Spiritual Warfare - Lesson 18

Dr. Gerry Breshears
Spiritual Warfare
th251-18
Truth Encounter
Lesson Transcript

Well, let's look at another handout here. I just call it Biblical Principles for Dealing with the Demonic. And this is unpacking one of those three views. This is unpacking what is often called the truth encounter view. And this is stuff the way I would say it, but this in general would be things that will be agreed on between Clint Arnold, Sam Storms, Neil Anderson, John Eldridge, others would be doing similar kinds of things, if not at every spot the same. So when I look at this, my opening paragraph here, and I think it's really important, is the foundation. Jesus triumphed Satan and all his demons through the work of redemption, particularly the cleansing authority of sin over us at the cross and his exaltation right hand of the Father. Now we've looked at all those passages and if you skip the biblical theology part of it, this is the time to go back and look at some of those. But the key thing is here, Satan is already condemned and his final destruction is sure.

And I want to draw this out just a little bit. Satan is the prince of this world and the victory over him is something that's stated a number of times in scripture, starting in Genesis 3:15, the enemy will be crushed. An analogy that's helpful for me to understand this is it's called the D-Day analogy used by a lot of different people. And my dad was in World War II. He was stationed in England. He was a mechanic that helped work on airplanes and such that were in that. And he was in England in June of 1944, Duxford Air Force Base. And in that event, that D-Day event, Eisenhower as supreme commander was looking at terrible weather and they had a narrow window when the tides and moon were at the right spot.

And they had about two days and they had all the people ready to go and there was just almost no chance they could keep it secret for another month until that combination came together again. But the weather was terrible and these boats were not capable of navigating in bad weather. And he was looking at the possibility if he pushed the go button and the weather was bad, he would drown a whole bunch of Americans or allied soldiers there on the beaches of Normandy. But his weatherman who had no satellites, nothing like that, none of the stuff we have today did the best they could. And they said, "We believe there's a narrow window of decent weather that's coming on June 6th in the morning." And Eisenhower made the incredibly courageous choice to say, go and tell these people to go while the storm was still raging. Now the landing craft were still in the big boat, so they weren't in danger then. And he pushed go and they went.

And of course you know the story, that window that lasted about 12 hours was there and the forces were able to storm the beaches there in Normandy, establish a beachhead. And by the end of the day, June 6th, that beachhead was established. By the end of two weeks they captured the port up in Shoreberg Peninsula. And by the end of maybe the first day, but certainly by the end of two weeks, the decisive victory is over. The economic power of the West and the Allies and Russia was then invaded from the east, the power, economic power of Russia on the east, the Allies on the West was so great compared to Germany, there was absolutely no chance, absolutely no chance that Hitler could win. The economic power just isn't there.

Was that the end of the war? Hardly, hardly. If you go back and read the stories of that period following June 6th, the worst fighting in the war by far happened after the decisive battle was won. The destruction of Hitler was, I mean, it's assured as much as anything war can possibly be assured. But I look at Christmas Day, 1944 in a forest in Belgium, it's what's now called the Battle of the Bulge, when the Germans staged their huge counter attack, taking advantage of some of the weakness of the Allies, and they attacked hard. And if you're a soldier in a foxhole there in the forest there in Belgium and the Germans are attacking and you're in night and the shells have been exploding all day long, your buddy that you came on shore at Normandy is in the foxhole beside you crying his life out because he got hit and he's dying. And you know the lieutenant's going to come with the dawn and say, "Let's go." And somebody says to you, "Oh, we're going to win. We already won." You would've some very, very choice words. "You get your blankety blank down in this blankety blank blank foxhole and face's blankety blank, blank."

And then you go into town and see what's happened there. See, that's where we're at right now. As I look at it, we're in the midst of a battle. Revelation 12 says it's a serious battle. The decisive victory is really clear. And to follow my analogy, when you go into the town and you liberate that town and drive the Germans out, that's another battle. But there's a whole lot more to come. And what I want to do is say, yes, we're in the war. Yes, in the long run we will win. But in the short run it is brutal and we can lose battles. I think we really can by not pressing the advantage that we have or just through the power of the enemy. So what I'm looking at is we are in a war and it's a serious war and there are casualties in the war. Of course I see that war going back to Genesis 1. We're created to be blessed among bearing covenant partners who partner with God to crush the enemy primarily by doing good, but his attack back is vicious. And I think it's where we are today.

But what we have to remember as we're doing the war is yes, it's brutal and awful right now, but we're part of the force that's eventually going to win. And that gives us courage and hope in the midst of awful situations. And that's a big picture kind of thing. We're in the battle here as I record this and as you watch it, where the way of the world, the selfishness, the divisiveness, the attack and consolidate power and crush your enemy and indulge every passion. So that's the enemy's agenda. It's winning in our culture right now, the western world, the impact of Christianity's declining precipitously.

Now the third world country, the so-called two-thirds world, Christianity is actually advancing in many of those places, but it's not here in the west. Are we losing the battle? See, that's where I see again the courage and the hope to say no, we will advance it. And how we advance it is crucial in dealing with individuals who have been taken captive by the devil to do his will, the Ananias and Sapphira type people, the Peter in Matthew 16 example, that's the question I ask. We have to remember that the crucial battle has been won, we have the authority in Jesus to deal with demonic stuff, to release people from the power of the lies and what they've done.

And so the principle authority, going back to my handout, the principle authority is that we are in the kingdom of Christ. We've gone from darkness to light. Jesus is Lord an exalted far above all powers and authorities. Ephesians chapter 1, and to my understanding, and this is crucial to my understanding, Satan and all of his forces have no actual legal authority over believer. None. But, and this is the big but, despite his claims and how much we may take advantage of our sin, unbelief, weakness, ignorance, and fear, he's disarmed, that is true. He will take advantage of things. However, even though we're members of the kingdom of light, therefore all sins are forgiven, all condemnation and at all cultic vows, promises, covenants were rendered null and void when any Christ's kingdom.

You must never, ever, ever, ever compromise this principle by saying that unconfessed sin gives a demon legal right to enter and stand in our lives. I just think that's a terrible mistake. And what I do, I and I deal with people come out of all kinds of satanic and occultic type stuff, and I've done it for more than three decades now is in the cult, especially in the satanic cults, the direct demonic cults, to get in there, you have to make all kinds of vows and often blood sacrifices and horrific rituals, and you have to give an absolute covenant the totally unbreakable and it is unbreakable in the darkness, I think. But when somebody comes out of darkness into light, all those vows you made in the darkness are rendered null and void, in reality.

Now, the psychological reality of breaking their belief systems, that's what we're going to talk about. But somebody, I don't care what they've done and I've dealt with international satanic cult people, when you come into Christ, all those things were done to you and by you in the cult done by your ancestors, null and void. And I'm talking about the extreme examples at that spot. You are not in darkness, you are in light and there is no authority, no actual authority that Satan has over you. So I think very strongly you have to believe in God, disbelieve in Satan, stand firm in Jesus, resist the devil. That's the foundational thing.

So as I unpack that a bit though, I think Satan can take advantage of our sin, unbelief, weakness, ignorance, and fear. As we unpack that, a couple things. One is that our primary weapons is just ordinary sanctification, believe truth, disbelief lies, usually look at Ephesians chapter 5, the one who steals, let him stop stealing, get a job and become generous. The one who's lived by lies, stop lying, tell the truth and bring freedom to people. Ephesians 4, 5, 6 gives us examples of how to do that. Romans 12 through 16 gives us pictures of what it likes to live in the community of the kingdom.

Related to that, the only spiritual information to be received is that which is given through the Bible interpreted according to the author's intent. The only spiritual information that I will trust is what comes to the Bible interpreted according to the author's intention done in a community of believers with different socioeconomic backgrounds, different cultural backgrounds, different theological tribes, we look in scripture and agree that's what scripture says. I take it, that's what I mean by the inherency of scripture. It means I have a commitment to receive the truth from God. Everything the Bible's found upon inspection actually to teach. And I'm going to stand absolutely true, and that's the essence of faith, is taking God at his word even when it makes no sense. And for somebody who's been in a cultic background to say Satan has no authority, that's a big step of faith. But I think that's really important.

I am going to say be very, very, very, very cautious about deeper meanings or passages out of context when people talk about deeper meanings beyond the obvious so to speak, or when Satan quotes Psalm 91 out of context. And I think what he's saying there is Satan is saying to Jesus, "God promises that he'll bear you up if you fall. So why don't you jump off the temple here and see if God's good to his word?" And Jesus refuses to fall for that. That's something taken out of context. It's saying trust that God will take care of you. It doesn't say you need to jump and prove him to be true.

And my thing all other spiritual knowledge, information, experience must be carefully tested. And I expect that any information that comes from demons or liars will be deceptive or given for false reasons. And I've seen situations, I'll give you an example. I was working with a fellow this a number of years ago, and he was very much into the Power Encounter model and they were interviewing the demons and testing it by, they were commanding the demons, telling the truth in the name of Jesus. And they were testing it by commanding the demon and asking. And so they were getting a lot of information, the demons were telling him a lot of things that were happening with this woman who was out of a satanic background and they were kicking out a bunch of demons and they asked me to meet with them. I met with this woman in the team twice and this was earlier on and I was just so uncomfortable what they're doing. Guys, you're believing the demons. I don't find anything like that in scripture. I'm finding the opposite. Oh no, we test everything.

And after I met with them the second time and expressed some of my discomfort, the demons gave to these guys the truth, truth, quote unquote, that the senior pastor of this church, which is a large, very, very impacting church, amazing evangelistic impact, this is in Portland. And they gave these guys the information that the pastor was actually a homosexual guy. Now this is long before the days of LGBTQ stuff. In those days, the entire culture thought that homosexuality is a perversion and there's a whole story behind that. And that was tested true before the ways they were doing this other testing. So now it is true, but it's confidential to this small team. How long do you think it took before the information that our pastor's actually homosexual got out just a few days and a friend told a trusted friend and the trusted friend and within a month the word went through the entire church, our pastor's a homosexual, and this was the kiss of death in those days in the culture as well as in the church.

And the pastor of a really, really good man was completely destroyed by a demonic lie. It was in the context of I think a number of things are actually true and they did all the stuff they're supposed to do to test that. And I met with that pastor. "Gerry, what can I do?" And the interest, "I don't know anything you can do, you're toast." I met with him again about 20 years later and he had started, he was in a new church, he had done a lot of stuff. He wasn't homosexual, he was faithful to his wife in every way, and he was in another church, much diminished impact, but still faithful to Jesus. He remained faithful even in the attack of what was happening. But that was just a dramatic confirmation. Don't trust the demons even though if you do whatever you do to test them, by the nature of the beast, demons are liars and they'll give you even true things in order to destroy things. So yeah, I don't do anything with them.

So basic patterns of ministry I think are found in the Bible. And again, this is where I come from, that any pattern that differs substantially is suspect and shouldn't be done. So asking a demon for its name, Jesus does it one time in scripture, but that's the only time he does it. So if my normal pattern is asking for the name of a demon and get information from a demon, that's not the scriptural pattern and I don't think we ought to do it. I think we should follow biblical patterns. And I'll tell you how I do that in a little bit.

Another thing that's important to me is I want to avoid every form of contact with demonic and our current culture is filled with demonic stuff. I grew up on Superman on television in the mid '50s when I first started watching this on my grandmother's TV with the shadowy pictures there in rural Missouri. And Superman today is a completely different character than the classic. In fact, and I don't go see the superheroes movies because violence is not entertainment to me.

But when I listen to my kids talking about it, what I hear happening is that there's all kinds of demonic stuff in the superhero movies, certainly in video games, music videos, the demonic stuff is everywhere. And my thing is, I don't need that. I don't need to read my horoscope every day. I don't need to look at new age paraphernalia, I don't need to look at demonic movies. I don't need to go to horror films and so on and so on and so on. I mean, all kinds of different things that are part of our common culture. I just think let's not do it. Well, but I'm a strong Christian, and it's really fun. Fun is one of those things ... They tell me crack cocaine is fun too. I'm not going to try it frankly, and I'm probably more hesitant with this on some because I've seen the impact in so many different people. But I think is this glorifying to Jesus? Is this helping me be a better follower of Jesus? To me is a really critical question.

And so I want to do Jesusy stuff and my encouragement, this is a form of spiritual warfare, is I don't need to know this stuff. I just don't think it's a good idea. So anyway, you can't avoid everything. You're still living in the world, but I want to fill my imagination. So Ephesians 4, whatsoever things are true, wonderful, good, beautiful. I forget the exact phrasing. Let your mind ... what is it? Philippians 4. Thank you. Philippians 4:8. Now I got to read it. Yeah, [inaudible 00:19:57] crocheted by a friend of mine and on the wall behind our dinner table, it says here, "Finally brothers and sisters, whatever's true, whatever's noble, whatever's right, whatever's pure, whatever's lovely, whatever's admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think on these things." And there's so much to fill my mind with the beauties of Jesus and those kinds of things. Why do I want to fill my mind with ... anyway, there it is.

But Gerry, you do all this stuff with the demon stuff. I do, but what I don't do is I don't take notes on this stuff. I hear the most horrible stories. I don't rehearse those things. I don't keep notes on them. I let that short-term memory fade away. Somebody can see me a month later and I don't remember much of anything they've told me by design. Unless there's ongoing ministry, I just don't need to know that stuff. The basic patterns, yes, but I just don't need to do that stuff. So there it is.

On the other side, using deliverance as a substitute for dealing with my own flesh, my own sinful desires rather than the spiritual disciplines and the spiritual practices and the fellowship of the saints. If I've got an anger problem in my life, it's probably because I'm nurturing some sort of grudge, not because it's a demon of anger in me, I think probably is a demon that specializes in lust. But for most people it's because you're enjoying the porn and stop it, put it to death it says. Jesus very dramatically says you got to sin in your life and it's part of your eye, drag your eye out of your head. Now it's hyperbolic, not literal, but he's saying be absolutely adamant to get rid of the sin. And I think that's what we should do instead of, well, a demon made me do it. I don't think a demon made you do it. We're not under its authority if you're a believer. And that cheap excuse ... anyway, it's a bad excuse. But to look for a demon and cast it out, I don't think that's a solution to most sin patterns. It comes from the world in the flesh.

And the other thing is demons will claim credit for tragedy. They will say, I told you you need to worship us. Look what happened to you. And when your bank account identity theft happens and you lose thousands of dollars to identity theft, Dan, I told you he should and they'll take credit for all kinds of stuff. I don't want to give demons credit for stuff. I really don't. I want that lie to go challenged.

So when I, again, this next paragraph, I think one must be very careful not to give Satan's demons too much attention. And that's my hesitance of doing a course like this is it can actually draw attention into demonic stuff that you don't need to do. But I do see this as equipping type thing to be prepared to stand firm and resist.

But I think there's also a reality that we can end up in too much fearfulness. And this is one of the things I find happening in the Power Encounter. There are a number of those people, I talk to people and they're so afraid if they look at something demon, the demon will leap in their mind through the eyes. Or if they have some sin, they don't confess that they're going to give a window of opportunity to demons. And they [inaudible 00:23:3] actually even fearful. And I've talked to people, they're just so fearful of demons and I think we come in the confidence of Jesus Christ, but there can be a fascination with evil. This is the place to do anything.

So my phrase is, don't seek to know anything more about the demonic that's what's taught in Bible or pastorally necessary. I'll focus on the demonic stuff in scripture all day long because it shows me how to deal with these things. I don't spend time doing it in other places. And when I'm doing work and deliverance stuff, only thing I want to know is what's necessary in the moment. I don't need to know about demonic hierarchies, I don't need to demonic implements or anything like that. I just don't. And then I look in scripture, there isn't anything in scripture that's giving information to demons, origins, or hierarchies, attachment, [inaudible 00:24:39] jurisdiction or anything like that. What are the hierarchies in the demonic world? I hear that from people that do dark stuff and they talk about the different levels of demons and that sort of stuff. I'm confidence there not my issue. My issue is you guys are bad guys. I win, you lose kind of thing. That's my goal.

I don't care whether it's a third order demon or a fifth order demon. To me it's just I don't need to know that kind of stuff. But I think it is real because people tell me about that. I just think I need to curb my curiosity and I have an overwhelming curiosity, but I need to focus my attention on scripture. So that's where I would do things like that.

As I think about this, to me, the foundation, so I'm back on my hand out here again, all sins have been forgiven in Christ. That is as far as membership in the kingdom of light. I am in that kingdom. The view of every evangelical is I cannot lose my salvation. Some believe you can leave your salvation, but everybody agrees you cannot lose your salvation. It happens to me pretty regularly. " [inaudible 00:26:11] wife, do you know where my keys are? I can't find my keys anywhere. What did I do with them? Where is my keys?" And Sherry's way better at finding things than I am.

You cannot lose your salvation, but Satan will make that a fearful thing even more so, scriptures are very clear, Romans 8, for example, John 10. Satan cannot snatch us away from God. Satan cannot steal our salvation, our membership in the kingdom of light. All sins have been forgiven in Christ and we are fully, fully accepted as children of God. That's absolutely true. However, and this is the error that comes, well all sins forgiven, so I don't have to worry about sin in my life. It's all forgiven. Jesus has done it all. No, at a relational level, the relationship between me and you, I can give offense and we need to deal with that. That's relational level. I think that's 1 John 1:9 is talking about if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us from unrighteousness from defilement, that's the relational side.

And I can offend God and I can put a rift in our relationship through my sin. That needs to be dealt with. But that doesn't mean I'm kicked out of the family. I can't lose my salvation. Satan cannot steal my salvation. Those are absolute truths and everybody agrees in that. But Satan will attack those. He'll say, "No way you could be a Christian, mean look at you, God wouldn't have you as a kid." And it rings true a lot of cases. And that's a lie that we work with a lot. So confession, which is speaking truth of heart with responsibility is really important. And that leaves me open to the experience receiving experientially forgiveness and guilt and the cleansing of sin and the reconciliation of a relationship.

I am working with a number of situations right now that involve marital infidelity. And the beginning of everything by the one who's been unfaithful is confession of wrongdoing with responsibility and recognizing that I have hurt you desperately to this partner, this spouse. That's the foundation of everything. And until, and this I'm thinking of the situation I'm working with right now where a man has betrayed his wife until he can enter into her pain and feel the pain that he's caused her, there will never be a restoration of trust in that relationship. That's the relational work of sin.

And what Satan can do, he can take the lie, all sin is forgiven, therefore, come on, I told you I did wrong. Why can't you trust me? See, and that's a profound lie. It says, because the penalty has been taken at the cross that I don't have to do any relational work between you and me and then put the burden on you to accept me and trust me, even though I've proven myself untrustworthy. That's the relational work. And that's where Satan's lies come in at that level where I take a scriptural truth all soon as forgiven and therefore I don't have to do the relational work to build confidence and trust in the relationship.

So common, so wrong to take a scriptural truth like that. Because it is true that all sin has been forgiven of the cross so far as coming into the family, but we still have to do the relational work in the family, which involves the I did it. It was wrong. I hurt you. I need to live in your pain, feel it deeply and show over a period of time that I am living in a trustworthy way. But I realize that our relationship may never be the same after I'd betrayed your relationship. I think of Peter coming back into the community after his denial, and Jesus affirms him three times there on the shore and affirms him. Well, that work had to be done to bring him back into that trustworthy relationship. There's a lot of work to be done around forgiveness, and the satanic lie is, "It's all forgiven. Jesus died. It's all done. It's forgotten. It's not there anymore."

No. Those are the kinds of things we have to work through. We have to be really, really sure that we're doing the spiritual work to restore trusted relationship in the community. And that begins with the reality that Jesus has already paid the penalty for that sin and offers me help in the cleansing that comes with that. But I have to take advantage of that. So powerful satanic lie, not deliverance type stuff, but a powerful lie that can destroy the church and lead to distrust with one person saying, "Hey, I apologize. What more do I need to do?" The answer is quite a bit. So those are some lies that come in and the way you deal with just ordinary spiritual warfare, which is him distorting Christian doctrine in his favor or denying Christian truths so that we lose confidence in the goodness of God. There's a lot to be done here. Let's take a break and we'll come back in a bit.