Don’t think there’s witchcraft in the church today? Then you might want to reconsider that position, say Pastors Mike Signorelli, Isaiah Saldivar and Alexander Pagani.
A traveling pastor who attends Lifesong Church in Stockton, California and whose ministry reaches between 6 to 8 million people per week, Saldivar says it’s definitely out there, and that “we have to call out heretical teachings and bad doctrine” that can lead people to hell.
In this video teaching, Saldivar, Pagani and Signorelli give a prophetic warning to the body of Christ in regard to unbiblical teachings happening not only within the church as a whole, but also within the charismatic movement. The three deliverance ministers navigate the complex intersection between spirituality, religion and occult practices and shed light on controversial topics such as the Third Eye, Astral Projection, false prophetic words and more.
It’s a crucial message for both church leaders and their congregations to let soak into their spirit, and it’s one that was adamantly preached in Greg Locke’s recent movie, “Come Out in Jesus Name.”
Saldivar says we need to watch out for false teachers in the church today—and that they are prevalent.
“The devil is not going to come after us with horns and a tail, but he is going to come as a teacher or a preacher,” Saldivar says. “They will be a wolf in sheep’s clothing (Matt. 7:15). They will teach a different Jesus, a different spirit and a different gospel. We have to push back against these teachings. We can’t be OK with a false teaching, a false gospel or heretical message.
“Second Corinthians 11:13-15 teaches us: ‘For such are false apostles and deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.’ … Isn’t [this] the case that when these guys that are teaching this and getting involved in witchcraft, all of these sins start happening. Their marriage starts falling apart, they start cheating, they start getting involved in money and scandals. Watch how all of these sins come together.”
Signorelli, the lead pastor of V1 Church in New York City, says as kingdom leaders, he, Saldivar and Pagani have “an incredible responsibility to the body of Christ and the people that they are shepherding.” They, and others, must be examples to their flocks and “humble themselves under the mighty of hand of God.”
Many church leaders and those who have huge internet ministries, however, are doing just the opposite, Signorelli says. They do it for either financial gain or notoriety, and that in itself is a blatant example of witchcraft.
“People who deceive others are successful in their deception because they give the people what they want,” Signorelli says. “They tell them what they want to hear. What happens is you become self-deceived because you are trying to get something and they are enabling you to get the thing you want. You know the red flags and see the signs, but you ignore them because self-deception becomes the only thing to possess the thing you want.
“The only reason why false prophets and Christian witchcraft exist is because those people in leadership are giving the people they are leading exactly what they want. I don’t know how many times you can violate not just your conscience but the voice of the Holy Spirit through you before you become dead to that voice.”
Signorelli points to the church at Galatia, to which Paul wrote: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? Before your eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified. I want to learn only this from you: Did you receive the Spirit through the works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Have you endured so many things for nothing, if indeed it was for nothing?” (Gal. 3:1-5).
Signorelli says that these false teachers can put individuals—including Christians—”under their spell.”
“Bewitched is used only once in the Bible, and in the Greek it means to cast an evil spell,” Signorelli says. “‘To exercise evil power over someone.’ These people operated under a false anointing that created the conditions where Paul had to come in and call them out.”
Pagani, who wrote about Christian witchcraft in his book “The Secretes to Deliverance” (Charisma House, 2022), reiterated that the apostle Paul’s message to the Galatian church was one that today’s Christian needs to take seriously.
“You’re probably saying, ‘how can a Christian get bewitched?'” Pagani asked. “Recently, I found myself thinking about this one phrase: ‘Giving people the benefit of the doubt.’ Instead of listening to the Holy Spirit on the inside, that warning flag telling you something is off here, we give people the benefit of the doubt because we assume that people are like us. You would never cheat somebody, you would never take that money and everyone is like you.
“But yes, they will do it; yes, they are deceiving someone. And sometimes this benefit of the doubt is found in this one phrase: ‘Oh, everybody misspeaks.’ There is a difference between misspeaking and misrepresenting what the Scriptures actually say. If someone shares with you something that is a misunderstanding, then everyone listening to them gets completely derailed
And, Pagani says, these pastors are not speaking in broad generalities concerning false teachers. He says it also happens in within five-fold ministries.
“There are false apostles and false prophets within the apostolic and the prophetic,” He says. “We are actually talking about that which is within the body of Christ, within this current apostolic and prophetic movement, the current five-fold nobody has addressed. Believe it or not, there are new teachers like Jim Jones out there, and there are new teachers like David Koresh out there. Witchcraft is all over the place.” {eoa}
Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
