The Power Of The Imagination
THE POWER OF THE IMAGINATION
By Jeannette Haley
“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God,
and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” 2 Corinthians 10:5
Oh, the power of the imagination of man! The power of the imagination is able to carry a person on flights of fantasy that know no limits, boundless as the Universe itself and as endless as eternity. Imagination can be used for good or for evil, for the benefit of mankind, or for the destruction of mankind. Imagination has the power to fuel one’s aspirations beyond the innate abilities of the soul, and reveal visions of possibilities not yet seen or grasped by others. The power of imagination can elevate the human senses and experiences beyond this limited, physical dimension and into another, transporting the spirit through the alluring, yet forbidden doors that open into the tantalizing, yet somewhat terrorizing, endless mysteries of the occult.
Once the power of the imagination is given over to the initial “beautiful side of evil,” a strange addiction for “hidden knowledge” and greater power compels the curious soul to explore deeper into the unknown possibilities of multiple dimensions. At this point, the knowledge of the God of the Bible is as far from the conscious mind as an astronaut’s back yard is to him or her when on a space flight. He, or she, knows it’s “back there somewhere,” but when you have experienced an altered state of consciousness, the “backyard” of God’s Word is small, meaningless and insignificant. That is how the “angel of light,” Lucifer, can work through a person’s imagination. It’s how addictions to sorcery capture the soul (mind) and spirit of a person, ultimately destroying the body as well. It’s how doors are opened for demons to torment the body, soul and mind.
Concerning sorcery, Lynette Hughes wrote this challenging explanation of it: “Rev. 9:21: “neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.” The Greek word for sorceries is ‘Pharmakia” – from which we get our English words pharmacy, pharmacist, and pharmaceutical. In the New testament pharmakia has the connotation of occultism or the power of witchcraft [sorcery] through “drugs, potions and poisons.” It is associated with the use or the administering of drugs: specifically the evil abuse of drugs. There is a connection between drug addiction and sorcery, or the occult.
“Drug dealers are sorcerers. When you use drugs, illicit or legally prescribed, without a justifiable medical reason or abuse them for your own pleasure and euphoric side effects, you are practicing sorcery (witchcraft) and giving the enemy legal rights through your sin induced behavior to enter your life.
“Drugs can open you up to the realm of darkness as it alters the mind to function in a way unnatural to how you were made. People who are abusing drugs are actually being influenced by forces of darkness assigned to oppress and sabotage people’s minds so they cannot know and obey God and be set free. It, therefore, should come as no surprise that those who abuse drugs can often see into an evil and invisible spiritual realm of demonic entities and converse with invisible and inhuman powers.
“God does not go lightly on those who practice sorcery. Revelation 21:7-8 tells us the ultimate fate of those who refuse to repent: “He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, SORCERERS, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” The worldwide spread of drugs fulfills the prophetic scriptures as a form of sorcery that will lead the nations into rejecting Christ and bring them into their final destruction at the end of the age [Rev. 18:23].
“I cannot help but notice the prevalent and growing disturbing trend among professed Christians who are using mind altering prescription pain killers, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic drugs on a regular and continuing basis, whom if they wanted to reduce or eliminate them would not be able to do so via their own self-control or without suffering severe withdrawal symptoms. Millions of professed believers in Christ are dependent on prescription drugs and living in a medical utopia. This contradiction can only be possible when understood as deception. [Jeremiah 17:14]
“Revelation chapter 9 is filled with terrifying descriptions of God’s wrath upon stubborn and rebellious sinners who refuse to repent of their sorceries and seek his gracious forgiveness. Isn’t it amazing how we can project the shortcomings we have as humans onto a holy, perfectly loving God? When we are disappointed in ourselves, we convince ourselves that God is disappointed in us and is finished helping us with our struggles and weaknesses. Thank goodness God doesn’t just see us as the person we are now, He sees the person we are becoming with the help of his Spirit working in us.
“Somehow, we have created a God who seethes at our human frailties’, our limitations, our failures and blunders. We see him as disapprovingly looking over our shoulders and just waiting for an opportunity to condemn us. A Father who is irritable and rigid … perhaps resembling our earthly fathers. It would behoove us to remember that God does not have similarities to our earthly fathers, rather our earthly fathers have certain remote similarities to God. Until we rest in the security of our heavenly Father’s loving arms, we have only a tarnished reflection of Him when we view Him through the prism of our earthly father.
“Psalm 103:13-14 tells us that “As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust”. I think that He is not so much disappointed WITH us, as he is disappointed FOR us. This would be the response of a loving, compassionate God whose mercies are new each morning.”
While imagination is a God-given aspect of our personality, and is wonderful when used in the right spirit by artists, musicians, writers, chefs, architects, builders, inventors, teachers, doctors, and so forth, it can, on the other hand, bring about disastrous results when given over to the wrong spirit. Examples of this are murder, idolatry, debauchery, pornography, witchcraft and control, globalism, depopulation, abortion, satanism, human sacrifices, transhumanism, planned pandemics, bio-warfare, eugenics, magic and drugs (pharmakia), communism, and every other wicked, sinister and evil endeavor of man that is playing out before our very eyes today! Psalm 2:1 asks, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?” The answer is, because they have either rejected or forgotten the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, CREATOR of heaven and earth. It’s not that they don’t believe in Him; it’s because they despise Him, His holiness, His righteousness, His reign, His Word, and His people. How did their hearts become so darkened? The Bible answers that question: “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” John 3:19, and “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened” Romans 1:21.
Sixty years ago, I was told that “Anticipation is greater than realization” and there is a lot of truth in that. Anticipation is fueled by the imagination, and the imagination magnifies the possibilities of something, as it opens the mind and senses into a world of fantasy vs. responsibility and accountability. It is an opening for abuses of all kinds, and knows no limits in the “feelings” area. Imagination feeds vanity, and illusions of euphoria in an otherwise perilous world. It brings to mind the thrill skydivers must feel; that is, unless their parachute fails to open.
Oh! Those “vain imaginations!” What trouble, sorrow, and suffering have come upon all mankind and nature because of vain imaginations which began at the fall of man when Eve was beguiled into imagining what it would feel like to be “as gods” knowing “good and evil,” and Adam, whose imagination may be explained by Job 31:33 which states, “If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom.” One has to wonder if there had been no imagination, would there have been disobedience? That disobedience cost Adam and Eve their home in Paradise, their communion with God, their innocence, and brought death into their lives.
In Genesis 6:5 we read why God sent the flood upon the face of the whole world: “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Emphasis added.)Thus, He judged the world with the Great Flood wherein only eight souls out of possibly billions were spared! Then God said in his heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth . . ..” (See Genesis 8:21) (Emphasis added.) When God sent the Flood, it was about 1,656 years after Adam. Remember, God isn’t looking as much at what we do as He is looking at what we are imagining in the thoughts of our hearts, and why we do what we do. We need to realize that a corrupt imagination is a powerful tool in the hands of the enemy to enslave our souls. Only the truth can set us free no matter how active and colorful our imaginations may be. Vivid imaginings must never become reality to us. Powerful imaginations can stir up the emotions to the point that feelings such as lust, fear, anger, suspicions, expectations, jealousy, and so forth, including false euphoria and “visions of grandeur” overcome the ability to critically think, and warp one’s grasp of reality. God said in Jeremiah 7:23, 24, “But this thing commanded I them, saying Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear; but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.” (Emphasis added.)
The collective imaginations of the people 339 years after Noah were evidenced by the famous tower of Babel 339. A conservative estimation by a Rabbi concludes that there could have easily been at least 920,000 people at this time. Genesis 11 tells us what their imaginations conspired to do. “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” So once again the people ignored Gods commands given to Noah and his three sons after the flood, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” Genesis 9:1 and, “And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein” Genesis 9:7.
So, what did the LORD do? He “came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do” Genesis 11:5, 6. (Emphasis added.) And, the whole world, even to this very day, knows what happened, and Satan has been working ever since to bring all the people under one government with one common language, which, through technology is no longer impossible, with the goal of globalism; that is, a one-world government, one-world economic system, and one-world religion over which the anti-Christ will preside. Jeremiah 9:14 was a warning to Israel, and it is also a warning to all of God’s people today, “But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them.” The reason I chose this verse in particular is because of the mention of Baalim because worship to this pagan god, which involves human sacrifices is very much alive and widely practiced today by evil people, with evil imaginations who are in high places in every walk of life. Let me just say this, it’s no longer a matter of “Democrat” or “Republican,” but rather a matter of the righteous and the unrighteous, the godly or the ungodly, the Holy Spirit or the wrong spirit. Jesus warned the religious self-righteous, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” John 7:24.
“Righteous judgment” can never occur due to “feelings” or “thoughts” produced by an evil imagination. For Christians, we must guard our hearts so that no evil imagination can stir up feelings that are an open door to a wrong spirit that brings about such things as false accusations, slander, and wrong judgments, often resulting in “sowing seeds of discord among the brethren which the Lord hates.” In fact, it is an abomination to Him. (See Proverbs 6:16-19.) Christians need to pray and ask the LORD for the spirit of discernment if they don’t have it! Concerning discernment of something “new,” A.W. Tozer would ask himself, “This new doctrine, this new view of truth, this new religious habit, this new spiritual experience, whatever it is – how has it affected my attitude toward and my relation to God, Christ, the Word of God, self, other Christians, the world and sin.” The Bible tells us to examine ourselves, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” 2 Corinthians 13:5.
We need to honestly ask ourselves what kind of imaginations we entertain in our minds. Do we daydream (imagine) a wonderful life that satisfies every desire of the heart? Do we fantasize about the type of person we think would make us happy? Do we long for an abundance of riches so we can live luxuriously or like others who are “better off” than we are? Do we imagine what kind of a vacation, trip, vehicle, boat, plane or hideout in some gorgeous setting would make us happy? The list could go on, depending on where our imaginations could take us.
When I began to develop this article, I was surprised to discover that the word “imagination” occurs 14 times in the KJV; the word “imaginations” occurs 6 times; the word “imagine” 12 times, the word “imagined” 3 times, and finally, the word imagineth 1 time. That is a total of 36 variations of the word “imagination” and what is startling is that not once is this word used in conjunction to anything good, godly, righteous, holy, or acceptable to God! All of these words have evil and rebellious connotations because of the sinful disposition we inherited from Adam which is described for us in 1 John 2:17, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”
How, then, without imagination, shall we direct our wandering thoughts, and tame the straying mind? How can we escape from the miseries of reality, or find a respite from truths that fail to tickle the ears? How can we entertain our vain senses, while trying to keep the darkness of depression at bay? How can we hide from the doom that stalks us with its tentacles of despair? The truth is, God has not left us to drown in a dark sea of death and misery alone and hopeless. He has given us the Way, the Truth and the Life. He has given us the eternal Word that imparts light and life. He has given to us His Son, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and He has given us the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Imagination cannot give you these things or lasting peace of mind because imagination is not reality! But this is reality: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” Isaiah 26:3. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” John 14:27.
You cannot find one verse in the entire Bible that instructs God’s people to try and “imagine” anything! Here is what we are to do with our minds: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” Philippians 4:8. The Apostle Peter wrote, “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;” 1 Peter 13.
What about heaven?Surely, we can we imagine heaven, can’t we? No. The Apostle Paul tells us, “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” 1 Corinthians 2:9. We can’t begin to imagine what heaven is like, but we can see His power and glory in all of creation. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork” Psalm 19:1. The Bible tells us all we are allowed to know in this life about heaven, and trying to imagine anything else is futile and misleading. We need real faith that can never be shaken because it is established, rooted and grounded in the Word of God and not based solely on our imagination or the imaginations of others. In other words, our imaginations can become idols that we place our trust, hope and faith in instead of the promises and truths of God’s Word. Such is mental idolatry which opens a person up to deception, delusion and demons. 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 tells us, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.” (Emphasis added.)
Oh, how we need to echo the beautiful, prophetic prayer of Mary, the mother of our Lord, in this troubled time in which “the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing” Psalm 2:1 resulting in satanic chaos, pride, rebellion, idolatry and endless evil imaginations and inventions! In her prayer she said, “He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts” Luke 1:51. This is not an imaginary hope. No! This is glorious, unchangeable, truth that has happened, continues to happen, and will soon happen all over the face of the earth! Hallelujah! Jesus is LORD, and He is coming.