Participants:
Series Code: TDY
Program Code: TDY220026A
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00:01 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn.
00:02 I'm J.D. Quinn. 00:04 And we are thrilled that you're joining us today because today 00:06 we will be talking with our special guest about spiritual 00:13 warfare. And boy I don't know about you but all of 00:17 us around here 00:18 know that we've got to practice spiritual warfare. So we'll be 00:24 talking about how Satan can harass us even as Christians. 00:29 He can oppress us. But we'll also, talk about demon possession 00:34 and if you're a spirit-filled Christian don't worry about that 00:39 But what we want to do right now is tell you that during this 00:45 program from time to time we'll be putting up a lower third 00:50 that tells you where you can get resources to answer all of your 00:56 questions and help you really build up spiritual warfare. 01:00 It is SetFreeInChrist.org 01:12 So if you can't stay with us through the whole program do 01:15 visit this website. It's got a treasure trove of information on 01:20 the website. And it's something every Christian should know. 01:24 Period. 01:25 I know that we get calls all the time about being set free in 01:30 Christ, dealing with spiritual warfare. So I think this is such 01:33 a timely topic that we're going to be talking about today. 01:37 Well then, let's introduce our special guest. Dr. Conrad Vine 01:42 is returning to 3ABN. Conrad you are the president of the 01:48 Adventist Frontier Missions. Tell us a little bit about who 01:54 you are, what was you background and how did you come to do what 01:58 you're doing now. 01:59 Well thank you so much Shelley and J.D. for inviting me to this 02:02 really important discussion today. I was raised in the 02:05 United Kingdom in a pastoral family and then spent 25 years 02:09 serving around the world with ADRA, Middle East Union and as a 02:15 pastor in the U.K. and Minnesota before finally God led us to 02:18 Adventist Frontier Missions in 2011 where I've been serving as 02:22 the president for the last 11 years. And it's just an 02:25 incredible privilege because I get to see the Holy Spirit at 02:27 work on a daily basis. 02:29 What does Adventist Frontier Missions do? 02:33 So we send missionaries to serve unreached people groups mostly 02:37 in the 10/40 mission window and our purpose is to establish 02:41 Adventist church planting movements among the unreached. 02:44 So it's not led by the missionaries. The missionaries 02:47 may be coaches but it is national brothers and sisters 02:50 from that culture who are taking the lead in sharing the gospel 02:53 within their culture and society And so we serve in about 24 02:59 countries from West Africa through the Middle East to 03:01 Southeast Asia. One of the joys of being a missionary is that we 03:06 get to see God working in different ways to what we expect 03:09 in our own culture. And when the apostles came back to Jerusalem 03:14 in Acts 15 and they said what God was doing among the Gentiles 03:17 the home church in Jerusalem was invited to grow in their_ 03:21 of who God is and how He works. (Amen) And so as missionaries 03:25 when we come back and share this is what God is doing among this 03:27 people group or that people group God is inviting us maybe 03:32 in our home countries to reflect and maybe say well God is 03:35 bigger than I thought He was. And God works in more mysterious 03:38 ways. And so that's one of the joys of being a missionary with 03:40 AFM. 03:42 Amen, amen. We are excited about this program. It is going to be 03:47 so instructive and we invite you to stay tuned. But we know how 03:51 much you love music at home and we've got something special with 03:55 our own E.T. Everett. 03:57 E.T. Everett. We love E.T. She's going to be doing a piano 04:01 solo and it's Soon and Very Soon 04:02 ♪ ♪ Soon and Very Soon 07:21 (Amen) Amen. Soon and Very Soon. He is coming again. Today our 07:26 special guest is Dr. Conrad Vine who is the president of 07:30 Adventist Frontier Missions. We will be talking about spiritual 07:36 warfare. And we want to put on the screen several times during 07:41 this interview the information where you can go to get 07:47 resources. You get calls every day in the Pastoral Department 07:51 about spiritual warfare and people are experiencing more and 07:55 more. So you can go to SetFreeInChrist.org and there's 08:09 going to be plenty of information there. Well 08:12 Dr. Conrad Vine, I'm just going to call you Conrad. Conrad what 08:18 is...You're using a word that I've never heard used in the way 08:22 in which you're using it so I want you to explain the root of 08:25 it and what do mean you about demonization? 08:31 Well, that's a great question, Shelley, and we use the word 08:34 demonization in the colloquial way in the west. We say I will 08:38 demonize somebody. It means I make you out to be the worst 08:40 possible of people in society. But as a missionary, we use the 08:44 word demonization based on how the New Testament uses the words 08:48 word dimonisai. It's a verb and it's normally used in the 08:51 passive sense which means to be demonized. And to be demonized 08:56 in the New Testament, we find there are basically three levels 09:00 of demonization. The first is harassment and a good example 09:05 of that as an Adventist familiar with Revelation 12:17 where 09:10 Satan makes war on the remnant of God's children. And so Satan 09:15 attacks the children of God in various ways. And then there is 09:19 oppression and oppression takes place where maybe through a 09:23 cherished sin you give access to Satan to control a part of your 09:27 life. And that does happen among Christians. And then you have 09:30 full on possession and I've never seen possession among a 09:34 born again Christian, someone whose life is filled with the 09:36 Holy Spirit. But I have seen it among Animists, Hindus and 09:40 Buddhists many of whom will consciously invite a spirit to 09:45 possess them. Because the attraction of the occult whether 09:48 it's in the subcontinent of India and so forth or whether 09:51 it's in America today is you gain access to knowledge and 09:55 power but without any moral accountability for how you use 09:58 it. And so the occult, if you become a horoscope, reading 10:02 horoscopes or palm reading or fortune telling in the west it 10:05 give you money whereas in other parts of the world it gives you 10:09 social power because people are afraid that you know all of 10:12 their secrets and will speak them out in public. So when we 10:15 use the word demonization as missionaries it's in a very 10:18 specific New Testament way based on what we see in the New 10:22 Testament and how the New Testament uses the verb 10:24 dimonisai, to be demonized. 10:26 Okay, harassment, oppression, and possession. You don't have 10:31 to worry. If you're filled with the Holy Spirit, greater is He 10:35 who is in you...1 John 4:4... than he who's in the world. 10:39 You don't have to worry about being possessed but we are 10:44 seeing more and more people who have been through traumatic 10:48 events. They believe in Jesus, they asked God to set them free 10:53 but sometimes people hold onto things so we're going to get 10:57 there. But when we think about...You said you've never 11:04 seen anyone in the church, I'm not saying in the Adventist 11:07 church but I have seen someone who was a "church goer" of 11:13 another demonimation who believed in Jesus but never 11:18 surrendered to Jesus. And you know James says even the demons 11:24 believe. So believing in Jesus, really we've got to be living in 11:31 Jesus. So what causes demonization? Let's break 11:37 that down. So we've got harassment, we have oppression 11:41 and we have possession. So what causes...? 11:48 So there are multiple causes of demonization that we see in the 11:51 world today. Number one cause among Christians is having a 11:55 cherished or a private sin. Some area way you have not 11:59 surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in your life and in 12:04 the west the number one cause is actually, pornography and that is 12:07 a major problem among Christian men and also among Christian 12:12 women increasingly. We also see a major cause of demonizational 12:16 harassment is a history of childhood abuse. (Yes) The 12:21 childhood abuse can actually fracture the personality in a 12:23 child. It can also lead to the child's believing lies about 12:28 itself. An adult will say lies to a child and they will believe 12:31 those lies and those are destructive lies and those are 12:35 lies from Satan. And when you act on the lies of Satan as if 12:38 they are true, they come true in your life, just as when you act 12:42 on the promises of God they come true in your life (That's good) 12:45 When you also have engagement with the occult and there are 12:49 many, many people in the west who are connecting with the 12:52 occult, sometimes intentionally. Maybe they play with an ouija 12:56 board at a college party. Maybe they have their horoscope drawn 13:00 up, maybe they have their palms read by a fortune teller at the 13:03 county fair. But there are other people who have more intentional 13:07 connection with the occult. So entry-level occultic activities 13:12 might be ouija boards, tarot cards, horoscopes. Medium level 13:16 engagement with the occult might be visiting a medium and having 13:19 a séance and the channeling of the spirits like we have with 13:22 Saul and the witch of Endor. And then you have very elite levels 13:28 of occultic activity which is really the Satanic ritual abuse 13:31 of small children. And the Satanic ritual abuse of small 13:35 children is the worship of Satan through the abuse of children 13:38 and destroying them for life. But in my experience as a pastor 13:42 here in North America, we find that among many Christians is 13:46 that entry-level of occultic activity where they've 13:49 unwittingly often allowed something into their life or 13:53 into their home and they didn't think anything was serious at 13:55 the time, but from that moment on there's a shadow in their 13:58 life that they cannot get rid of. And they know there's a 14:01 shadow but they can't quite put their finger on it. We also find 14:05 that a lack of forgiveness can also lead to harassment from 14:10 Satan. So then if you've experienced a trauma in your 14:12 life from the hands of somebody else a lack of forgiveness, 14:15 Satan will play on that and he will direct your thoughts and 14:20 tempt you to think ill will towards somebody and so the cure 14:23 for that is actually repentance and confession and forgiveness. 14:26 And even if the other person doesn't know about it because in 14:30 so doing you're closing the door for Satan to attack you in that 14:34 certain way. And another factor we see increasingly in America 14:38 today are ancestral spirits. And with ancestral spirits, 14:42 let's say your grandparent was a medium or say your maternal 14:47 grandma was a medium and she may in order to get her power she 14:52 may do a deal with a demon that says my family line is devoted 14:56 to you from now on. But the family doesn't know about it. 14:59 And so what happens is the spirit will often jump from 15:02 generation to generation missing a generation. So a spirit will 15:06 reveal itself as a familiar spirit to the grandma but when 15:09 the grandma dies the spirit will attach itself to the 15:12 granddaughter who has no knowledge of this who may be in 15:15 a baptized Christian family and being raised a Christian. And 15:19 then suddenly things start going profoundly wrong in that young 15:22 lady's life. And so we talk in the west about cursed families 15:26 like the Kennedys. Some families everything just seems that can 15:29 go wrong does go wrong. But when you work in west Africa you 15:34 see very powerfully these ancestral spirits and people 15:38 will often live in a state of despair because they believe 15:41 their family's under the control or the curse of a given spirit. 15:44 And so as we have a more multicultural society in America 15:48 people are coming in from around the world and they're bringing 15:51 with them ancestral spirits. And so in the early church from the 15:55 second to the fourth centuries because people were coming from 15:58 pagan backgrounds the church would often have a ritual 16:01 service of deliverance before they were baptized to make sure 16:04 that they weren't bringing the garbage of the past into the 16:08 church. We see in Mark chapter one when Jesus is preaching 16:12 there's a man sitting in the synagogue with a spirit. And 16:16 he's listening to the preaching. He's listening to the reading of 16:19 the Torah, he's listening to the hymns of praise to Jehovah God 16:22 and at the end, he cries out to Jesus, What have you to do with 16:25 us Jesus Son of the Most High God. And here you have an 16:28 example of a man with a spirit sitting in the synagogue 16:30 listening to Jesus and the spirit doesn't appear to be 16:34 troubled. And so there are many causes of demonization that we 16:37 find in our world today. Some are intentional, some are 16:41 unintentional and some are completely unknown to the 16:44 victims because it may be an ancestral spirit that has 16:46 attached itself to them. 16:48 You know we've ministered with people...One family that before 16:56 they became Adventist they bought their children the whole 16:59 Harry Potter series and they were playing around with white 17:02 magic thinking it was you know charms and all these things were 17:06 nothing and then they started having a lot of problems. And 17:09 then we had a couple, two doctors, that came down from 17:13 India, and you know what? Two medical doctors Adventist, never 17:18 had a problem, been married 20 years, and all of a sudden...I'm 17:23 going to say this so don't write in because this is what happened 17:27 All hell broke loose in their life. And they came down to 17:34 camp meeting had J.D. and I pray for them and as we were 17:38 praying in a season of prayer, all of a sudden I was impressed 17:44 to ask them, 17:45 what have you recently received from a relative. And her 17:50 grandmother in India had left her in her will a very expensive 17:56 ring. But the light went on, remember? It was like, Yeah, 18:00 it's after we 18:02 received that ring into our home that everything went crazy and 18:09 come to find out the grandmother was a spiritist. (Yes, Yeah) 18:12 I mean, take it a step further which brings in kind of you got 18:18 to be kidding is they said that the bed would move, it would 18:21 bounce around and everything. Stuff would go flying off of... 18:25 and that is in the western world especially in a naive western 18:31 world I guess you'd say that seems like, ah you're kind of 18:34 making this up. 18:36 Well one of Satan's greatest victories in the west is to make 18:39 people think he's just a figure of fun. He's a cartoon figure. 18:42 And that is why when people experience the symptoms of 18:47 demonic attack they are almost embarrassed to talk to anybody 18:50 about it because they think people will think I'm crazy. 18:53 And so they don't know who they can open up to about these 18:56 challenges in their lives. And when I work with people who 19:00 complain of these kind of symptoms, in the west I use a 19:03 questionnaire that goes to a very, very personal inventory of 19:07 their past and I have long ceased to be surprised at how 19:10 many yesses I get from practicing Christians. There's a 19:15 lot of stuff, junk, in their past and you might say it this 19:19 way, if you want to get rid of the rats in your basement you 19:22 first, need to get rid of the garbage. And if there's no 19:25 garbage the rats have nothing to feed on. So you can try and 19:28 kill the rats but as long as there's garbage more rats will 19:31 keep coming. And so part of deliverance for people who are 19:35 experiencing this kind of harassment is cleaning up the 19:38 spiritual garbage from the past and asking forgiveness and 19:43 confession of sins and asking for the Holy Spirit to seal that 19:46 part of my life so that Satan no longer has a right to attack 19:50 me in a certain aspect of my being. 19:52 Once again go through the difference between harassment, 19:57 oppression and possession. 19:59 Okay so Revelation 12:17 says Satan was wroth with the woman 20:04 and went off to make war with the remnant of her children. And 20:07 so we know that Satan attacks God's children in order to 20:11 discourage them and to destroy their faith. He wants to drag as 20:14 many as he can to eternal destruction. And so this might 20:17 mean as simple as if you have an evangelistic series as a 20:21 pastor the week before, my computer dies, my car breaks 20:25 down, the roof develops a leak, my daughter goes to hospital 20:27 with a broken wrist, something like that, where everything that 20:30 could go wrong in the family goes wrong and it all happens in 20:33 the three days before an evangelistic series. And you 20:37 realize that Satan is trying to distract me and discourage me 20:40 and give me other things to focus on rather than praying and 20:43 fasting which you do before an evangelistic series like Elijah 20:47 or John the Baptist. 20:49 May I say one thing? We always warn people when they come to 20:52 work here. It seems that people who've never had really 20:58 harassment from the devil, they make a commitment to come to 21:01 work here and all of a sudden everything that can go wrong 21:04 goes wrong. (Absolutely) And they're like what's going on? 21:08 And I always warn people before we hire them. 21:10 That's absolutely true. And Satan does, he just throws these 21:14 road blocks in your way and when you realize this is what is 21:17 happening the solution is to turn to God and ask for 21:20 deliverance. Ask God to rebuke the attacks of Satan and turn 21:24 them back upon him and to turn what was intended for a curse 21:27 into a blessing. 21:28 But you know what's so funny, I can be talking to someone on 21:31 the phone, they're sharing their trouble and I'll be going you're 21:36 under spiritual attack. This is spiritual warfare. You need to 21:40 put on the full armor of God. But you know what, we're slow 21:44 sometimes to recognize it in our own lives. And I had that 21:48 experience last year that I had a very bad week and it was just 21:53 like what's going on? And I finally said to the Lord, What's 21:58 wrong with me Lord. And I realized it was a spiritual 22:03 attack. I just wasn't using spiritual warfare. If you want 22:08 resources for spiritual warfare Conrad has graciously brought 22:15 this information to us and it is called SetFreeInChrist.org. We 22:22 encourage you to visit that website. 22:24 Let me ask this and 22:26 this is maybe spirituality 101 okay. Ask for deliverance. It's 22:36 easy to sit here and say you're being attacked. Intellectually 22:40 you know that I'm being attacked and you know that you can go to 22:44 the Creator of the universe and you know that you can say, Lord 22:48 please in the name of Jesus whatever you know deliver me 22:52 from this. But it seems like ah that won't work. Now what's not 22:58 lining up here? Does this guy not have enough faith? Or what? 23:05 Because that's asked a lot. 23:08 Well that's a really good question. So how we work with 23:11 people...The first thing Jesus taught us in Matthew 6 in the 23:15 Lord's prayer where He said, and lead us not into temptation but 23:18 deliver us from evil. But the evil he's talking about is not 23:22 rain on your wedding day. From evil is literally from the evil 23:26 one. Because we pray the Lord's prayer on a daily basis, give us 23:32 this day our daily bread, therefore as we pray the Lord's 23:35 prayer on a daily basis we ask our heavenly Father on a daily 23:39 basis for deliverance from attacks of the evil one which 23:42 implies Satan is trying to discourage and attack us on a 23:45 daily basis. So the first thing is we lift our eyes to God and 23:48 we put the battle in His hands. (Amen) Secondly in the book of 23:52 Acts chapter 19, the people of Ephesus they burnt their books 23:56 of magic in the public square. And we call that a house 24:01 cleansing service. And so in deliverance ministry we will 24:03 walk through somebody's house looking at drawers, we look at 24:07 their internet viewing history look at what they're feeding 24:08 their mind with in particular, their videos, their music and 24:12 it's surprising what you find. There may be trinkets. There may 24:15 be a Lord Buddha from Thailand there may be a face mask from 24:19 Haiti from a mission trip, there may be trinket like from India 24:21 like you mentioned earlier. And so anything that has no place in 24:25 God's kingdom we say that needs to be taken out of your home and 24:28 out of your life. 24:29 And see some people absolutely think that is ridiculous but 24:34 trust me, we are naive in the western world. If you visit in 24:40 Africa or actually in Louisiana. You can go down there where 24:46 they're practicing spiritism. There is definitely...you bring 24:51 home some trophy and you think that this is just an object of 24:57 art but there are spirits attached. 24:59 So there's a house cleansing and the Old Testament whenever a 25:04 good king like Josiah or Hezekiah came to the throne 25:07 the very first thing that the book of Chronicles tells us is 25:10 that they would cleanse the land They tore down all the altars. 25:13 They ground up the sacred places so there was no spirit worship 25:18 paraphernalia left in the land. And so when we work with 25:21 somebody we want their home and their life to be cleaned of any 25:26 entry points for Satan. And then there is confession and asking 25:29 the Holy Spirit to fill my house with your presence. And then the 25:33 third thing we encourage people to do is to put on the armor of 25:35 God. (Amen) There's the shield of faith. We just want to focus 25:40 for a few minutes on the sword of the Spirit which is the word 25:44 of God. Now you know we have before us, this is the word of 25:47 God and Jesus is the word of God but the word that is used most 25:52 often in the New Testament is Logos. That's the word, word, so 25:57 in the beginning, was the logos and the logos was with God and 25:58 the logos was God. But the apostle Paul doesn't use the 26:01 word logos (it's rhema) It's rhema, exactly which is the 26:06 spoken word of God (yes) which means that when Satan attacked 26:11 Jesus, Jesus says, It is written and He spoke truth back to Satan 26:14 (yes) And every temptation is not a matter of power, it's a 26:18 matter of truth and falsehood. Every temptation is a lie 26:22 because Satan says, If you do this it will be good for you in 26:25 this way. That's the essence of every temptation and so we 26:30 respond to falsehood with truth. But the only 100 percent thing 26:35 true in my life that I know of is the word of God because it's 26:38 His word. And so Jesus, when He modeled for us how to respond to 26:42 Satan's attacks, He said, It is Written, three times there in 26:45 Matthew's gospel. And so when we come under Satanic attack 26:49 Satan may say: How can God love you because you're such a rotten 26:52 sinner. Look what you did last week. And therefore if I know 26:56 that Satan attacks me with full skilt I will memorize two or 27:00 three verses dealing with God's promises of forgiveness and when 27:04 Satan attacks me I'll say, It is written. I'll say it out loud 27:06 and I'll quote a promise about forgiveness. If Satan attacks me 27:11 with sense that maybe I've been brought up in a terrible family, 27:17 I've no sense of love around me and no real relationships and I 27:20 feel very alone I may quote him the promises about the coming of 27:25 the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. And so each of us in our 27:29 individual lives we know our character weaknesses, we know 27:31 our past and we know how Satan attacks us. He knows which 27:35 buttons to press. And so quoting back to Satan when those buttons 27:39 are pressed particular quotes from scripture that are the 27:42 truth of God to the lie from Satan, it drives Satan away. 27:47 Then the other very important aspect of deliverance ministry 27:50 is connecting somebody with a brother or sister who is an 27:54 accountability partner and who helps them have a life that is 27:58 filled with the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus taught in the 28:00 gospel of Matthew that if a spirit is driven out it wanders 28:04 in waste placed and it comes back and finds the house where 28:07 it used to reside empty and swept clean and it goes and 28:11 finds seven more spirits more wicked than itself and invites 28:14 them to come and live in that person. And then Jesus says and 28:16 that person's latter condition is worse than the former. And 28:20 what that story teaches us is that it's not just enough to 28:23 command a spirit to leave somebody's life. You need to 28:27 fill that person's life with the life of the Holy Spirit. That's 28:30 a life of witness, a life of worship, a life of Bible study 28:33 and prayer, a life of Christian fellowship, a life of shining 28:37 for Jesus in your community. Because when your life is filled 28:41 with the Holy Spirit, Satan can't get access back into your life 28:44 again. (Amen) He can't do what he used to do to you. 28:47 So deliverance ministry isn't just a one-of event. It's 28:51 starting someone on a lifelong journey of meaningful 28:53 discipleship. (Amen) And what we find in the west is that people 28:58 may come and they say over there is the kingdom of Satan and over 29:02 there is the kingdom of God but I want to be free of Satan's 29:06 attacks but I want to live in this neutral no-mans-land that's 29:09 known as a secular life. But the reality is, there is no secular 29:13 spot in humanity. There's either the kingdom of Satan or the 29:16 kingdom of God. And when somebody comes and says I would 29:19 like to be set free from Satan's attacks, as a pastor the ethical 29:23 thing to do is to say well Jesus can be the Savior in this 29:27 situation but do you want him to be Lord of your life as well. 29:29 Because if you just want to be set free without filling your 29:33 life with the spirit and being a meaningful disciple those 29:36 spirits will come back and make your latter condition worse than 29:39 the former. So deliverance ministry is about discipling 29:42 people into a meaningful walk with Jesus, being filled with 29:45 the Spirit and living a life of vibrant discipleship. Yeah. 29:50 Amen. I wanted to add to your point on the...You know people 29:54 think that, like you said, Well I can be delivered from the 29:59 darkness but I'm not sure I want to be having to follow what God 30:04 says, Listen to what Paul wrote to the Romans in Romans 6. We've 30:09 got a choice of masters but we all have a master. That's the 30:14 point. He said in Romans 6:16 Do you not know to whom you 30:19 present yourself slaves to obey you are that one's slave whom you 30:27 obey whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to 30:33 righteousness. And we're made righteous by faith but 1 John 30:37 says we are made righteous to practice righteousness. So I 30:43 just want to encourage you that make that decision to say Lord I 30:50 want to live according to your will. Please make that decision 30:54 today. And you know what. He will work in you to will and to 30:59 do His good pleasure. God will empower you. 31:03 Then also programs like that are very, very important because I 31:08 think a lot of people think around this but they don't have 31:12 the resources or the understanding to get the 31:15 definitions They want to do good but they just can't quite get 31:20 over it because they don't really know the rules or the 31:23 enemy. And so good program. (Amen) Go ahead. 31:29 And I want to get back because we started talking about 31:35 harassment but we need to go back to oppression. Before we 31:39 do I want to tell you the rhema word. It's not just saying to 31:44 Satan, It is written. Pray the word back to God. Thank God that 31:50 your...I pray at night and I'll say for example Philippians 31:56 2:13: Thank you Lord that you work in me to will and to do 31:59 your good pleasure. God said in Isaiah 55:11: My word won't 32:05 return to me void. He told Jeremiah, I'm watching over my 32:10 word to perform it. And Romans 4:17 He says that He is the God 32:14 who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as 32:18 though they already were. He sees you as a finished project. 32:21 So when you're praying God's word just tonight in Ephesians. 32:26 Just go through Ephesians chapter 1 and see who it says 32:30 who is says you are in Christ and as your reading just stop 32:34 and say Lord thank you that I am the redeemed, thank you that 32:38 you're going to work all things together according to your 32:41 perfect will. Thank you that I'm blessed with every spiritual 32:44 blessings in heavenly realms. It's fabulous. Okay. Let's go 32:49 back. We talked about...we kind of expounded on harassment. What 32:58 about oppression because oppression can happen to a 33:02 Christian. (Absolutely) Let's talk why. 33:05 So a classic example is found in Matthew chapter 16 where from 33:10 verse 21 Jesus has been repeatedly teaching the 33:14 disciples that He's going to go to Jerusalem, be handed over to 33:16 the chief priests and the Gentiles. He'll be killed. Then 33:20 He'll rise again. And this conflicts with what Peter's 33:23 vision of what the kingdom of God is all about. And so Peter 33:26 takes Jesus aside in verse 22 of Matthew 16 and begins to 33:30 rebuke Jesus. And in the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark 33:35 and Luke whenever the verb rebuke is used its normally 33:38 used of Jesus rebuking a spirit. And so when Peter rebukes Jesus 33:42 he's suggesting that Jesus is speaking under satanic influence 33:46 And Jesus turns to Peter and turns the whole thing around and 33:49 says No you get thee behind me Satan. And so what we see there 33:53 is when a disciple of Jesus knowingly, willfully, 33:57 deliberately contradicts a plain teaching of Jesus they're 34:00 allowing Satan to speak through them. It may be unwitting, it 34:04 may be unintentional but in this case here because Peter was 34:07 contradicting a plain teaching of Jesus and saying, No, no, no, 34:10 what you said Jesus is not correct. What I say is correct. 34:13 Then Peter was allowing Satan to speak through him in that moment 34:17 Boy the oppression really came on him, didn't it? 34:22 It really came on him and Peter didn't realize this. But Jesus 34:26 recognized that when I as a Christian willfully, knowingly, 34:30 deliberately, intentionally go against the plain teaching of 34:33 Jesus, I'm allowing Satan to operate in that part of my life 34:36 at that moment. 34:38 So that's the first time I understand then when Peter ended 34:43 up denying Christ three times he had already given access to 34:49 the demons. And I want to tell you one thing real quick because 34:53 we're talking about Satan. Satan is a single being. Satan's not 34:58 omnipresent. God's not worried about Satan's power. But when we 35:02 mention Satan we're talking about and his demonic forces 35:05 because he has all these fallen angels that he leads and he can 35:13 assign one to you. People talk about their guardian angel but 35:16 if you open the door to Satan he can assign a demonic angel 35:22 to you. 35:24 And so this often happens when Christians today when they have 35:27 a cherished sin in their life. And oftentimes you know I live 35:31 a publicly Christian life but there's something happening in 35:35 my life that has no part in God's kingdom. It may be that I 35:38 have a violent spirit towards a spouse. It may be that I'm 35:43 verbally abusive towards a member of my family. It may be 35:47 that I'm dishonest with my finances. You know there's a 35:50 hold that Satan has over some aspect of my life. 35:53 Like you said earlier, pornography is probably... 35:54 Pornography is the number one issue that I see in America 35:58 today among Christians. And it's men and women who are both 36:01 affected by this and then what happens is you hear phrases like 36:05 I don't know what I was thinking of, or I don't know what came 36:07 over me, or I found myself doing something when I'm hungry, 36:12 angry, lonely or tired, you know HALT, H-A-L-T, this is my go-to 36:16 self-medication and I hate it when I find myself doing it. 36:19 And then it ends up with acting out sexually in immoral ways and 36:24 that leads to childhood sex abuse, maybe of minors, adultery 36:28 fornication and things like that And so when we have a cherished 36:32 sin in our life or when we go against the plain teaching of 36:36 Jesus Christ, we're allowing Satan to speak through us and to 36:40 take control of that aspect of our life and so the good news of 36:44 the gospel is that Jesus has never lost a battle with Satan. 36:47 When there was war in heaven in Revelation 12 Satan lost and was 36:51 cast out. And when there was a showdown in the wilderness in 36:55 Matthew 4 at the beginning of Jesus' ministry Satan was driven 36:57 away in defeat. And then Jesus was challenged by the Pharisees 37:01 they said it's by the spirit of Beelzebub that you cast out 37:04 demons and Jesus said, No you can't plunder a strong man's 37:08 home unless you first tie up the strong man. And the message is 37:12 that in the showdown in the wilderness Jesus overcame Satan 37:15 and from that moment on He would go around setting free Satan's 37:18 captives. And then in Gethsemane Jesus overcame Satan. On 37:22 resurrection morning He overcame the power of death. 37:25 And when Jesus comes again we see in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 37:29 that at his coming the forces of evil will be destroyed. And 37:33 Revelation chapter 20 Satan will go into that lake of fire. And 37:38 may sound strange but, and I know you've seen this a lot, 37:42 when you see human suffering and you see people struggling with 37:44 cancer and divorce and disease and depression the idea that the 37:48 source of all evil will one day be consumed in that fire to me 37:52 is good news. (Oh amen) There will be no more human suffering 37:55 (Amen) It's just amazingly good news. It's not just I get to go 37:59 to heaven but all human suffering comes to an end and so 38:03 probably the good news of Jesus Christ is He's never lost a 38:05 battle with Satan and He will destroy Satan once and for all 38:08 in that book of Revelation chapter 20. So I look forward to 38:13 that. Because Satan knows that. He's angry. But if we focus on 38:16 Satan we become discouraged. If we turn our eyes to Jesus and we 38:20 look in faith to Him He gives us victory in these challenges of 38:23 life. 38:24 Conrad speak to something because it's interesting. 38:26 We seem to have two different kinds of phone calls and that is 38:30 people who are experiencing demonic harassment or oppression 38:37 But there are some people and there's even some churches out 38:42 there that preach that mental illness is demon possession and 38:47 we want you to be assured it's not. But how do you know the 38:52 difference because sometimes it manifests itself in the same way 38:56 That's a very, very commonly asked question. And I think it's 39:01 really important not to assume that somebody's experiencing 39:03 demonization. Because if you just say to somebody, Oh you're 39:06 demonized, or you have a demon, or you're possessed many people 39:10 just give up the battle then because they say I can't fight 39:13 against a demon. And so in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and 39:17 verse 10 the apostle Paul writes one of the gifts God gives His 39:22 church is the discernment of spirits. And so the ability to 39:26 discern between a genuine mental health disorder or a case of 39:31 demonization is actually a gift from God. And so you know I had 39:35 a battle with depression about 15 years ago and it was caused 39:39 by a traumatic life event. It led to depression, depression 39:42 was caused by internalized anger and lack of forgiveness. And I 39:45 knew what the problem was. The solution was to forgive and when 39:49 I eventually did my depression lifted. It wasn't that I was 39:53 experiencing demonization but there are common mental health 39:57 problems that have nothing to do with demonization. Anxiety or 40:00 panic attacks are two classic examples. And so we cannot 40:04 (And bipolar) bipolar yeah. Some people are abused as 40:09 children. They have multiple personality disorders, that's a 40:12 defensive mechanism to cover the pain inside. And so we cannot 40:16 assume that mental health problems are automatically 40:19 demonization. But that does not mean that some cases of mental 40:22 health are not caused by demonization which is why we 40:25 need the gift of discernment to figure out what's going on here. 40:28 So again exploring someone's family history; does the family 40:32 have a history of mental illness Has this person engaged in 40:36 activities that may have harmed the mind, drug or alcohol use in 40:40 particular can actually affect how somebody thinks particularly 40:43 modern marijuana. Young men smoking marijuana and the modern 40:47 marijuana is much more potent than it was 50 years ago. That 40:50 plays games with the mind. And so we want to differentiate 40:56 between ask do you have a history of family illness, 41:00 what's been done on your life that may have caused a breakdown 41:02 in your mental health. Another quick and dirty test is to say 41:06 to somebody well-read Matthew 16 Just read Matthew 16 out loud 41:11 and they can read it out loud but when it comes to who do you 41:15 say that I am, verse 16, says Simon Peter answered you are the 41:19 Messiah, the son of the living God. And often times someone who 41:23 actually is possessed or is demonized, they can read the 41:25 first 15 verses without a problem but then they cannot 41:28 physically speak, literally the spirit will not allow them to 41:32 confess the Messiahship of Jesus Christ. So that's a very quick 41:35 and dirty method that we sometimes use. There are other 41:39 indications of a demonic presence. One might be that you 41:43 can have a normal conversation with somebody. Let's say they're 41:47 suffering from chronic depression and you have a normal 41:51 conversation and the moment you say well let's turn to the Lord 41:54 in prayer, you see a change in their countenance. And the 41:57 change in the countenance comes precisely when you're inviting 42:01 Jesus into that conversation. And that's an indicator that 42:04 this isn't just genuine mental health problems which may be 42:07 chemically related in the brain or when they've had a brain 42:09 injury from a road accident or something like that. And it 42:12 means that there's a spiritual force involved in this. And so 42:17 again we need the gift of discernment and generally 42:21 speaking my experience, at least in America, when people come 42:24 asking for help they know what the source of the problem is 42:26 because they have played with the ouija boards at college, 42:29 they did have their horoscopes read and this is a unconfessed 42:32 thing. They're ashamed of it and they kind of sense that it has 42:35 an impact on their life today. 42:37 I did something similar when I was not walking with the Lord 42:41 and a friend took me somewhere to basically have a fortune told 42:47 and even though I didn't know the scriptures when we finished 42:51 it was like something's wrong here and everything she told me 42:55 was just the opposite of what God wanted really. And I got 43:01 into the Bible and I was young. I didn't know the word of God 43:05 that well, but I started reading about this and, Oh man, I mean 43:11 I...it hit me when I was in the shower that what a sin...how I 43:16 had sinned against the Lord about this. And it was wonderful 43:21 when you confess it. Ah, once again you can get materials, 43:26 resources to help you with spiritual warfare to understand 43:34 these things. Go to SetFreeInChrist.org 43:39 and we encourage you to visit that. 43:42 In 30 seconds, what are they getting with the 43:44 SetFreeInChrist.org? 43:47 So we at AFM worked with Adventist Deliverance Ministry 43:50 practitioners, mostly missionaries from around the 43:52 world. We put together a manual so we include the 43:56 biblical basis of deliverance ministry and the theological 43:58 basis. Then my favorite Christian writer, a lady called 44:01 Sister Ellen White. She has an extensive series of quotations 44:04 in this area. Then we talk about how you go about engaging in 44:10 deliverance ministry, the ingredients of it. Then we talk 44:13 about what does post deliverance ministry look like, what you're 44:15 hoping to do and trying to do with somebody after the 44:18 deliverance process is complete so they can live a life free 44:21 from harassment and attacks from Satan. So it goes through a 44:24 systematically biblical theological basis, then the 44:28 practical side of it, writings of Sister White and then how 44:30 you can minister to somebody after the event and also the 44:33 ethical framework. Because in my experience the most common 44:37 reason why ministers and church elders don't want to engage with 44:41 this is because of unconfessed sins. Because in a deliverance 44:45 encounter a spirit will call out your private sins because they 44:51 know your sins and they'll call it out to shame you from the 44:54 the battlefield. And so people are kind of cautious about 44:58 engaging with this because they're afraid that they private 45:01 sins will be revealed to the whole congregation or to the 45:04 leaders of the church and so to engage in this kind of ministry 45:07 calls a circumspect life. I'm careful to avoid known and 45:12 obvious sins in my life so that my prayers...You know the 45:16 prayers of a righteous man they availeth much in James 5 but a 45:23 righteous man is not a man who is living in willful sin and so 45:24 just as if you're going to preach on Sabbath with 45:27 credibility as a preacher you have to be a credible Christian 45:30 from Sunday through Friday. Likewise in deliverance ministry 45:33 if you're called to work with someone on Tuesday you have to 45:36 lead an authentic, genuine, Christian life for the week 45:40 before so that Satan has got no hold over you otherwise, you're 45:43 afraid of the battle. 45:45 I want to share something real quick. We were in Africa at the 45:48 Stadin camp meeting speaking and I was talking with the 45:53 conference president, the treasurer, several men, and I 45:58 just asked them because we were having so many people call us 46:02 about this and particularly J.D. in the pastoral department. I 46:06 said, What do you all think about deliverance and that whole 46:13 process. And all of a sudden they kind of looked around at 46:17 each other and I thought, Oh they think I'm nuts, you know. 46:21 And you know what they said when they spoke up. I said do you 46:25 take it seriously? They said, what we do is fast and pray for 46:29 three days before we go to deliver...They take it very 46:35 seriously. See this is something that I don't know. When you're 46:40 around the Animists, the spiritist' s it is a very real 46:45 thing. You have seen from personal experience...we've just 46:49 got four minutes in this before we go to a break. But you're 46:52 speaking from personal experience because of 46:56 missionary work. (Uh-huh) Give us a story. 46:58 Ah, yes, there was a young Thai girl who was studying with one 47:02 of our missionaries and the studies were going on for a 47:06 number of months and eventually the missionary said to the young 47:10 lady, she said well we reached the point in the studies, would 47:13 you like to accept the Lordship of Jesus Christ in your life. 47:17 Do you want Him to be the Lord and Savior of your life. And at 47:19 that moment the young Thai girl's face contorted and this 47:22 deep voice came back and the voice said You can't have her, 47:26 she's mine. And at that moment the missionary who was actually 47:29 from Europe, which is a very secular part of the world, it 47:33 was at that moment that in her understanding and experience the 47:36 reality of the great controversy between Christ and Satan really 47:39 struck home because this spirit held this woman essentially as 47:43 his slave. We had a missionary... 47:46 But it's interesting. For months she didn't know so you can't 47:49 tell always. Okay. 47:50 We had a missionary who was from Cote d'Ivoire, he still works 47:54 for us. And he came to a new city in a Muslim community but 47:59 heavily influenced by voodoo somewhere in West Africa and he 48:02 was talking with his wife. He said look the demons are out 48:05 there but they can't affect us in our house. So he made a few 48:10 jokes about this at which point the two-year-old boy who was 48:16 sitting on his wife's lap was lifted up into the air and 48:18 carried into the kitchen and dropped into a pot of boiling 48:21 water and it caused major damage to the skin on his leg. 48:25 The scars are still there to this day. And the missionary 48:29 realized, Oh this is deadly serious because they can take 48:32 your children from your arms and put them in a pot. You know we 48:36 need to be buried in prayer to ask God to protect our families 48:39 here. And you know we worked with a lady in Guinea, West 48:43 Africa and she was Muslim and she didn't have a husband. She 48:48 was a young lady and one day a spirit materialized in front of 48:53 her and said I will be your husband and the deal is you'll 48:57 be faithful to me and I'll provide you all the money you 48:59 want. And he said name a price. So she gave the number of sefa, 49:03 that's local currency and the money materialized in the road 49:06 in front of her. So she became essentially married to this 49:09 spirit for about 10 years. And during that time the spirit 49:14 would regularly appear and beat her up anytime a man looked at 49:17 her, she was an unmarried young lady, he would beat her up. And 49:20 so in desperation she asked her mother and she said what do I 49:23 do about this and the mother. And the mother said well go to 49:26 the missionaries because Jesus has authority over spirits and 49:29 her mother was a Muslim. So they went to visit some AFM 49:33 missionaries who themselves were former Muslims and they gathered 49:36 the church members, they prayed and fasted for a week. They had 49:39 the teams of women praying and fasting around the clock. There 49:42 was a deliverance Sabbath. The spirit was rebuked and driven 49:45 out. And I happened to be visiting a few weeks later and 49:50 there was a baptism and the young lady was baptized and the 49:53 joy on her face at being free from a demonic husband for all 49:56 those years, that she is now the bride of Christ, free of the 50:00 spirit. (Glory, glory to God.) 50:02 Her mother said well if Jesus set my daughter free I will 50:05 follow Jesus as well. So we see these things all the time in the 50:08 mission field and it's just a blessing to see. 50:10 Amen, amen. I know that... first of all, once more let me 50:15 give you the resource. You can go to: SetFreeInChrist.org 50:23 and find resources how to put on the full armor of God, how to 50:30 fight off demons. But also you may want to invite...You go out 50:33 nearly every week, Dr. Vine. (Yes) And you may want to invite 50:37 Dr. Conrad Vine to your church to talk about this. We want to 50:42 put up an address roll so you'll know how to get in touch 50:45 with him. 50:47 If you would like to contact or know more about Adventist 50:52 Frontier Missions you can do so in the following ways: 50:55 You can write to them at 107 East Ferry Street, 50:59 P. O. Box 286, Berrien Springs MI 49103. You can call them at 51:06 (269) 473-4250 51:15 You can also visit their website at: afmonline.org 51:25 or send them an email at afm@afmonline.org |
Revised 2022-08-03