Doesn’t everybody?

Just kidding. But most Christians surely have this subject pass through their brains on a regular basis, I assume, because the devil and demons pop up in Scripture from time to time, especially in the New Testament. And when Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He ended the prayer with this: “And deliver us from evil (or the evil one).”

So how are Christians supposed to deal with demonic powers? A multitude of books have been written on this topic, and now we’re learning that it’s pretty complicated, if you want to go into the realms of spiritual mapping, generational curses and the rest—which I do not encourage you to do—at all.

Well, how did Jesus deal with demonic powers? And,  how did the disciples and apostles deal with them? Looks pretty straightforward to me. Jesus cast them out with a word. There are lots of examples, so I won’t list them all. But here’s a good example:

“And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent and come out of him!’ And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm” (Luke 4:33–35).

As far as I can tell, Jesus only talked to a demon once, at that was with the tormented man who lived among the tombs. Unfortunately, that one example has given Christians what has become carte blanche to have conversations with lying demons. It’s important to point out that it was Jesus who did this. His disciples didn’t. Demons lie and are very good at it. They know human nature and have known it for millennia. Why on earth would you want to talk to a demon?

We see this ministry happening less often in the Book of Acts. However, the disciples were doing this ministry (Acts 5:16 and 8:7). In fact, we’re told to do it (Matthew 10:8 and Mark 16:17). However,  we don’t have a lot of information about how they did it. I think it’s safe to assume they did it the same way Jesus did: with a word, a command. The example we do see is in the ministry of Paul, when he cast the spirit of divination out of the slave girl who had a spirit of divination. Paul simply said, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her” (Acts 16:18).

There are three more things to consider. In Jesus’ prayer, He told us to pray, “Deliver us from evil.” Concerning our own personal hassles with the devil, it’s really just that simple. I’ve found that when I pray that, the oppression ceases. However, that doesn’t make the attack go away forever. If you’re in a battle, you may have to camp out here for a while.

The other thing to consider is how Paul asked to be delivered from a “messenger from Satan.”  Here’s what He said he did: “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me” (2 Corinthians 12:8). He asked the Lord for deliverance.

The third thing is a bit unclear to me, but it troubles me, nevertheless. It’s what Jude had to say about this. “Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’ But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively” (Jude 8–10).

I’m not entirely sure what this means, to be transparent. But it has made me more cautious about doing battle with demons. I find that “The Lord rebuke you” is becoming more and more a part of my prayer vocabulary.

Finally, there may be those who will ask, “What about binding and loosing demons?” I don’t think we’ve correctly understood these passages. One is in Matthew 12:29: “Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.” Jesus is the only One who can plunder Satan’s “goods” and render him powerless. I now think for us to go about “binding the devil” is a bit silly, although I once prayed this way myself. Jesus has already defeated him—at least as far as our souls are concerned:

“He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Col 2:15).

“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:14–15).

As far as the other places where binding and loosing are found in the New Testament, it seems to me that Jesus is referring to the regulation of conduct, not dealing with spiritual powers. The only place where Jesus uses binding and loosing in the context of dealing with the devil is in the above mentioned Matthew 12 passage. However, I won’t get into an argument with my Christian brothers and sisters over this. Bind and loose away. I just don’t think it’s effective. We should be aware that we have zero New Testament evidence for the disciples praying to “bind Satan.”

Nevertheless, it’s entirely true that the devil is still active. He was active after Jesus’ ascension. However, whatever attacks come our way are somehow allowed by God, although in ways that we do not fully comprehend. Again, see Paul’s struggle in 2 Corinthians 12. The account of Job is an even more troubling example. I do not have easy answers for these things. However, I do want my belief system to be biblical, and that’s what I’ve tried to present here.

The first question we should ask about what is going on at Saddleback is: What on earth does Daniel’s fast have to do with obesity and losing weight? Don’t know? I’ll tell you: Nothing.

Rick Warren has asked three doctors, Dr. Oz, Dr. Amen and Dr. Hyman  to help promote this weight loss plan. Here’s some info on all three.

Concerning Dr. Oz:

From Wikipedia:

“His father’s family believes in the integration of Islam and government; his mother’s family are secular Muslims. He has been influenced by the mysticism of Sufi Muslims,[33] as well as the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish scientist, philosopher, and Christian theologian.[34] He recently wrote in Spirituality and Health Magazine that ‘As I came into contact with Swedenborg’s many writings, I began to understand Swedenborg’s profound insights and how they applied directly to my life’. He mentions Swedenborg’s ideas that marriage lasts to eternity, everyone has a purpose in this world, God is love, and Swedenborg’s answers to ‘Why do bad things happen?’.[35]

Oz is a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation. ‘When I meditate, I go to that place where truth lives,’ he said. ‘I can see what reality really is, and it is so much easier to form good relationships then.’[36]”

Next, Dr. Amen. This is an article from his website, which promotes meditation:

http://www.amenclinics.com/amenclinics/downloads/mfmw.pdf

And here’s an advertisement for a CD series he sells, promoting Tantric sex:

“In this fun and highly practical 6 CD series, renowned neuroscientist Daniel Amen, M.D. and advanced certified Tantra educator T.J. Bartel explore many ways to boost your physical and emotional intimacy overnight. Together they show you how to experience maximum pleasure with your partner. Most of us never obtain proper sexual education, even though sexual messages are everywhere. This course will give you the underlying neuroscience of intimate connection, mixed with the ancient Tantra art of sexual healing. You will learn how to enhance your most intimate relationships, as well as learn many very practical suggestions on what you can do right now to improve your lovemaking skills.” (http://store.amenclinics.com/create-more-passion-tonight-audio-cd-set)

And concerning Dr. Hyman, you might want to check out what he thinks about shamans:

http://drhyman.com/downloads/Nepal.pdf

Why didn’t Rick Warren enlist Christian doctors in this endeavor? It’s one thing to reach out to unbelievers. It’s another to have them speaking from the platform you have given them.

Love Him more than we love our families.

Bear our own crosses and follow Him—be willing to die for Him, and a painful death, at that.

Renounce our possessions.

Here’s something that bothers me concerning leaders in the Church: Do they meet these three criteria for discipleship? More specifically, are our leaders willing to die on a cross?

We may respond, “Yes, I believe true Christian pastors and leaders would do this.”

But here’s my problem. The church structure that we have created mitigates this requirement for discipleship. The leaders of our churches preach, teach, lead, organize and administrate, to varying degrees. They feel that God has given them a vision to build a ministry and have gathered others around them who share that vision. People who attend their churches go there because they have what it takes to deliver the goods on Sunday morning. So how could these leaders possibly just go out and willingly die? If they were to die, what would become a their churches?

The church system we are part of actually works against this requirement for discipleship. Shouldn’t we be asking, therefore, if this system is what God intended?

Jesus was a leader. He was a leader who died. Why didn’t He think that He was too valuable to die? Why didn’t He, instead, stay on earth in order to keep things running? Instead, He counted Himself as nothing, Philippians tells us. The power He denied wasn’t only the power to call ten thousand angels, as He told His disciples at Gethsemane. It was the power to rule over people according to the world’s way of thinking.

All of Jesus’ disciples, except John and Judas Iscariot, died as martyrs. Why didn’t these men think that they were too valuable, too needed, to die? After all, they were the only ones on earth who were His disciples, the only ones whom He had chosen and walked with Him intimately. Weren’t they needed to keep this growing, infant church on track?

We in the Church think as the world thinks. We lead from positions of power and influence instead of from positions of weakness and sacrifice. We do not follow Him or His Word in this matter. Please pray with me that the Church will follow Jesus and be willing to die so we can be His disciples.

1.  That the Lord would destroy Hinduism—all of its false gods, idols, temples, lies, fear and legalistic bondages and replace it with the knowledge of Himself.

2.  That the Lord would destroy Islam—all of its mosques, lies, fear, violence, legalistic bondages and replace it with the knowledge of Himself.

3.  That the Lord would bring down the hierarchical, top-down  leadership structure of the Western Church and replace it with relational, sacrificial, disciple-making leadership; the leadership of servants and elders, that ministers from the bottom up, as the least and the youngest—and that He would help the church staff members who would then need jobs, to find employment.

So, I’ll tell you what happened in our little fellowship this last Sunday, and you can do with it as you will.

We had prayed, praised and studied Scripture together. As we were talking about wrapping up the meeting, I asked, “Does anyone have anything else to share before we finish?”

One of the young girls—about ten years old—said that the Lord had spoken to her about some things. When we asked what they were, she said that Jesus had told her about a couple of relatively insignificant things that He had said were going to happen before they happened.

“Is that all?” we asked.

She got a little teary eyed and grew quiet.

“What is it?” we asked.

It took her some time, but she finally said, “He said that World War Three is coming.”

Then we became very thoughtful and quiet, as well. After a while, I asked her, “How do you think we should respond to this?”

She said, “With mercy?”

I agreed with her, since, if that were indeed going to happen, it would be very trying times for all of us. And then we all agreed that it would be a good idea to continue to pray for the salvation of others. We also asked the Lord to tell us if there was anything we should do to prepare for what was going to happen.

There it is. Now you can decide how to respond.

And the link to the Kindle edition, which is cheaper:

And the link to the print version of Deeper: A Call to Discipleship

We’re working on getting Deeper ready for the Kindle and Nook editions, and the Nook edition of Leadership on the Brink should be available in a couple of days.

And, finally, here’s the link to my Amazon author’s page, so you can actually see a picture of my face.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B006GHCNBK

Sixty thousand miles of blood vessels link every living cell; even the blood vessels themselves are fed by blood vessels. Highways narrow down to one-lane roads, then bike paths, then footpaths, until finally the red cell must bow sideways and edge through a capillary one-tenth the diameter of a human hair. In such narrow confines the cells are stripped of food and oxygen and loaded down with carbon dioxide and urea. If shrunken down to their size, we would see red cells as bloated bags of jelly and iron drifting along in a river until they reach the smallest capillary, where gases fizz and wheeze in and out of surface membranes. From there red cells rush to the kidneys for a thorough scrubbing, then back to the lungs for a refill. And the journey begins anew.

A person can live a day or two without water and several weeks without food, but only a few minutes without oxygen, the main fuel for our hundred trillion cells. Heavy exercise may increase the demand for oxygen from the normal four gallons up to seventy-five gallons an hour, prompting the heart to double or even triple its rate to speed red cells to the heaving lungs. If the lungs alone cannot overcome the oxygen shortage, the red cells call up reinforecements. Instead of five million red cells in a speck of blood, seven or eight million will gradually appear. After a few months in the rarified atmosphere of Colorado’s mountains, for example, up to ten million red cells will fill each drop of blood, compensating for the thinner air.

The pell-mell journey, even to the extremity of the big toe, lasts a mere twenty seconds. An average red cell endures the cycle of loading, unloading, and jostling through the body for a half million round trips over four months. In one final journey, to the spleen, the battered cell is stripped bare by scavenger cells and recycled into new cells. Three hundred billion such red cells die and are replaced every day, leaving behind various parts to reincarnate in a hair follicle or a taste bud. *

The components of this circulatory system cooperate to accomplish a simple goal: nourishing and cleansing each living cell. If any part of the network breaks down—the heart takes an unscheduled rest, a clot overgrows and blocks an artery, a defect diminishes the red cells’ oxygen capacity—life ebbs away. The brain, master of the body, can survive intact only five minutes without replenishment.

*The body provides the energy for the red cells’ travels by employing the heart, an organ that deserves a book exclusively devoted to it. Primitive artificial hearts are now available, but I would like to see a government design specification sheet for a truly adequate replacement.

BIDS ACCEPTED FOR:

Fluid pump with 5-year life expectancy (2,500,000,000 cycles).

No maintenance or lubrication required.

Output: must vary between .025 horsepower at rest and short bursts of 1 horsepower determined by such factors as stress and exercise.

Weight: not to exceed 10.5 ounces (300 grams).

Capacity: 2,000 gallons per day.

Valves: each to operate 4,000-5,000 times per hour

From In His Image, by Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey

“A simple experiment confirms the composite nature of blood. Pour a quantity of red blood cells into any clear glass and simply wait. Horizontal bands of color will appear as various cells settle by weight, until the final multi-layered result resembles an exotic cocktail. The deepest reds; comprising clumps of red cells, sink to the bottom; plasma, a thin yellow fluid, fills the top part of the flask; platelets and white cells congregate in a pale gray band in between.

What the telescope does to nearby galaxies, the microscope does to a drop of blood: it unveils the staggering reality. A speck of blood the size of this letter ‘o’ contains 5,000,000 red cells, 300,000 platelets and 7,000 white cells. The fluid is actually an ocean stocked with living matter. Red cells alone, if removed from a single person and laid side by side, would carpet an area of 3,500 square yards.

Red cells and white cells make appearances in other portions of this book and are examined in detail elsewhere. But the body’s survival depends just as surely on the cells with a delicate flower-like shape, the platelets. Their function remained hidden until recently. Now scientists recognize that platelets, which circulate only six to twelve days in blood, play a crucial role in the life-saving process of clotting; they serve as mobile first-aid boxes by detecting leaks, plugging them, and tidying up the debris.

When a blood vessel is cut, the fluid that sustains life beings to leak away. In response, tiny platelets melt, like snowflakes, spinning out a gossamer web of fibrinogen. Red blood cells collect in this web, like autos crashing into each other when the road is blocked. Soon the tenuous wall of red cells thickens enough to stanch the flow of blood.

Platelets have a very small margin of error. Any clot that extends beyond the vessel wall and threatens to obstruct the vessel itself will stop the flow of blood through the vessel and perhaps lead to a stroke or coronary thrombosis and possibly death. On the other hand, people whose blood has no ability to clot live short lives: even a tooth extraction may prove fatal. The body cannily gauges when a clot is large enough to stop the loss of blood but not so large as the impede the flow within the vessel itself.*

*India has a very feared species of snake, the ‘eleven-step adder,’ so named because its toxic bite is said to allow the victim time for just eleven more steps. Like all vipers, it kills with a clotting toxin. If its fang penetrates a major vein, say, in the leg, all the blood in the channel between the heart and leg clots at once. If the toxin merely reaches a minor vessel, an amazing thing happens. The poison draws platelets to the tissue like a magnet. Elsewhere in the body platelets simply vanish so that the blood cannot clot anywhere. Then, the smallest scratch will kill the victim or he may bleed internally in brain or intestine. Bleeding cannot be stopped. Thus a viper’s toxin call kill in two opposite ways: a devastating clot or any equally devastating inability to clot. The Haffkeine Institute in Bombay milks these adders and uses infinitesimal amounts of the dried toxin to treat excess bleeding in patients.”

From In His Image, by Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey

“For most of us, the organ of blood, if one can think of this fluid mass as an organ, comes to comes to our consciousness mainly when we begin to lose it. Then, the sight of it in tinted urine, a nosebleed, or a weeping wound provokes alarm. We miss the dramatic sense of blood’s power that sustains our lives at every moment.

‘What does my blood do all day?’ a five-year-old child asked, peering dubiously at his scraped knee. Whereas the ancients would have responded with elegant references to ethers and humours borne in that ‘pure clear lovely and amiable juice,’ perhaps a technological metaphor would serve best today. Imagine an enormous tube snaking southward from Canada through the Amazon delta, plunging into oceans only to surface at every inhabited island, shooting out eastward through every jungle, plain, and desert in Africa, forking near Egypt to join all of Europe and Russia as well as the entire Middle East and Asia—a pipeline so global and pervasive that it links every person worldwide. Inside that tube an endless plentitude of treasures floats along on rafts: mangoes, coconuts, asparagus, and produce from every continent; watches, calculators, and cameras; gems and minerals; forty-nine brands of cereals; all styles and sizes of clothing; the contents of entire shopping centers. Four billion people have access: at a moment of need or want, they simply reach into the tube and seize whatever product suits them. Somewhere far down the pipeline a replacement is manufactured and inserted.

Such a pipeline exists inside each one of us, serving not four billion but one hundred trillion cells in the human body. An endless supply of oxygen, amino acids, nitrogen, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sugars, lipids, cholesterols, and hormones surges past our cells, carried on blood cell rafts or suspended in the fluid. Each cell has special withdrawal privileges to gather the resources needed to fuel the tiny engine for its complex chemical reactions.

In addition, that same pipeline ferries away refuse, exhaust gases, and worn-out chemicals. In the interest of economical transport, the body dissolves its vital substances into a liquid (much as coal is shipped more efficiently through a slurry pipeline than by truck or train). Five or six quarts of this all-purpose fluid suffice for the body’s hundred trillion cells.”

From In His Image, by Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey

Elijah shows up in 1 Kings 17 out of nowhere. From this “out-of-nowhere-ness” comes these, um, I guess we could call them challenging words for the king of Israel, Ahab:

“As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”*

Okay, Elijah! Was this prophetic word spoken just after Elijah said, “Greetings, King Ahab”? We’re not told whether Ahab knew Elijah before this or not. Regardless, it might be just a bit discomforting, if you’re a leader, to have a prophet tell you that it’s not going to rain in your country for three years.

Now, we can assume that the Lord told Elijah to do this. So, why would the Lord tell Elijah to pray that this would happen? When James wrote to tell the Church that the fervent prayer of a righteous man has great power, he said, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth (James 5:17).

Why would Elijah pray such a thing? Why would the Lord tell Elijah to prophesy such a thing? The answer is pretty easy when you know the spiritual condition of Israel at this time and that of its leader, Ahab. Israel had departed from her God, and He was going to let His people know that He wanted them to return to Him.

These kinds of things seem harsh to us. Why would God be so cruel? Three and a half years without rain? But let’s look at it from an eternal perspective. What is God most concerned about—your comfort and length of life on this earth or whether you know Him or not? Clearly, we know that the answer is that what is most important is that we know Him. We know this because He allowed Himself to be tortured and crucified in order to bring His lost ones to Him. Such deprivations are not cruel. They are merciful.

What I find interesting about what Elijah did is that he knew that he, too, would be deprived of water and food for three and half years. He, a righteous man and a prophet of God, was going to go through the same hardship that Israel went through. Now, we know that God arranged for Elijah to be taken care of. He was fed by ravens and by a widow who had some miraculously supplied oil and meal. But I kinda doubt that those ravens were able to bring Leg O’ Lamb burgers or big loaves of bread to the prophet. I would assume he was eating some pretty small portions. In spite of this reality, Elijah was willing to pray this drought-inducing prayer. In fact, he prayed it before he knew that the Lord was going to send ravens or arrange meals with the widow.

So, a question for us. Regardless of the country you now live in, is it a stretch to say that the majority of the individuals in your nation have turned away from God? Or, if we want to make the analogy more spot on, to say that a large part of God’s people have in many ways turned away from God? Would you then be willing, like Elijah, to pray that the Lord would bring a three year drought to your nation so that people would turn to Him, knowing that you would be suffering, too? What is more important to the Lord? That we have our bellies full every day or that we know Him?

We already know the uncomfortable answer to that question.

Last week, I began to pray this dangerous prayer. I do this with fear and trembling. I like to eat as much as the next guy. I like comfort and security as much as anyone else does. But I’ve had to face the reality of what is happening in our nation and in our churches.

Would you be willing to pray this dangerous prayer with me?

*Bible quotations are taken from the English Standard Version