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