Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Day 237 - Satan

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in My Weakness for His Strength (Vol. 1) - # 276
         
Michael’s book is available through:

ABIDING LIFE MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL
Littleton, Colorado
(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

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It seems like in every generation the church goes through changing emphases.  One minute in life it is evangelism.  The next generation it is humanitarianism.  The next generation it is _____________ (you name it).  But one emphasis that seems to never change is all the "talk" and "dealing" with the enemy. 

Michael emphasizes the Captain of the “home team.”  Well, He has taken us to victory!  We are the victors!  “Oh, victory in Jesus!” we love to sing…so why all the focus on the enemy?

Take note for yourself the many crucial points Michael makes that are very pertinent to us Believers’ daily lives.  Truth MAKES us free…not lies.



DAY 237

Satan

And the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall injure you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven. --Luke 10:17-20

The Epistles mention Satan only fifteen times, the whole of the Bible forty-seven times, and of that, fourteen are in the book of Job. In contrast, Jesus is mentioned 880 times and Christ 493 times. Elementary math reveals that Jesus is leading, thirty to one. How, then, has Satan become the focus of so many believers? Why has he been given equal billing and considered by many to have power equal to Christ’s? 

“Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory; and he said to Him, ‘All these things will I give You, if You fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Begone, Satan! For it is written, “YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY”’” (Matthew 4:8-10). Some of what the word “worship” means is “to give attention to.” The thing that we give attention to is actually the thing that we worship. It is frightening to find so many believers that worship Satan by giving him their undivided attention. When Satan is our focus, it is not unlike any other obsession: we will find him everywhere in everything.

In the early 1970’s a brand new emphasis entered the church scene; I say “brand new,” for aside from the fact that there are absolutely no Scriptures to back up the claim, Church history is also void of the emphasis. The new teaching was that Christians could be possessed by demons. In all of Paul’s dealings with troubled believers, not once did he even hint that the solution to their freedom rested in having demons cast out of them. In fact, that would be a basic contradiction to Paul’s making this point in I Corinthians 3:16: “Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and {that} the Spirit of God dwells in you?” “Temple” here refers to the Holy of Holies, where no evil can dwell. Faced with this theological problem, some Christians, still wanting to prove the point that we could have demons, restated “possession” to mean “oppression,” with yet a need for the casting out of demons in the body, though not the spirit. The result of this mindset is that Satan gets everyone’s attention and no one gets on with Christ; naturally, Satan would prefer that we busy ourselves casting him out instead of inviting Christ in.

I questioned a brother concerning this particular kind of “ministry.” If someone has a demon of lust that could be cast out, and then he finds himself lusting again, what is he to do? His response was, “Once the demon goes, he needs to abide; he is lusting again because he is not abiding in Christ.” I thought that rather interesting, for if in the end abiding in Christ keeps a fellow from lusting, why did he not just begin with abiding? Again, lesser truth always gives way to the greater.

In a meeting I was once asked a loaded question by a person who knew that several in the room were casting demons out of believers; what did I think of the practice? All I would say is, “There are a lot of waves that take us from shore.” He pressed me further, but I only repeated my answer, because indeed, this emphasis has been a wave that passes back and forth through congregations; if it were truth, it would become foundational, but it always seems to give way to the next wave, the next titillating catch phrase or notion to ripple through meetings. We are not disagreeing with the fact that there is activity from Satan; however, dealing judiciously with him merely involves lifting up Jesus! At the very same moment Christ is lifted up, Satan is renounced.

Yellow – VIP, Very Important Point      Green – IT, Incredible Truth        
Red – GP, Greatest Promises
Turquoise – UR, Unfathomable Riches           Pink – PV, Priceless Victory



I have found that everywhere I have preached many of the people have the problem Michael mentions in his first two questions: “How, then, has Satan become the focus of so many believers? Why has he been given equal billing and considered by many to have power equal to Christ’s?”  It is almost funny, except it makes me want to cry, to hear so many give the devil credit for all kinds of things…especially that he has made them do so much.  Why has the church not been made aware and alert to this sick thinking?  I believe I have yet made it to a prayer meeting without at least one person praying for deliverance from Satan and his power.  How sick is that?!? 

Nobody likes to talk about dispensations very much, but they are very real when it comes to looking at the different times on God’s calendar, and the different ways God interacts with His people.  But that is a discussion for another time, another place.

Yet, here we have the time of Jesus choosing 70 to go out to tell the multitudes about Jesus and His activity.  Jesus has endowed those He sent out with certain powers, and they come back to crow about what they were able to do…in His name.  And then Jesus makes an incredible statement that gets completely overlooked by those disciples, and most today: “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.”  Do you catch the “timing” and the impact that statement should have had right from the start of His ministry with His chosen disciples?  Does it give you any impetus in dealing with skeptics of Christ?

And then Jesus says, “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”  Wow!  That takes a lot of the fun, and “glory” they are feeling, right out of the situation.

What Jesus is telling them is just what Michael points us to in this day’s writing: “At the very same moment Christ is lifted up, Satan is renounced.”  Well, amen!  Enough said.

Rejoicing and speaking of our names being recorded in heaven should be on the tips of every Believer’s tongue all the time.  Carrying that into “witnessing” where some Unbelievers become Believers is the “all-time” greatest “lifting up of Christ.”  How has evangelism and “lifting up Christ” become an emphasis, instead of an entire life?




To access ALL past weekly blogs, go to Living Life With a Capital “C” by logging onto www .leemccm.blogspot.com 

NOTICE: another blog on Michael Wells’ book, Sidetracked In The Wilderness, called Getting Out of the Wilderness.  You can access by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com


Lee McDowell Christian Ministries
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