Objection: Occult Practitioners Attempt to Confess Things into Existence and Speak to Material Things to Make Them Change
Having been involved in the occult before becoming a Christian, I can vouch for this fact. One book I kept reading emphasized how “the power within” could accomplish these things, and it had “testimonies” from people who had done it. The sad part is that this takes part of what Jesus said and attempts to operate it without Jesus. If I still believed that occult book, I’d still be on my way to the lake of fire.
As a Christian, I do not trust “the power within” unless you’re referring to the Holy Spirit who lives in me! I definitely do not trust myself or the power of my own faith to get things done. I do what Jesus said to do right before He talked about speaking to a mountain – I have faith in God (Mark 11:22)! I believe that God Himself will back my faith-filled words when I speak things according to His known will in His Word.
What occultists do is witchcraft, not Christianity. There is NO OVERLAP between Christian beliefs and occult beliefs. The demonic origin of occult literature became more apparent in retrospect when I reflected on the fact that ALL occult books I had read agreed that Jesus was not the Son of God. (As a teenager, I used to go to the town library and read the occult books they had.) Well, what do you expect evil spirits to say when they CANNOT confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh? They have to paint him as a mere “enlightened” man. The Ouija board told me that Jesus wasn’t real when I asked it. Of course, that’s what the demon moving that pointer wanted me to believe!
Apart from occult practices, some anti-Christian “new thought” and mind science cults sprang up that emphasized speaking to things to change them apart from God. As Christians, we must believe Mark 11:23, but we understand that God is the One backing us, not our own inherent power or deity. We are Bible believers when we do this, not practicing occultists!
The Bible does preach confession (see Say What) and speaking to things to change them, but when we do it, we do it with faith in God, not with faith in our own innate ability. Do you realize that you would not even be a Christian if speaking couldn’t change things? It is with the mouth that confession is made unto salvation (Romans 10:10)! You are justified or condemned by YOUR WORDS (Matthew 12:37)! That’s how important words are. I think some Christians have backed off this essential truth out of fear of playing around with the occult, but the devil is the one who wants you to back off. He knows that you will have what you believe and say whether you think so or not, so he will always try to get you to believe and speak contrary to the Word, thus activating this proven principle against yourself so that you reap the rotten harvest that he wants you to have.
We see this same mistaken pattern in many objections: “If a wrong person does or says x, and x is known to be wrong, and he also does or says y, y must also be wrong.” But if this were true, we would never buy groceries or get our oil changed because occult practitioners buy groceries and get their oil changed too! We have to evaluate every action independently rather than lumping all actions of occultists or all preaching of “word of faith” and “grace” preachers together.
I have a separate write-up demonstrating that Mark 11:23 DOES work for unbelievers, which you may read for further comment on this matter. The fact that it works for everyone is the very reason why you need to “have faith in God” (Mark 11:22) before you start speaking what you believe!