sort of like a teenager show on Disney plus. And it's a, it's a, let's put this front and center. Does that make sense?
• 12:00
  Jeff Leake: So what they all seem to have in common is a rebellion against anything having to do with Christianity.
• 12:05
  Jeff Leake: Absolutely okay. So it is, it is a Agatha would be a an affront to Christian values. Yeah.
• 12:14
  Dave Leake: And I want to, I want to say, I think so that could sound really okay in some ways that could sound really judgmental to somebody who's watched that show, but I want to, here's, here's what I want to try to, please
• 12:25
  Jeff Leake: forgive me, I'm I'm a I'm learning. I'm just asking questions, like the way you described it brought those questions up in my mind. So I'm just being curious. So,
• 12:33
  Dave Leake: so let me, let me, let me take you through. Okay, somebody could have gotten into Marvel and like, the first Iron Man, and they watch Iron Man and Captain America. And it was, like, fairly clean. Well, yeah,
• 12:43
  Jeff Leake: I watched. I watched those movies, not because I like superhero movies, because I really don't, but I watched them because all of you guys watched them. Yeah. So when I was doing my workouts, like I watched through what, how many of their 22 movies, or was was at the time? Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot more now. They were all just simple, yeah, I guess there's some spiritualism in Thor. I didn't make it through Dr Strange. I like, watched the first 10 minutes, and I was like, this is freaky weird. So I got out of that one.
• 13:10
  Dave Leake: Yeah, right around the introduction of Dr Strange, it started to get into more spiritual themes. So maybe for the last five or
• 13:17
  Jeff Leake: so, is this Stan Lee, or is this someone who took over for Stan Lee, Stanley
• 13:20
  Dave Leake: created Marvel. A lot of other writers have written other things within his universe. I don't know which specific comic Stan wrote, so he might have written some of these. Yeah, he at least bought off on a lot of this comic material, because this is also from, like, the 80s and 90s. Oh, the occultic part. Oh, yeah.
• 13:35
  Dave Leake: This has been around for a little while, okay, but now it's being produced as TV shows and movies. But I'm just saying somebody could have definitely just become a fan of Marvel, and they're sort of like, this is sort of weird that I'm watching this. But I think part of the reason why we're bringing this up, it's not like you're just, you could get into this kind of thing Fortnite, like you could be selling your soul to Mephisto or like Agatha all on just by doing something that was kind of normal. And then it said, all of a sudden, there's something weird that's in here that you're sort of not sure to process. And I think we wanted to have a conversation about the obsession with Satan and the occult that's infiltrating what I would say are generally normal and safe things that all of a sudden are becoming like, Should we be concerned about this? Yeah, and what is this saying about our world? So,
• 14:17
  Jeff Leake: you know, I think for someone who's my age and has grown up with Leave It to Beaver, you know what I mean.
• 14:26
  Jeff Leake: So, like, the most spooky thing and my growing up years was the show Bewitched, which was like a sitcom where the witch was, you know, twitching her nose to make things happen, which I wasn't allowed to watch either for my parents, so we went from a what you would call a highly Christian friendly entertainment system in our country, where most things that were produced had a rating on them that you could somewhat trust, to some degree, to know what you could expose your kids to. And now we would have to say before we. It into the satanic aspects of this. There is no safe place in popular culture, no right? So if you're a follower of Jesus and you're looking to to get into a series as innocent as Marvel, you can't expect that they will hold to values that that will not offend or recruit or evangelize you or your family.
• 15:22
  Jeff Leake: So if your eyes are not open and your ears not tuned in, you're going to run into things that you you should be disturbed by.
• 15:29
  Jeff Leake: And, yeah, the first thing is, I think that's, that's the sad thing. It's like the death of a safe place, like for for followers of Jesus, there is no safe place in popular culture,
• 15:41
  Dave Leake: especially in media, yeah,
• 15:43
  Jeff Leake: so video games, YouTube clips, TV, movies, music. You're not going to find a safe place there. You're going to find the potential for something harmful.
• 15:54
  Dave Leake: So even if it seems really safe, yeah, it's it's just something. Got to keep your eyes open.
• 15:58
  Jeff Leake: And it's so hard, because once you get attached to a particular series like Marvel you get, you get emotionally attached, and you're like, I don't want to stop watching this, because I want to find out what happens. And before you know it, you may be compromising or even opening the door for some kind of attack on your family spiritually that could be direct, because occult. So there's things that are compromising that we would say that theme is contrary to biblical ideas, right? And then there's other things that are potentially a direct open door for the invitation for demonic involvement in your life, which then can cause severe consequences. And so you're you're selling your soul to anything that's just not a good thing. That's the time you shut Fortnite off, right? You say, Yeah, this is now at left, what is a safe place for my eight year old kid, let alone someone who's older than that, right?
• 16:51
  Jeff Leake: And I know this for some you might feel like we're being very religious or narrow minded.
• 16:56
  Jeff Leake: We're just trying to be aware, you know, because this is, this is, if you believe in in the spiritual realm, and you believe that there are things such as angels and demons, none of this is without impact, yeah,
• 17:13
  Dave Leake: and I think it, it's all serving to desensitize all of us to the occult, to witchcraft, to the reality of angels and demons, I think already, just even within, within the Christian, you know, Christian community, within believers like we tend to underestimate how spiritual the world actually is. We sort of are like, yeah, there's another dimension somewhere where there's angels and demons and the devil has a plan for us, and it's bad, and the devil sends a tax. But who knows what that even means. And even like with Orthodox, Biblically sound Christians, I think our assumption is most evil in the world is probably human evil, and most sin is probably human, like it all, all sin, I guess is human sin, you know? Well, yeah, sure, it is so like but I think we attribute and credit things mostly to people, and then who knows what the devil is really doing. He's doing something out there, but who knows what it is.
• 18:04
  Dave Leake: But I think we underestimate radically the effects of the demonic on our world, and especially things that are harmlessly occultic. You know what I mean?
• 18:17
  Jeff Leake: Well, okay, so I'm gonna now say something will seem conspiracy like a conspiracy theory. Maybe it is.
• 18:23
  Jeff Leake: I don't know. It's my impression. I'll just say like this. This is my impression as a Christ follower in 2024 in the United States of America, when it comes to pop culture, there does seem to be an intense hatred for Christianity on the part of a lot of people, and some people, I think, who are in the entertainment industry go into the satanistic era simply because it's, it's an affront to a group of people and their belief system that they despise.
• 18:50
  Jeff Leake: And sometimes it's because you're I think the pop culture industry is always looking to push the envelope a little further, because if you do something novel that seems like go a little further than anyone else has gone before. This is kind of what I see Sam Smith is doing in the Emmy the Emmy awards show. He went further than anyone had ever done with anything satanic, and he caused a stir. And that's how you sell records. So I get that that's part of it, but there, I think you get a little extra bonus points if you do something that's a direct insult to Christianity, because at the Olympics, like, what happened at the Olympics? Right? So it's like, Score one for the edginess, yeah. And for those who are now progressed past the ancient value system of Judeo, Christian thinking and and so it, and oftentimes it ends up being snuck in in a way that before you know what's happened to you, you've been punched in the face by something, but, but maybe with whether these pop culture artists are intentionally going into satanic worship or just toying around with it, I'm sure it has to have. Have some very dangerous implications for them. Well, here's,
• 20:03
  Dave Leake: here's the thing, here's the thing that, like, will sound like it could be conspiracy, but it's like, well, this, this just has to be reality. Like, if we just think about it, if we believe in angels and demons, if we believe in in a real devil, the devil is doing work in the world. So, like, I mean, we read all about demon possessed people, demonized people in the scriptures, and we, we've just had a conversation, another one recently, about demonization in our world today, people that are openly, like, dressing like Satan have have, I mean, like, I feel bad for them. Your opinion.
• 20:39
  Jeff Leake: Do you think they think that Satan is real, or think that they're just play acting.
• 20:43
  Dave Leake: I think that they're, if I'm being totally serious, I think that there is genuinely a bunch of occultic stuff happening at the top levels of entertainment industry. I think there's actually
• 20:54
  Jeff Leake: meaning that these are converts to Satanism, not necessarily to Satanism as a, as a, as a religion, yes, but
• 21:01
  Dave Leake: I think that there is rituals being done. I think that there are COVID that, like, what would
• 21:07
  Jeff Leake: what I would say, What would possess you to do that? But why? Like, what
• 21:14
  Unknown: would be, what
• 21:15
  Jeff Leake: would be the motive for that? Like, why would you do that? Like, because you're searching for, for something to fill the void in your life, because you want to be edgy and cool, because you really believe that there's some spiritual power out there that you're tapping into, like, what, what, what would, why would you do this? I don't understand,
• 21:33
  Dave Leake: okay, and all seriousness, this is, this is now where I'm like, I know that this is going to make some people like conspiracy, but I do think the devil is able to promote certain people like he's able to, okay, so you are in fame, and I think sometimes it's working.
• 21:48
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, okay, so you just told me about a podcast you listened to yesterday you wanted to. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was episode
• 21:54
  Dave Leake: I happened to just I was listening to Steelers podcast, and the next one that popped up, it was like an unrecommended,
• 22:00
  Jeff Leake: it was like a Steelers and then Satan is crazy. But it's like, it's just like it has like that would come after the Patriots or the Ravens.
• 22:07
  Dave Leake: Yeah. So there's a guy who has a, he's a he's a prophetic voice. He has a thing called the Sean bowl show, bolts bowls, souls bowls, Sean Bowles show, okay, yeah. He just released this episode about, it's about the topic we're talking about now, about Satanism in pop culture, and I don't know what her name is, we could probably put a link in, but there's this clip that he had of this artist who got a deal with Columbia Records, and she had this major producer that wanted to personally produce a song for her. And this clip she she details out about like she wasn't really living for God, and she was like, smoking pot and just kind of partying, but was like, loosely, had been Christian. And at some point after they're like, you know, between sessions, I guess this, this producer pulls her aside, says, you know, if you sold your soul to the devil, you'd get famous tomorrow. And she was just like,
• 22:58
  Jeff Leake: and he wasn't just,
• 22:59
  Dave Leake: he wasn't joking.
• 22:59
  Dave Leake: Now, if you watch the whole clip, he she's like, she's like, I just started weeping, and I felt like a presence came into the room. And I like, it was embarrassing, but I probably spent a couple of minutes just like, I'm so sorry. God. And she said he just, he just stood with his head in his hands there, this guy not, not talking to her. And he said he never spoke to her ever again after that.
• 23:18
  Dave Leake: And she was, she was saying, this is a common thing in the in the pop culture industry, and whether it's movies or it's music, is that there is a pressure with certain people to make spiritual covenants that will get you fame. And like, this is where, like, I've heard this before. I'm like, I don't know. And there's, like, all these people that are stars.
• 23:41
  Dave Leake: This is what's happened to me, and is a conspiracy theory or not, but I'm saying I think there has to be some if there is a real devil and he's actually working with people, and we're seeing the rise of stuff like Sam Smith twerking as Satan in this cage, or all this other pop culture stuff that's happening now. It's like, well, it's pretty obvious that he's doing some things with some people.
• 24:01
  Dave Leake: And I do think probably some people have been elevated through demonic means. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I think that there is a as a pervasive spreading of a cult and Satanism and and really demonic stuff into the lowest forms of media, like, accessible by everybody. The most popular things, the most kid friendly.
• 24:25
  Dave Leake: It's, it's like, desensitizing people. There's trends that are on YouTube and Tiktok and reels and all this stuff about, like, oh, you can do, here's we can do the Ouija board. Or here's how you can summon this thing. You write this with the pencil. Or, oh, yeah, yeah, I don't know about anything like, within the last year, but yeah, there's been creepy, creepy trying. I do
• 24:42
  Jeff Leake: know that it is one of the most searched things is how to, how to put a curse on somebody, or how to, yeah, what is black magic? Or, you know, this
• 24:51
  Dave Leake: stuff is real. Yeah, it's that. I mean, there, there, there is. It's in the Bible about like there are actual witches and people that have power. Demons. Okay,
• 25:00
  Jeff Leake: so let's talk about what is our response to this.
• 25:03
  Jeff Leake: And again, this is interesting because we're flipping the scales. I'm interviewing you a little bit more than the other way around, which is often the way our podcast works. So I could see how there's some there's some responses on a spectrum of things. One far side, you could become consumed as a conspiracy theorist, and this could become a part of the impetus for the culture war, where you see the devil in everything, and you assume that there's some great Illuminati out there that is all worshiping Satan, and they're all politicians and pop pop artists are all joined together in a league to destroy the United States of America. And you know, you know, insult the name of Jesus and recruit as many people into satanic lifestyles as possible. Okay, that's, that's one end, and the other end of it is, oh, it's just Fortnite.
• 25:49
  Jeff Leake: What's the big deal? Let's just keep playing. You
• 25:52
  Dave Leake: guys are looking into this too much. Yeah.
• 25:53
  Jeff Leake: Okay, so where do we land in this spectrum of things?
• 25:56
  Jeff Leake: I don't think we're on the conspiracy theory side, although I will admit that I think there's probably more intentional alignment with the devil on all levels of power, in pop culture and potentially even business and politics, yes, than what we what we recognize. But I'm not going to go on a conspiracy theory search. I'm not sure how much good it does to recover things. I agree. I think that fighting spiritual warfare comes in a different format,
• 26:27
  Dave Leake: yeah. But even like the P Diddy like scandal and circles that he was in there, okay,
• 26:32
  Jeff Leake: explain that a little bit. I
• 26:33
  Dave Leake: he just got, he just got so. P Diddy
• 26:35
  Jeff Leake: is a rapper, correct, yeah, uh huh. And he was pretty prominent, oh
• 26:39
  Dave Leake: my goodness. He was a huge, huge major artist, one of the top a list artists in the world, really, and just got, like, I mean, he's probably, like, all this human trafficking with children and profit. It's like, people are saying it's Epstein, but a lot worse. And there's all these people that covered it up. And apparently there were, like, actual occult rituals that he was doing his work, cheese and
• 27:04
  Jeff Leake: occult rituals all mixed together with very famous people, yes, participating together. And there's
• 27:10
  Dave Leake: this big list of people, and there hasn't been get it released yet, but apparently this is all legit.
• 27:16
  Dave Leake: That's all legitimate. I
• 27:17
  Jeff Leake: mean, I know I watched the Epstein thing, and there's, like, a whole deal on Netflix that documents it all, but that list hasn't been released either some of the people that were on the plane or whatever with him, but they
• 27:27
  Dave Leake: were going to his island. Yeah,
• 27:29
  Jeff Leake: yeah. It's true.
• 27:29
  Jeff Leake: It's not like just celebrities and presidents of the United States, like there's
• 27:35
  Dave Leake: clearly some kind of conspiracy theory that's definitely true. They won't release names, they won't release or they're trying to prevent things from being released. So I'm not saying that there's a satanic cult at the top of everything. Of these five people, although that would be a good book, yeah, yeah, right.
• 27:50
  Dave Leake: And they're all Democrats, and they're all talking about, like, I don't know, I'm not, I'm not going to say, like, those kind of things, but there is clearly major demonic influence in these high levels of power. And it's becoming more and more obvious.
• 28:07
  Dave Leake: I mean, we listed a few things that are happening the music scene, but there's even more.
• 28:12
  Dave Leake: Like, the weekend is another big one, and you just had these people in red cloaks come out, and Satan's flashing on the screen. And I don't know what the weekend is that weekend's another artist, yeah? Weekend is, I know there was something about Katy Perry on there, yeah, yeah, the Dark Horse thing. And what is that? The Dark Horse is just a song. It's a song, but she performed, and it's very demonic in terms of the there's, there's so many, I mean, there's so many examples of how upfront, what was that other one?
• 28:37
  Dave Leake: Balenciaga, did you see that whole thing last year that came out? They had these, or maybe it was even this year, they had these, these kids that were just in these gothic clothes, and they had these teddy bears that were wearing, like these very like they're wearing, like, chains and leather. It was like dominatrix, like twisted theme with children. They got all this hate for it. We were like, oh, a moral panic. Stop exaggerating.
• 28:57
  Dave Leake: But there's this, like clear, demented, twisted spirit that has very much entered media and fashion and pop culture that's crazy to me. Okay, so
• 29:12
  Jeff Leake: we're out there.
• 29:12
  Jeff Leake: We're not on the conspiracy theory side, although we recognize that there would be enough evidence to create a legitimate I
• 29:20
  Dave Leake: probably lean, I'm not in a specific conspiracy theory camp, but I lean towards something crazy has happened,
• 29:25
  Jeff Leake: but researching it on its own right, okay, yes, and complaining about it, ranting about it, doesn't really help anything. Agreed. We want to raise awareness. I think that's what part of this podcast is about. Yes, okay. And then on the other side you have this, I'm compromising by allowing it in a little bit. I like that song. I enjoy playing Fortnite.
• 29:44
  Jeff Leake: I'm gonna go ahead and watch that Agatha TV show. I'll fast forward through the parts that I don't like. Okay. What's the danger in that
• 29:53
  Dave Leake: whole thing? Which is, fast forward through that show. But okay, do
• 29:58
  Jeff Leake: you know what I mean? Like, yeah, sure. It could. Happen to you with that?
• 29:59
  Jeff Leake: Oh, it's
• 30:01
  Dave Leake: all make believe anyway. Oh, what's
• 30:03
  Jeff Leake: the danger if, if a person's too casual with pop culture, what? What's
• 30:08
  Dave Leake: the Can I, can I hit on a nerve, on one that people are going to be like, don't touch this. Go ahead. Because I, but I feel like I'm, like, going back to like, 90s now, but another big one that's just accepted as fine as Harry Potter, okay? And like, okay, just being real. I've watched through all the movies a number of times, and I've read the books, and I like them all, but like, the more I've, like, been studying this, I'm like, maybe I shouldn't be doing this. Okay.
• 30:36
  Dave Leake: Like, I'm just being honest, open. It's my personal journey of where I am. I just think everything that's I've
• 30:41
  Jeff Leake: never watched any of the movies or read any of the books, but I have, I started in the first book because I wanted to see what it's about. I just never, never interested me.
• 30:50
  Jeff Leake: Okay, but so that felt like more make believe, yeah, yeah. So less, less, even Fortnite, like seems scarier than Harry Potter, yeah. But if you, if you actually
• 31:02
  Dave Leake: know Harry Potter, do you there's some stuff that's like, Okay, well, I'll just fast forward this, when they bring Voldemort back to life, it's a really
• 31:10
  Jeff Leake: spoiler alert if you haven't read the book, right?
• 31:13
  Dave Leake: Nobody, no, this is so old, nobody Harry Potter, not even like trending, right? I guess maybe it is in October.
• 31:18
  Dave Leake: But yeah, there's, there's, I mean, there's clearly, like, maybe, like, oh, well, they're just saying this kind of spell, and it's like, Okay, so
• 31:24
  Jeff Leake: what's the danger?
• 31:24
  Jeff Leake: Like, why would you say that?
• 31:26
  Jeff Leake: Like, okay, I believe there's a danger. I'm just asking you this. Why
• 31:29
  Dave Leake: do I think there's a danger? I think what is the day?
• 31:32
  Dave Leake: Okay, here's the danger. Here's the danger. If we pretend like nothing that's being represented with a cult or witchcraft or Satanism has any effect or reality on us. We're totally ignoring the spiritual realm that we currently live in. We're acting like we live in a natural realm. Everything is fantasy and stories. If it's not real, can't touch me or hurt me, but you actually open
• 31:56
  Jeff Leake: doors physical, invisible, exactly, but it's still real, yeah, but,
• 32:00
  Dave Leake: but we, we actually allow influence for whatever we're putting in our life. If Harry Potter or Agatha all along, or, you know, any of these other things we watch the Sam Smith concert, doesn't necessarily bother guy was the
• 32:15
  Jeff Leake: red guy we just showed. Is it this little little nos, right? No, no, no, no, no, the red guy on Fortnite. Oh, Mephisto,
• 32:21
  Dave Leake: yeah, right, right.
• 32:21
  Dave Leake: So it's like, those things might not bother us, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't bother us. And I think what we're doing is, if we get casual, it's like, I mean, it's the whole, it's literally the whole Trojan horse example, there's a gift. It's not a big deal. If it's from the enemy, it's casual. You let it in. Okay,
• 32:39
  Jeff Leake: I probably told the story before, but this is just an example, so this has to do with psychics. Sure, go ahead.
• 32:45
  Jeff Leake: This okay. The years ago, there was the girl that came to church, lady that came to church, and her life was in a bad state. She was divorced, she was addicted, she was filled with trauma. When she started to tell me her story. She was married, she had four children.
• 33:01
  Jeff Leake: She was at a party. They had a psychic reader in the back room.
• 33:05
  Jeff Leake: They paid for just like you pay for a massages. They paid for everybody to have their futures read. So she went back there she had her psychic reading, and the psychic told her your first love will be your last and so she left there, and she was like, oh, man, that's really wild.
• 33:26
  Jeff Leake: Like, I'm not really happy with my marriage right now, and my husband is not my first love.
• 33:30
  Jeff Leake: Maybe one day I'll divorce my husband and I'll go back to my first love and and we'll spend the rest of our days together.
• 33:37
  Jeff Leake: Okay? The next week, the guy that she had as her first love happened to show up at the baseball game where kids were playing, and she thought, well, there he is. You know, providentially, he's just showed up. So they started a conversation. They began an affair. They both had the same addictive pattern alcohol. They started drinking together. She ended up divorced, she ended up trapped in this alcoholic situation again. This is where all the trauma began. Is when she accepted that word from a psychic, yeah, that unraveled her entire life, and she was praying for this guy, her first love to get saved, because she wanted to spend the rest of her days with her thinking that that was what her future still was.
• 34:22
  Jeff Leake: And I was like, No, that's the devil's plan for your life.
• 34:24
  Jeff Leake: That's not God's plan for your life. So we had unwind that and help her now to move back towards what God's purpose was for her. It just that one little just that one little thing caused her whole world to fall apart. And that's, that's when you come into agreement with, let's say, a directional decision that comes from the devil. But when you open your like, if you're going to sell your soul or make a covenant, you give the devil permission to make you ill, to affect your emotions, to begin to operate in your mind. Mind To trigger trauma from your past, to oppress you, to come after your kids, to come after your grandkids, panic attacks, to destroy your finances, to bring you away from God, right? I mean, he wants to in every way he can damage you, because you are made in the image of God.
• 35:17
  Jeff Leake: God loves you, and the most precious thing to God is humanity. And if he can, just if he can destroy you, he affects the person he really hates is not you. He really hates God. He hates what what your destruction does to God's heart. That's what he enjoys. The
• 35:33
  Dave Leake: other thing about selling your soul could be that you get a lot of benefits and promotions and good things to lead others away from Jesus, yeah, and that Sean Bowles show he was talking about, I never thought about that way. He said he was saying that several organizations that were like a cultic in nature approached him throughout his life and said, like, Hey, if you, if you, you can keep using your Christian language. But if you sign up for this, if you like, join our organization, we'll give you so much sponsorship, you'll get money, you'll get so much fame.
• 36:00
  Dave Leake: You can keep saying what you're saying, but we just want you to be under our authority. And like it was, like, it's clearly an occult thing, so it's like he can keep up. Obviously, he rejected those.
• 36:11
  Jeff Leake: I think there's it doesn't stay in the banks of the river. Once it starts to flow, it affects, begins to affect everything it does not like you contain this lion, yes, and manage it. It will eventually swallow
• 36:24
  Dave Leake: you. Okay? Most people aren't trying to sell their souls, though. What I think the issue is, especially with believers, is they're allowing influences into their life that are harmful and destructive. Okay, examples, horror movies, stupid thing to bring in. There they are. That's inviting fear for the sake of thrills. Yeah, into your life, you don't want that. You don't want that around your kids. You don't want landed
• 36:45
  Jeff Leake: in your memory bank, and you allow the devil to use that as inspiration for future fears. Okay,
• 36:50
  Dave Leake: just even, man, there's, there's so much like honestly, one of the most disturbing things is, if you try to find TV shows right now, almost everything is rated, Ma, you know, mature audiences, and it usually has like pornography, basically like full nudity, often pornographic scenes,
• 37:08
  Jeff Leake: sexuality and the in the influence of Satanism have risen equally within pop
• 37:15
  Dave Leake: culture. And the third one is hyper violence.
• 37:17
  Jeff Leake: Okay? Hyper violence explain that
• 37:19
  Dave Leake: hyper violence is the goriest, most intense, graphic looking thing that you can do on a screen. And October is the time for hyper violence, more than anything else. I mean, like, there's so many, there's all these which can
• 37:32
  Jeff Leake: lead to legit hyper violence. Well, even if it doesn't lead to that,
• 37:37
  Dave Leake: you're, you're feeding, you're feeding hyper violence as entertainment, which is displeasing to God.
• 37:42
  Jeff Leake: It's you're good for your soul. It's
• 37:45
  Dave Leake: corrosive. People are made in the image of God, like we should not be about the DIS so some there is something about like watching somebody defend other people, you know what I mean? And they're and they're they're fighting. That
• 37:57
  Jeff Leake: used to be the story lines you'd go to the movies for. Yeah, now, now it's a good guy shows up and he fights against evil, and he wins the day, and he saves people from being harmed.
• 38:07
  Dave Leake: And there are some of those. What?
• 38:10
  Jeff Leake: When Has there ever been a movie made in the last five years that genuinely celebrates nobility? No,
• 38:15
  Dave Leake: probably not Top Gun. Well, yeah, yeah. A lot of them, a lot of them are anti hero comes in, he's also bad, she's also bad, but they're taking out a worse bad guy. And so you celebrate them for being a different kind of good.
• 38:30
  Dave Leake: They're an empowered, non conformist, conformist kind of a good but like so hyper violence, crazy, pornographic sexuality, crazy, like almost every show is crazy language. There's so much occult like it. I've been thinking like, Man, I so wonder, what do we do? So what do we do?
• 38:48
  Dave Leake: Here's my question. I wonder if, I wonder if most people are using filters, or if we're sort of like, it's all. It all has something, and I'll just skip it. I just won't worry about it.
• 38:58
  Dave Leake: It's not affecting me that much, because I think if we become passive and are not extremely choosy about what we're gonna watch at all, well, like, oh, it's not that big of a deal. If things aren't that big of a deal, I think we're giving a wide open front gate to so much evil to come into our if you
• 39:16
  Jeff Leake: swim in a sea of filth, you won't come out clean.
• 39:20
  Jeff Leake: No, right like on the other side, you're not going to end up feeling like praying or making the right choices or music,
• 39:28
  Dave Leake: movies, TV, video games, books, anything you want to name, fashion, even podcasts, podcasts, all of this is, is a wide open door to invite influence. Okay, so
• 39:39
  Jeff Leake: now we're sounding hyper religious and like, oh my goodness, you're so strict you can't have any fun anymore.
• 39:45
  Jeff Leake: Can't even watch Marvel. You know, you guys are just going off the deep end here. I'm not disagreeing with you, Dave. I'm just saying that might be a potential reaction to it,
• 39:57
  Dave Leake: but my reaction to that is not that we. To do nothing. But it's that if you don't have crazy filters to ask questions and say, not doing this, not doing this, and we just allow it because it's entertaining, or because people are talking about it, or because it seems like it's a great I don't watch it for that. I watch it for the storyline. Yeah, like, Game of Thrones. Like, oh, it has pornographic incest scenes, but i The story is so good. Like,
• 40:20
  Jeff Leake: I mean, no rape, yes, in the in the in the program, my goodness. Okay, so let's get to application because I think we we've painted the proper picture here. So a couple of application points. First, I would say, if you're a parent, you have got to be aware of what your kids are taking in Nothing is safe. Just listen to it, unless it comes out of redeem TV or some, some programming that probably has has been created by Christians, for Christians which, which often is sometimes not that entertaining, because maybe it's still an emerging market that's developing anyway, nothing safe. You have to be aware, even preschool shows.
• 40:59
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, it's crazy. How even preschool? So, so, so I'll go, I'll go a little off of the Satanism. But there is a certain part of our society that wants to sexualize children, yeah, and they want to do it through entertainments, and they want to do it through things like Agatha and so whether you know, we believe in Christian sexuality.
• 41:23
  Jeff Leake: The issue right here, though, isn't about so much Christian sexuality. It's more just about certain age groups should not be exposed to sexuality, period of any kind, yeah, heterosexual, homosexual, transgender, whatever. There should be an age of innocence where kids are protected from some of that stuff, but there's a push on in our society to sexualize kids.
• 41:44
  Jeff Leake: You got to be aware of what your kids are taking in in any shape or form, if you're a parent that's trying to raise your your son or daughter in an environment of some degree of safety. So that's the first thing. Second thing is you got to take everything satanic incredibly seriously and all just as your pastors, we just warn you, do not open the door to the devil. And it's better not to be entertained by something, find something else, to watch, listen to whatever, than to open the door for something that even potentially could harm you. We love you so much. We don't want to see the devil affecting your life negatively. Actually, we're getting ready to do spiritual breakthrough. And if you feel like maybe you have been immersed too much in this kind of garbage, you need to come to breakthrough weekend. We'll break this off your life. We'll we'll use the authority of Jesus name to to break off whatever curses, whatever compromises, whatever agreements with the enemy, and bring you into a state again, where you're whole and free, which is what we want for you. So that's, that's a second thing. I think that I think the challenge is how to remain present in the society.
• 42:57
  Jeff Leake: Because I grew up in an era where everything was sin, things that were really not harmful at all, were sent like, right? You know, crazy things, like, you could, you could play Uno, but you can play with face cards. I don't even know why, but, like, there were certain rules like, look like gambling. You couldn't listen to secular music unless you're roller skating. And then that was okay for a little bit.
• 43:15
  Jeff Leake: Like, there was just, it was just weird, random rules about things and and I think my generation grew up under some of that kind of restrictiveness and said, This is silly. And so we, we, we sort of let go of any kind of barriers against being too overly religious or strict.
• 43:37
  Jeff Leake: I shouldn't say any, but maybe a week became way less legalistic.
• 43:41
  Jeff Leake: It's a better way of saying it, but which is probably good. We probably need a little more standards, standards now, yeah, well, every like, you need to have almost worked out in your mind, this is what we won't do.
• 43:52
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, like, I'm a young adult, this is what I won't do. I'm a I'm a dad or a mom. This is what we won't do in my in my life, from my entertainments, what I listen to, what I don't listen to, what I watch, what I don't watch, what I consume. These are my standards, and I'm going to hold to this, and maybe even to tell other people, like, keep me accountable for this, because I don't want this in my life. I want to live above the fray of anything that is going to drag my soul down. You know, there is, there is something, if you watch hyper violence, is that what you called it? Yeah, or you're, you're, you're exchanging your soul to get some ammunition on Fortnite, or you're dabbling in whatever programming. The other thing that has it, even if it doesn't affect you like a direct slap from the devil, it just makes you spiritually dull? Yes, at the very least, you'll just become spiritually lethargic.
• 44:44
  Jeff Leake: Yeah,
• 44:46
  Dave Leake: well, because, because what you're doing is you're treating that stuff as if the just as a cartoon. Like, okay, if we make our conscience the ultimate standard, and we're like, Does it bother me personally? Yes or no, then that. That's a that's one of the filters, yes, but wait, but yeah, but I okay. You can almost reinterpret sin to be like, Does it bother me? You know what? I mean? No, it doesn't bother me.
• 45:11
  Dave Leake: Well, that doesn't make me not sin. So just because you're not bothered by something doesn't mean it's not horribly unconscious. Could be broken.
• 45:17
  Dave Leake: Your contents could be broken. I mean, I'm admitting this. For me, my conscience has been broken at times. Yeah, when I look back at the last decade of media, I've gotten better, better at my filters, but I've watched some stupid things. I was like, oh, like, I would never, why did? Why did I get into this? That was a pop culture thing. People watching it around. It was in my house.
• 45:36
  Dave Leake: You want to
• 45:36
  Jeff Leake: be melody leak. So melody leak has a hypersensitive conscious because she is honed, she is very aware. Yeah. I mean, I'd rather be that than than to be have a broken conscience.
• 45:51
  Jeff Leake: Yeah? Where you have violated your conscience so often that you don't even know anymore where it is, yeah, so back, it would take something like if you're watching hyper violence, and your conscious is not bothering you right now. Bro, you got you gotta you got some work to do. Your conscious is broken.
• 46:08
  Dave Leake: Hyper, by the way.
• 46:08
  Dave Leake: Just to define it, hyper violence is intense gore. It's it's craziest memberment, all this blood. It's often glorifying like violence. It's not just like violence, it's like, it's the results of violence that you know, their stomach turning and they're they're trying to escalate it more and more. That's actually gold filter. Let's build the filters. Wait before we're gonna say the harm first. Okay, so the harm is, I think, I think it desensitized us, even if it's not a slap from the devil, I also think it's just like it makes us believe lies, which is that this isn't that big of a deal, and that this stuff isn't even really real, and it makes us unaware, like, like the Paul writes, you know, be aware of the schemes of the devil. Be very aware of his schemes. Like, if we are acting like all this stuff is not a big deal, then we are totally tuned out. Yeah, to the workings of the demonic in our house doing the
• 47:02
  Jeff Leake: opera Ephesians six, which says, Put on the arm of God, yes, and stand your ground and be aware and be, you know, constantly be armed up, because, you know, the devil has has a scheme against your life. This is the opposite. This is like,
• 47:13
  Dave Leake: let's all chill out.
• 47:13
  Dave Leake: Let's take the armor off.
• 47:17
  Jeff Leake: Yeah? If he wants to come in and slap us around a little,
• 47:20
  Dave Leake: take it, yeah, but it really is. And I think, I think that there, okay, there is a natural, especially with my generation too. There's a natural, um aversion to anything that sounds like 90s religious standards, like Harry Potter, Pokemon, Star Wars, Disney. But at the same time, all of that stuff has gotten more aggressively, openly anti Christian and, yeah, demonic. I
• 47:43
  Jeff Leake: actually think that maybe some of the reaction the 90s was the fact that we, who were, you know, I was what, 30 years younger at the time, we could see where it was going. It hadn't gone bad yet, but we could see it was going bad. And so we were like, you can't watch that, because it's going bad, but it really wasn't bad yet. It was actually it would be considered really good programming now, in comparison with the dark things that are out there today. Yeah, but we could see it was headed in that direction, and then it just took 30 years to get there. Well, now your generation is 30 years down the round route, and we're like, see, we told you it was going here, but how are we selling ourselves being too strict on things that were probably tiny wasn't probably the answer to a culture that was deteriorating before our eyes. So I think, I think what's happened, Dave is our country has rejected Christianity, and it is replaced Christianity with paganism.
• 48:39
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, so we're back to New Testament era living. Basically we're living just like in the area of the Bible, where they used to go to temples and worship false gods and demonic powers would be involved. And they had to be constantly alert of the fact that the whole culture was involved with this, paganism, pagan sexuality, pagan idols, spiritualism, darkness, demon possession, like it was the it was the air that they breathed. Yep, when you became a Christian, you had to come out of that, and you had to join a community of people who was living differently. We were in a culture that breathed Christianity as sort of the air.
• 49:11
  Jeff Leake: And now the and that paganism has taken over, yeah, and paganism is violently opposed to Christianity. What was the, what was the series you
• 49:21
  Dave Leake: did on it was the on the churches in Revelation three, yeah. Was it called Letters
• 49:27
  Jeff Leake: from the end of the world, letter revelation two and three. Remember
• 49:31
  Dave Leake: you? You had that one series that was talking about one of the churches that, like, there's so much idol worship like to go to your job, you'd have to kiss, yeah? Well,
• 49:40
  Jeff Leake: so in a I think it was in the city of Thyatira, which is a city in Turkey, modern day Turkey, there were trade guilds, and every trade guild had a mascot God. So it was like if you were a carpenter, the carpenters guild had a god that was giving favor.
• 49:57
  Jeff Leake: To the carpenters, right? And when you would go to work as a carpenter, and you would go into the shop, you would have to kneel and kiss the idol to belong to the carpenter, carpenter skill. So when you became a Christian, you could no longer kiss the God because you were serving Jesus, which meant you probably were going to lose your job because you would refuse to worship the idol, and therefore couldn't participate in that economic opportunity.
• 50:26
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, so there's a, there were real consequences to saying, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna Fortnite, it, whatever that, whatever that guy's name is, again, but
• 50:36
  Dave Leake: there was another one I'm thinking of. You were talking about how there, there was a marketplace Christians were entering, where they were doing like human sacrifice, or it was at
• 50:48
  Jeff Leake: the So, Pergamum is the city in Revelation. I think it's two where the city where Satan has his throne, yeah, and there were two huge temples that were in Pergamum. One was the temple to Zeus, which was the primary God, and in Roman, in the Roman deities. And then the second was the the temple to the the emperor of of of Rome. And they would, they would offer animal and and human sacrifices in both of those temples. And so to, as a Christian, you had to decide, and the in the celebration of Zeus and the Emperor God, they would have these huge feasts and and in the feasts, this was the place you made business, business connections. So if you're a Christian, business person, and you're invited to the feast of Zeus, yeah, where they're going to throw a child into the fire, right? Okay, but, but if you're there, you have the chance to make some important connections with other business leaders. If you're not there, you're not going to have the opportunity to make business so Christians were being sort of elbowed out of society. To be a Christian meant you had to make some very strict decisions about whether you'd be present at the the idle feasts, right, right? And if you chose to forsake that, that meant an economic loss. There was like genuine cost, yeah? So turning off a movie, yeah, not listening to music, choosing not to play a certain part of Fortnite, yeah, is no real sacrifice
• 52:17
  Dave Leake: in comparison. And even so, I was gonna give an example, but because you're talking about that like they needed to, not like they were based on the choice, not just of the feast, but do we want to even enter the marketplaces where this stuff is happening?
• 52:28
  Dave Leake: Yeah, because it's, it's or
• 52:30
  Jeff Leake: eat the meat that had been offered to these idols.
• 52:32
  Jeff Leake: There was a debate about that, how, how close do you get to the feast that they had to Zeus? So should you eat the leftover meat that there was a part of that festival? This was a lot of the debates that they were having.
• 52:42
  Dave Leake: So for a modern equivalent, I don't think it's it's not nearly the sacrifice, but I do think things like, Should you attend this concert where this person is known to say these things? Or, you
• 52:55
  Jeff Leake: know what I mean, first century Christians would look at us like, like, You're ridiculous, because our lives were usually think about that.
• 53:01
  Jeff Leake: Don't you know what we what we paid the price for? Yeah, like entertainment, yeah. And I really like this artist, right?
• 53:07
  Jeff Leake: Ours is refusing entertainment.
• 53:12
  Jeff Leake: Theirs was losing a job. Yeah, honestly, it's possible that in in the few generations from now, we may be there. Paganism may try to make Christianity be impractical, like someone that would believe in in the fact that babies in the womb should be protected, or that marriage is between a husband and a wife, man and woman, that that you are the the gender you were born with. Like these kinds of radical ideas to our culture may not be allowed in the public square anymore, sure. And when you hold to the idea that Jesus, Christ is the Lord and Savior, you might not necessarily be able to hold a job in the future. That does seem to be where we're headed to. But for now, it's creeping in, in the entertainments, and so creeping it's, it's, it's aggressively moving into Ira hose. And you have to realize that, that the moat, that the force behind this, not every entertainer, not every Hollywood writer, not every podcaster, not everybody who's singing songs. But there is a, there is a spiritual force behind this. Absolutely it is trying to destroy culture, destroy people. Yes, and these are, these is not our friend, right? As much as there is, as much we want to love people, and we want to see people in this industry saved. It's not, we're not branding them as the enemy.
• 54:34
  Jeff Leake: Of course, we are saying there is an enemy behind this, yes, which is the powers of darkness, Satan and demonic forces that are trying to unravel everything.
• 54:42
  Dave Leake: Well, as much as there are moves of God that are orchestrated by God himself to bring good into the world, there are clearly moves of the devil, and they're not random, and they're not just human evil. And
• 54:51
  Jeff Leake: there is one going on right now.
• 54:52
  Dave Leake: It's being orchestrated. It's, it's about as obvious as it could possibly be. Like it's, it
• 54:57
  Jeff Leake: doesn't it feel like so I'm, I. A touch, but it feels in some ways, like many Christians are just asleep.
• 55:05
  Dave Leake: I feel like that too. I and I it's almost like doing a podcast like this or having conversation. It makes some people be like, okay, like you're you're being religious, but like, without Okay, religious standards would be like, we judge somebody for one specific choice of entertainment. Yeah, I don't think the goal, or even the hardest, is at all to say, like, how could you idiot? Like, stop?
• 55:29
  Dave Leake: But it's sort of like it does feel like many of us are asleep, yeah? And I think if we don't wake up to the threat, like, we're going to allow all of this crap to infiltrate our families, to infiltrate our own spiritual lives. We're giving the devil a foothold. We're really even, even just this idea. Like, I don't I think that there should be a level of, I'm not saying vocal pitchfork, but Christian opposition, or at least abstinence from these programs,
• 55:57
  Jeff Leake: opposition. I'm not sure that does anything, but abstinence does,
• 56:02
  Dave Leake: yeah, like, like, withdraw from participation. I'm not, I'm not saying, like, fire torches.
• 56:08
  Jeff Leake: I can't watch that guys turn it off. Like, not when I'm here, not not. It's just that's, that's not right, okay, here's, here's what it says, Romans, chapter 13. And do this understanding the present time, the hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.
• 56:25
  Jeff Leake: The night is nearly over, which is where we're at now. Darkness is raining. The night is nearly over, the day is almost here, the day when Jesus comes back.
• 56:35
  Jeff Leake: So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently as in the daytime, not carousing and drunkenness, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousies or hyper violence. I added that one rather clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. Yeah.
• 57:00
  Jeff Leake: That is a good summary for what we've been trying to talk about today. So and then it goes on to say, except one whose faith is weak without quarreling over disputable matters, we realize that some of this falls into the area of everybody has to make up their own mind where they land, and we shouldn't be judging each other all the time, and yet, at the same time, we have to take things more seriously than I think we have been, yeah,
• 57:25
  Dave Leake: yeah. And in Second Corinthians two, it talks about being aware of the devil's schemes. He says, Yeah. He talks about the things he's doing so that Satan might not outwit us, for we are not unaware of his schemes. I think that's the thing that feels like the biggest risk is that we are currently unaware, totally unaware. Like, what do you what is even doing? Who knows he's doing something? And I think it's our job to educate ourselves and start to start to ask God and to become aware of what the schemes actually are.
• 57:55
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, it's one thing for it to be behind closed doors. You know, the P Diddy scandal. It's hidden from sight.
• 58:02
  Jeff Leake: He's been scheming. The devil's been, you know, leveraging the whatever is going on in this guy's life to do a lot of harm.
• 58:10
  Jeff Leake: But when it comes above ground, and Satan is performing on stage at the Emmys or Grammys or whatever, when it's when it's the theme of the entertainment in the Olympics, right? When it's when it's when it's When, when, all of a sudden, Fortnite gets an underworld. Like, okay?
• 58:27
  Jeff Leake: Like, you have to say, what? Why do you need an underworld? Like, isn't there enough entertainment in this game? You gotta have an underworld, and you gotta have this exchange with the devil. I mean, come on, like there is an agenda here, and there are forces at work that are that are now becoming aggressive,
• 58:48
  Dave Leake: yeah, even if it's not a human agenda, there is a demonic agenda that's being, that's being
• 58:54
  Jeff Leake: permeating everything
• 58:55
  Dave Leake: exactly. It's
• 58:56
  Jeff Leake: like the devil is like, hey, they accept us now we don't even have to. We're cool.
• 58:59
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, we're cool. It's cool.
• 59:02
  Jeff Leake: Like, let's just go straight at them, though. Yeah,
• 59:05
  Dave Leake: there I showed you that article, but there was that article that from last year, Newsweek, that said, like, the how the devil is becoming hot as hell and pop culture.
• 59:13
  Jeff Leake: That's Newsweek. Is that? We said, yeah, yeah, yeah, wow. That's just so that was the article title. That
• 59:18
  Dave Leake: was the article title,
• 59:19
  Jeff Leake: the devil is becoming hot as hell in popcorn.
• 59:22
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, yeah. Newsweek is saying that nothing we're saying is controversial. No, no, of course. I mean, yeah, obviously.
• 59:29
  Jeff Leake: If so so this is obvious, then yeah, it's obvious. The secular world recognizes what we just said is true. They're just
• 59:38
  Dave Leake: saying Christians are getting into this moral panic and making a big deal of nothing. And I think as Christians, we have to be like, No, this is a big deal. This is actually a really big deal.
• 59:46
  Dave Leake: Let's not be like, Oh, you're right. Let's just chill out about it. It's just Satan or just inviting demons. Sarah, I wish I could find it. Sarah showed me this funny reel that came up where it was. Like, it's like, this guy, you know, they'll do it like, the guy will be one person. He's like, reacting that he's being somebody else. And as this guy, who's like, at a concert, and he, like, comes there and the guy on the stage is like, he's like, All right, everybody, let's invite the demons. I was like, oh, and he's like, What?
• 1:00:13
  Dave Leake: He's like, straight to hell, because, but that's like, that's what a lot of concerts are becoming like, like, it's like, demons, Demons, demons. Like, because there's something, there's something cool in culture about that, like, it's hard, and it's like, aggressive and it's non conformist anyway.
• 1:00:28
  Dave Leake: Getting on a tangent here, I just think, let's be aware.
• 1:00:31
  Dave Leake: Let's have filters. Let's not just say, and this isn't that big of a deal. I'd rather be entertained. I think let's be careful. Let's be aware of the devil's schemes. Let's put on the armor of God and man. Let's shut some doors that are just wide open, because I think we do need to be a little bit more awake.
• 1:00:51
  Jeff Leake: Yeah. Well, honestly, Dave, this has been the most educational episode for me. I've learned more things I had no idea about, and I actually, you made me because I am for other reasons, not because I'm trying to stay away from demons. I mean, I'm just not, I'm just not in touch with a lot of these popular culture things. So for me, as a pastor, you've helped me. Oh, cool, yeah. And hopefully, if you're a pastor out there, maybe, maybe this episode helped you to be a little bit more aware than you were before. Yeah, if you're already aware of it, maybe we help to just raise the alarm in you a little bit
• 1:01:25
  Dave Leake: Absolutely. Well, we appreciate you joining us as always, and you know, there's a number of ways that you could really help us out and do us favor. If you could like and subscribe on YouTube, we'd love to hear your thoughts, if you want to drop those in the comments. We'd love to hear what you're thinking you can share on social media. Obviously, we always mention this, but you can leave us a five star review on whatever podcast platform you're listening on, and if you do it on Apple podcast, we will give you a specific shout out, because we can see your name. So any of the ways that you can help us to spread the word would be greatly appreciated. Yep,
• 1:01:56
  Jeff Leake: and we have added this feature now where we were able to watch some clips. We know this is a very common thing on podcast today. If there's a particular clip that you like that you would like to see us address you've given us topics before, we'd love to we'd love to hear from you about some of that too, absolutely.
• 1:02:13
  Dave Leake: Well, hope you guys have a great day, and we'll catch you guys again next time you.