Can A Christian Have A Demon?
(Part 3)
Invisible
enemies.
Showing posts with label Saving the Soul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saving the Soul. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
CAN A CHRISTIAN HAVE A DEMON?
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
CAN A CHRISTIAN HAVE A DEMON?
Can A Christian Have A Demon?
(Part 2)
The blood of
Jesus has already overcome the
enemy of our souls, and we know with
certainty that we can overcome that
same enemy in our souls by “the blood of the lamb, the word of
our testimony, and loving not [our] lives (souls) unto death.” (Rev12:10) While
I believe the context of this passage is about a future war yet to come, and not one that has
already occurred, it is worth examining it in light of our struggle to bring
our souls into submission to our regenerated spirit.
The phrase “loving not our lives
(souls) unto death” has a duel meaning in this context. On the one hand, it means we are willing to
be martyred for the cause of Christ. But
it also means we love God more than we love our souls and that we are willing
to accept the daunting task of bringing our souls into submission to Christ,
willingly and joyfully, that we might fully partake of the “divine nature,”
Christ in us, the hope of glory. (2Peter 1:4; Phil. 3:10)
According to Proverbs 4:23 our heart
is the wellspring of life, and we are counseled by the wisest man who ever lived
(other than Jesus), Solomon, that we are to guard it “above all else.” God’s
redemptive purpose in our lives begins with our heart. Once our heart is purified, He continues His
work of sanctification until our entire personality, or soul, (our mind, will,
and emotions) is fully submitted to Holy Spirit.
Are you beginning to see why Paul calls this
challenging process “working out our salvation with fear and trembling”?
It has always fascinated me that in
the Book of Acts God testifies that He had found in David, son of Jesse, “a man
after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all
my will.” (Acts13:22) (Italics mine)
This is an extraordinary statement in light of everything that David did. He was an adulterer and a murderer, yet God
still honors him like no other man in all of Scripture.
Why?
The simple answer is that in spite of
all his sins, David loved God more than his soul. In his own words, he tells us in Psalm 131,
“Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty . . . Surely I have behaved
and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of its mother: my soul is even as
a weaned child.”(v.1a-2)
What does this have to do with us
today?
Jesus has already perfected (or made complete, fully mature) those who are in
the process of becoming sanctified in
Him by “one offering,” His sacrifice. (Heb. 10:14) In this passage, the sacrifice of Jesus is
written in the Greek perfect tense, which literally means He has perfected. It’s done, finished at the Cross, forever
complete. Nothing will be added, and
nothing can be taken away. However, the
process of sanctification, the process of becoming conformed to the express image
and likeness of Jesus, holy and without blemish,
is ongoing, occurs in stages, and is accomplished under the guiding hand of
Holy Spirit. Through the process of
sanctification we can fully appropriate everything
that has already been made available to us by the sacrifice of Jesus--as long
as we obey Him and his commandments. (Heb. 5: 7-9)
The fierce battle for the souls of
mankind started in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, has been waged unseen
in the heavenlies since Creation, and impacts every person on the planet today,
whether they are Believers or not. For
Believers the battle for control of the mind, will, and emotions (our soul) is
even fiercer. Once we acknowledge that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God,
that He gave up His exalted status as God and came to Earth, lived as a man
among His creation, was crucified (even though He was innocent of every crime
He was accused of), died and was resurrected, the enemy of our souls no longer
owns us. We have been bought with a very
high price, set free from the “law of sin and death.” Therefore, the enemy, the Accuser of the
Brethren, the Father of Lies, only has legal right to buffet us, unless we give him more access than is legally his. His stated purpose is to steal, kill, and
destroy. One way he accomplishes this is by using his army of demonic parasites
to infect our souls.
How do we know we are dealing with
demonic infestation in our soul, and not simply a temporary sin? How do we know that we need something more
than a change of attitude, behavior, or perhaps counseling to help us overcome our
sin?
Generally, if we’ve repeatedly made a
concerted effort to repent, that is turn away from our sin, if we have battled
the sin consistently and persistently, if
nothing we have done under the guiding hand of Holy Spirit gives us the
freedom we are promised in Christ, then it is likely we need deliverance from
demonic influences.
Demonic infestation can enter our
souls both before and after we come to salvation. Sometimes demonic parasites are generational
and attached to our bloodline. Sometimes
we speak curses over ourselves, or others, either knowingly or
unknowingly. Severe trauma, such as
mental, emotional, or sexual abuse, a car accident, severe, life-threatening
illness, and many other life experiences all can open the door to demonic
oppression.
Our task is to discern, with the help
of Holy Spirit, just exactly what we are dealing with. Once we know what--and who--we are dealing
with, we need to ask Holy Spirit for a specific
strategy, then do what we are told. We
also need to understand that demonic infestation results in strongholds in our
soul. The longer the demonic parasite is
present and active in our soul, the more obvious and stronger the wall is that
keeps that part of our soul estranged from God, the more resistant to healing
that part of our soul becomes.
The process of the deliverance of our
souls is complicated by demonic deception.
Rarely do demons talk to us in the third person. It’s always first person, until they are
confronted and realize they’re about to be banished from our souls. Why?
Well, think about it, unless you suffer from an extreme form of infestation, like schizophrenia or multiple
personality disorder, if you were regularly hearing voices in your head urging
you to continually fall into sin, you would quickly realize that those voices
were not originating from you! Under
normal circumstances, it wouldn’t take very long for you to banish those pesky
critters that want to ensnare your for their wicked and malicious purposes
using the name of Jesus and the power of His blood.
So, the challenge, then, is to recognize that we are dealing with
spiritual, supernatural, demonic entities which operate in our soul. They have become a part of our everyday life,
in many cases without us being fully aware of their presence. We have been tricked by these demonic
entities into believing that Jesus is powerful enough to bring us to salvation
but impotent when it comes to setting us free from ongoing sin.
What is the root of their trickery?
The serpent in the Garden of Eden “beguiled” Eve into
believing that she needed to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil so that she could “become
like God.” Once Eve ate of that
prohibited fruit, the fruit of knowledge of self apart from God, what is called
today, Humanism, entered the world. When
Adam ate at Eve’s bequest, the enemy of our souls gained legal right to “bruise
the heel” of God’s magnificent and perfect creation. Over time, mankind changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped
and served the creature more than the Creator. (Rom. 1:25)
Next week, in Part 3, we will look at a specific
strategy we can use to free ourselves of these pesky, unwanted, demonic
parasites and gain authority over them.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Insights into the Blood of Jesus, Resurrection Power, and Saving the Soul
Excerpted from In the Cleft of the Rock: Insights into the Blood
of Jesus, Resurrection Power, and Saving the Soul by Michael J. Webb
Gethsemane
(Part
4)
What is the evidence that we’ve brought
our soul into submission?
The author
of Hebrews tells us it is entering into the rest of God and ceasing from our
own works. Paul tells us that it is learning to be content in whatever state we
are in. James writes that we are to count it all joy when we fall into various
temptations because the trying of our faith works patience and when patience is
perfected we are then mature, or perfect. And John tells us that the accuser of
the brethren, Satan himself, will be cast down and overcome by “the blood of
the Lamb” and by those saints who “loved not their lives (souls) unto the
death.” (Revelation 12:11)
The first Adam’s disobedience, because
of pride, brought a curse upon mankind—the law of sin and death. The last
Adam’s obedience, through humility, redeemed us from that curse and made it
possible for us to become “partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the
corruption that is in the world through lust.” (1Peter 1:4) However, the
willful choice of an individual to accept Christ as Lord and Savior is only the
beginning of a process.
The Apostle Paul likens it to the
running of a race and tells us that those who run terrestrial races do so in
order to obtain a corruptible crown, but those who run the celestial, or
spiritual race, do so to receive an incorruptible crown. Writing to the Church
at Ephesus he says that the end of this process of salvation is that we will
all “come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
(Ephesians 4:13) The Greek word translated “perfect” is “teleios.”
A literal translation is “complete.” The word “perfect” here is
the same Greek word translated “end” in the passage regarding the
completion of our faith being the saving of our souls.
Remember the passage in Hebrews 5:9:
“and being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation to
all that obey him.” That is the same Greek word. Teleios. Complete. It
is also the same word used in the passage about the rich young ruler, and the passage
in James about patience.
Christ came and lived as a man that we
might have a living example of how to live a life free from the bondage of sin.
He was crucified and shed His precious blood as atonement for that sin. He was
resurrected so that all who confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, and
believe in their heart that God raised Him from the dead might be saved. Once
we have accepted Him as Savior, then the process of accepting Him as Lord
begins. As we learn to die daily to the demands of our soul, He increases and
we decrease. It is then that we will find an increasing intimacy with our Lord.
This principle applies not only to
individuals, but to the corporate Body as well. We who comprise the Body of
Christ are currently corporately standing in the Garden of Gethsemane. The
Church is in a time of crying out to God, “Father if it be Your will, let this
cup pass from us.” We are now in a season of experiencing Matthew 26 as a
corporate Body. There is much agony in the Body as we individually and
corporately wrestle with our souls. The soul of the Church is “exceedingly
sorrowful, even unto death.” There are many in the Body who are like the three
who accompanied Christ to the garden, Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. Christ
prevailed upon them to “watch and pray,” yet each time He returned from His
time of travail and prayer He found them asleep. The first time, He admonished
Peter, saying, “What, could you not watch with Me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40)
Today, Jesus is saying to His Body, “Watch and pray that you do not enter into
temptation; the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.”
We, individually, and more importantly
as the corporate Bride of Christ, must say to our Lord and Savior, “O, my
Father, if this cup may not pass from us except we drink of it, Your will be
done.” As we yield to God’s desires, laying down our own lives (souls), we
please Him. It is not an easy task, but one which God rewards. We may feel at
times as if we are “sweating as it were great drops of blood,” even as Jesus
did. That is why James says, “Count it all joy when you fall into divers
temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience, But
let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting
nothing.” (James 1:2-4)
There are two different words here for
perfect.
The first is the Greek word meaning “complete
in moral character,” while the second means “whole in body, perfectly
sound.” We are complete in Him in both moral character and soundness of
body when we allow patience to “have her perfect work” in us. Thus, we see that
we become complete in Christ when we, like David, wean our souls from
the things of this world. This does not mean that we are perfect in the same
sense that Christ is perfect because of His deity. Rather, it means that by
taking up our cross daily and following after Jesus, we allow “Christ in us,
the hope of glory” to bring our souls into submission to His will, His plans,
His purposes for us.
Would you like to be perfect, or
complete, in Christ?
Then ask yourself this question: Have I
ever truly been to Gethsemane?
Connect with Michael at michaeljwebbbooks@gmail.com
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