Recovered In Christ

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Monday, March 12th, 2012

Dear God,

Thank you that we are teachable, humble and open minded to the truth. Thank you for planting a seed in us to question and test things that otherwise we would be hopelessly blinded to. Thank you for providing us with wise Spirit-filled teachers who can shed light on some of the most important questions we’ve ever asked, such as: “What, then, is the condition of safety from the deception of evil  spirits?

(1) Knowledge that they exist; (2) that they can deceive the  most honest believers (Gal. 2: 11-16); (3) an understanding of the conditions  and ground necessary for their working, so as to give them no place, and no  opportunity of working; and, lastly, (4) intelligent knowledge of God, and how  to co-operate with Him in the power of the Holy Spirit. To make these points  clear will be our purpose in succeeding pages.”

Thank you for using this woman to deliver a message that we desperately need to know. Amen.

War On The Saints; Chapter 1: continued:

THE SATANIC FORCES DESCRIBED IN EPHES. 6

Demoniacal “doctrines” have been generally tabulated as either belonging to the Church of Rome, because of the two marked results of demon teaching mentioned by Paul, which characterise that Church; or later “cults” of the twentieth century, with their omission of the fact of sin, and the need of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, and a Divine Saviour. But there is a vast realm of doctrinal deception by deceiving spirits, penetrating, and interpenetrating Evangelical Christendom, by which evil spirits, in more or less degree, influence the lives even of Christian men, and bring them under their power; even spiritual Christians being thus affected on the plane described by the Apostle, where believers united to the Risen Christ meet “spiritual wickedness” in “heavenly places.” For the Satanic forces described in Eph. 6: 12, are shown to be divided into (1) “Principalities“–force and dominion dealing with nations and governments; (2) “Powers“–having authority and power of action in all the spheres open to them; (3) “ World- rulers“–governing the darkness, and blindness of the world at large; (4) “Wicked spirits” in the heavenly places–their forces being directed in, and upon the Church of Jesus Christ, in “wiles,” “fiery darts,” onslaughts, and every conceivable deception over “doctrines” which they are capable of planning.

The peril of the household of God is therefore not of a few, but all, for obviously none can “fall away from the faith” but those who are actually in the faith to begin with. The peril is from an army of teaching spirits poured forth by Satan upon all who would be open to “teachings” from the spiritual world, and through ignorance of such a danger, be unable to detect the wiles of the enemy.

The peril assails the Church from the supernatural world, and comes from supernatural spirit-beings who are persons (Mark 1: 25) with intelligent power of planning (Matt. 12: 44, 45), with strategy (Eph. 6: 11) the deception of those who “give heed” to them.

The peril is supernatural. And those who are in peril are the spiritual children of God; who are not to be beguiled by the world or the flesh, but who are open to all they can learn of “spiritual” things, with sincere longing to be more “spiritual” and more advanced in the knowledge of God. For deception by doctrines would not concern the world so much as the Church. Evil spirits would not urge spiritual Christians to open sin, such as murder, drink, gambling, etc., but would plan deception in the form of “teaching” and “doctrines,” the believer not knowing that deception on “teaching” and “doctrines” gives admission to evil spirits to “possess” the deceived one, as much as through sin.

HOW THE EVIL SPIRITS DECEIVE BY “DOCTRINES”

How the evil spirits as teachers get men to receive their teachings, may be summed up in three specific ways: (1) By giving their doctrines, or teachings, as spiritual revelations, to those who accept everything supernatural as Divine because [it is] supernatural–a certain class unaccustomed to the spiritual realm, accepting all that is “supernatural” as from God. This form of “teaching” is direct to the person; in “flashes” of light on a text, “revelations” by visions of Christ, or streams of texts apparently from the Holy Spirit. (2) By mixing their “teachings” with the man’s own reasonings, so that he thinks he has come to his own conclusions. The teachings of the deceiving spirits in this form are so natural in appearance, that they seem to come from the man himself, as the fruit of his own mind, and reasoning. They counterfeit the working of the human brain, and inject thoughts and suggestions into the human mind; for they can directly communicate with the mind, apart from gaining possession (in any degree) of the mind or body.

Those who are thus deceived, believe that they have come to their own conclusions, by their own reasonings, ignorant that the deceiving spirits have incited them to “reason” without sufficient data, or on a wrong premise, and thus come to false conclusions. The teaching spirit has achieved his own end by putting a lie in the man’s mind, through the instrumentality of a false reasoning.

(3) By the indirect means of deceived human teachers, supposed to be conveying undiluted Divine “truth,” and implicitly believed because of a godly life and character, believers saying, “He is a good man, and a holy man, and I believe him.” The life of the man is taken as a sufficient guarantee for his teaching, instead of judging the “ teaching” by the Scriptures, apart from his personal character. This has its foundation in the prevalent idea that everything that Satan and his evil spirits do is manifestly evil, the truth not being realized that they work under cover of light (2 Cor. 11: 14), i.e., if they can get a “good man” to accept some idea from them, and pass it on as “truth,” he is a better instrument for deceptive purposes than a bad man who would not be believed.

FALSE AND DECEIVED TEACHERS

There is a difference between “false” teachers, and deceived ones. There are many deceived ones amongst the most devoted teachers to-day, because they do not recognize that an army of teaching spirits have come forth to deceive the people of God, and that the special peril of the spiritual section of the Church lies in the supernatural realm, from whence the deceiving spirits with “teachings” are whispering their lies to all who are “spiritual,” i.e., open to spiritual things. The “teaching spirits” with “doctrines” will make special effort to deceive those who have to transmit “doctrine,” and seek to mingle their “teachings” with truth, so as to get them accepted. Every believer must test all teachers to-day, for himself, by the Word of God, and their attitude to the atoning Cross of Christ, and other fundamental truths of the gospel, and not be misled into testing “teaching” by the character of the teacher. Good men can be deceived, and Satan needs good men to float his lies under the guise of truth. – Jessie Penn-Lewis