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Satan's plan, throughout history, has been to divide mankind into one of
two camps. The first is made up of
those who have been led to believe that Satan does not exist - that he is a
figment of wild imagination and, at most, if he does exist, he is a toothless
old lion that could no longer devour anyone.
At the other extreme are those who become preoccupied with the devil and
his power - in their zeal and excitement they see a demon behind every bush.
Eventually thy make `incredible' that which should be
basically a credible belief. Either
polarity is extremely dangerous and weakens the church.
Christ came to set us "free".
This freedom includes: freedom from the clutches of the prince of this
world; freedom from the clutches of sin; freedom from the clutches of this
world; and freedom from the clutches of our fleshly nature.
All must be kept in balance. I
trust and pray that I will be able to do that here.
EVIL
SPIRITS AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
The Old Testament simply assumes the existence of evil spirits and of
Satan, the archenemy of God. God is
pictured as surrounded by a heavenly host of spirits who do His bidding (Ps
82:1; 89:6; Dan 7:9-10). Starting
from the creation of the world and of man, Satan worked, through the serpent, to
cause man to fall into the grip of sin. From
the fall of man came the basic foundation of God's entire redemptive plan; that
of Jesus Christ dying to triumph over Satan and draw man back into relationship
with God. It appears that the
"sons of God" spoken of in Deuteronomy 32:8 and Job 1-2 were used by
God to superintend over the nations. These
were spiritual beings which God could use and control at His will. Throughout the Old Testament evil spirits are always seen as
being in abeyance to the Father God. Satan
appears, with the "sons of God", to accuse Job and request permission
to put Job to the test. It is
interesting to note that God initiated the discussion about Job, and decided all
the parameters in which Satan could work. One
of the biggest lies that Satan has been able to perpetuate through the centuries
is that there is a battle between good and evil.
In reality Satan poses no
threat to God and works completely within the boundaries set out by Almighty
God.
Satan can be found to be behind the idolatry of the nations (Ps
106:36-37: 109:6). He is also
behind David's sin of numbering the children of Israel in I Chronicles 21.
In order to stop the plague which resulted from this sin, David was
commanded by the angel of the Lord to offer a sacrifice upon the threshing floor
of Onan. This site later became the
location of the tabernacle and temple of the Lord.
Satan can also be seen as operating behind the powers of the king of
Babylon (Isaiah 14) and the king of Tyre (Ezekiel 28).
In Zechariah Satan is portrayed as a personage who is opposed by the
angel of the Lord.
DEMONS
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT
The existence of a literal devil, or Satan, is mentioned by every author
of the New Testament. Nineteen
books mention him by name and eight mention the existence of demons or evil
angels. All together there are over
250 references in the New Testament to evil spirits or demons. There are 29 references to Satan in the gospels, and in 25 of
these, Jesus is speaking about him as a personal being.
Throughout history there have been many who have implied that Christ
actually played along with the common beliefs of the Jewish people of the day,
and pretended that demons existed. Naturally
then, all the symptoms Christ healed were forms of sickness and insanity.
This however is erroneous - demonism in the New Testament is separated
and distinguished from other diseases. Jesus
both healed the sick and cast out demons (Mk. 1:32)
Demonism is distinguished from both epilepsy (Mt. 4:24) and sickness and
leprosy (Mt. 10:8).
Exorcism at the time of Jesus was crude and intertwined with magic.
While exorcists of the day used long and involved procedures, which date
back to the wisdom of Solomon, Jesus could command demons out with a word. Observers
would exclaim, "What is this? A
new teaching with authority! He
commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him."(Mk. 1:27)
The
demonic theme was deeply entwined into the whole of Christ's ministry of
redeeming man back unto himself - out of the grip of sin, and out of the grip of
Satan. Jesus' death was to redeem
man from bondage to the satanic kingdom and bring him into the kingdom of God.
Anything less than this is gross misinterpretation of the gospel.
Let us look at some passages referring to Christ's ministry:
"He went into their synagogues through all Galilee, preaching and
casting out the demons" (Mk 1:39); He
"cast out many demons; and He was not permitting the demons to speak,
because they knew who He was" (Mk. 1:34);
"And whenever the unclean spirits beheld Him, they would fall down
before Him and cry out, saying, "You are the Son of God!" (Mk. 3:11).
Later on in Christ's ministry He sent out the 70 to go and heal the sick
and cast out demons. "And the
seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord,
even the demons are subject to us in Your name." (Luke 10:17)
After Christ's death, resurrection and ascension Peter describes the
Lords ministry; "You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with
the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good, and healing
all who were oppressed by the devil; for God was with Him" (Acts 10:38).
Isaiah 61:1-3 puts the entire ministry of Jesus into perspective:
"Because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to
captives, and freedom to prisoners; to
proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a
garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of
praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So
they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may
be glorified." This passage describes 5 focal areas of Christ's ministry:
1.
To preach and proclaim
the gospel of good news unto salvation.
2. To minister healing to
those of broken hearts.
3. To free those in
captivity to sin and captivity to Satan.
4. To give joy and gladness
in an atmosphere of praise and thanksgiving.
5. To plant oaks of
righteousness and create magnificent creatures like unto Himself - to bring
glory to God.
It is within this context that we can create a model for our own
ministries as followers and disciples of Christ, maintaining a balance between:
1)proclamation; 2) counseling and praying for healing; 3) deliverance;
4) praising and worshipping; and 5) teaching.
While individual people may focus more of their time on one or another of
these areas, the church as a body needs to maintain the proper balance between
these ministries. Any ministry that
leaves out any of these areas will eventually find itself unbalanced. This will
soon result in a hurting, frustrated congregation.
The ultimate balance in ministry can be obtained by modeling Christ's
example when he says, "I can do nothing on My own initiative" (John
5:30); "I live because of the Father" (John 6:57); "The words I
say to you are not just my own. Rather,
it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work" (John 14:10, NIV).
The apostle Paul states in 2 Corinthians 2:11 - "in order that no
advantage be taken of us by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his schemes."
It is the responsibility of every Christian not to be ignorant of satanic
schemes, and to be trained, at the very least, to recognize the enemy and to
know when they are under attack. Some
in our churches have yet to understand that there is an enemy.
Such, apart from the grace of almighty God are sitting ducks for Satan's
target practice.
We are called to be soldiers, stationed behind enemy lines, seeking to
save those that are lost by sharing the good news of the gospel. Finding prisoners, we are to release them from the shackles
of bondage to the enemy. We are
neither to be ignorant nor cowardly in our warfare, but to stand firm on the
Rock (Matt 16:18) clothed in the armour (Eph 6:11-19) ready and waiting for the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
"He who overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be his God
and he will be My son. But for the cowardly
and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers
and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire
and brimstone, which is the second death" (Rev 21:7,8).
May we not cower in our responsibility, but boldly face the challenge,
confident in the strength we possess in Christ Jesus, looking forward to the day
when we shall see Him face to face and be caught up in His glory.
As we have learned more and more of God's truth, in how to deal with
these forces, it has been our use of truth that has become our power in
defeating the power of the evil
one. Jesus said, "If you abide
in my word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (Jn
8:31-32). I do not believe that we
have moved away from a power encounter but that we have moved with truth into a
more powerful encounter. The more
truth that we bring to the situation before us, the more power we have in
delivering freedom - for it is "the truth that sets us free".
But having truth is not enough - we must apply truth to each circumstance
and situation with faith and boldness if we are to bring about a quick end to
the enemy. Whereas a decade ago we
stepped out in boldness and faith in our power and position in Christ, we would
either have to wrestle with the kingdom of darkness within the suffering
individual to get the specific information (or truth) about what was giving
ground, or wrestle in prayer until the Lord would show us with words of wisdom
or knowledge what the `truth' was that we needed.
Now we have a library of truth, as well as the gifting of discernment,
wisdom and knowledge, with which to bring quick decisive victory.
 
 
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