It Seems Every Family Has One – Part 2

NOTE: This is a continuation from the last post.

The scripture about Satan coming to “kill, steal and destroy” is well-known. Most of us can repeat it without thinking too much about what it really means. The order of this scripture is very important. Nothing in the Bible is an accident nor is it in there for literary effect. The order in the Bible matters. Kill comes first, then steal and then destroy. Why?

It’s hard to imagine what could top being killed. But spiritual death has to occur for Satan to have authority over you. Remember Jesus’ death on the cross was a literal death, but it also represented our release from a physical death. If you are a born again (saved) Christ follower, you have been freed from physical death. Your redemption means that while your physical body will decay and die, your spiritual body will continue to live forever with Jesus in Heaven. Satan cannot “kill” a saved Christian. If you aren’t saved, you won’t go to Heaven, no matter how “good” you are so get saved today. (See the extra section at the end of this article on how to do that)

Many people believe the wars and battles in the Bible are proof that God is an angry God. They believe God causes all sorts of bad things to happen. They believe God is waiting to punish them for the slightest mistake. When you live in fear of God, you can’t receive his love so you never see how much God loves you.

The wars outlined in the Bible were to chronicle history so no one would forget why things are the way they are today. The Jews were fighting wars against pagan cultures, who placed a low value on human life. (God places a high value on human life) Pagans were constantly at war with the Jews and each other. If you wrote down all the kings and battles, you’d see that they fight each other, then switch alliances, then fight their allies, then kill everybody they just fought, and so on. Without God’s love there is only strife.

There are times when God instructed the Jews to kill everyone, including women, children and their animals. This sounds horrible today, but when you realize the very bloodlines of the people the Jews were supposed to kill back then are the very ones who are attacking them today, it makes good sense. If the Jews had been obedient to God and wiped out their enemy, they would not be fighting them now.

This may sounds like overkill to you, but if you want to get rid of a cancer, you wipe out all cancer cells because if you don’t, it will return and destroy the whole living organism. You literally have to kill it all, every last bit of it. This is exactly what Hitler tried to do to the Jews. Ironically, Hitler was from one of those bloodlines the Jews were supposed to totally exterminate.

(Rabbi Daniel Lapin has a fabulous audio teaching on this called “Clash of Destinies” www.youneedarabbi.com)

These bloodlines were also the root of all the false teachings about God we see today. They made sacrifices to their pagan gods because they believed natural disasters were sent from God. They aren’t. All suffering is the work of the enemy (Satan). Satan literally will destroy everything in your life if you give him access to it. Satan takes from you in the area where you give him access. When the pagans worshipped false gods, they allowed the enemy to have unlimited access to this world.

Think about it this way. If you live in a really nice house with a fenced yard, but leave the gate open, stuff you don’t want will wander into your yard. That is what demons do. They see an open gate and they wander in. At first you may get a stray or two, but if that gate is always open, eventually your yard is full of stray cats, rats, juvenile deliquents, trash, vagrants, criminals, etc. At some point those nasty things in your yard decide they want into your house too. So what do they do, they wait for you to open the door and then they rush in. They eat your food, sit on your nice sofa, track their filth around, use your bathroom and eventually start sleeping in bed with you.

Demons turn your nice clean house (life) into a disgusting place you don’t want to live in either. Only you have to live there because God gave you one house (body). By not being vigilant, you allowed all sorts of nasty things into your life. Once your house gets disgusting, you stop taking care of it too. You let it run down and you start inviting other nasty things in because what the heck, it’s already trashed. This is why people who start out enjoying a beer or two on the weekend soon become alcoholics and then move onto other destructive behaviors – drugs, prostitution, stealing, etc.

You cannot allow a small thing to open that gate to sin. The good news is if you’ll let God in, He will make your house new again. That’s what being born again means. You literally get a second chance at life. Accept Jesus as your personal savior and Jesus sends a cleaning crew to your life and spit shines it for you. But you have to keep the gate closed to sin so your life doesn’t get trashed again!

Let’s look at the second thing Satan does. Satan comes to steal. Remember first Satan comes to kill. So Satan first killed your spirit so you won’t listen to God anymore. The enemy convinces you that God doesn’t love you or care about you. He does it using problems, condemnation and judgment usually coming from other “killed” people in your life. You blame God for everything bad happening to you because you don’t know Satan is the destroyer, not God. So you’re spiritually dead and you are dog tired from all the problems you have.

So Satan steals your joy, your happiness, your love, your grace, your money, your relationships and your purpose. You aren’t listening to God anymore so God can’t even help you figure out how to fight back. So you literally are impoverished in every way because Satan has taken everything valuable that God freely gave you the day you were born.

All this happened because you believed Satan when he told you the lies that turned you away from God. Unfortunately, most of Satan’s lies come out of the mouths of other people. Maybe when you were a child your parents, teachers or peers said or did things to make you dislike yourself. Or someone judged you harshly and made you doubt God’s love for you. Those people were spiritually dead (and unfortunately that includes some people at church, including some pastors). They were dead and probably had most of their gifts from God stolen by Satan already. They lived in a destroyed house but didn’t want to live there alone, so they tried to make you move in with them. Once you moved in, you started pulling others in with you, didn’t you? You became the very person who first destroyed you. Abusers were first abused. The very thing that brought you such pain is what you become too.

You didn’t know you shouldn’t have listened to those spiritually dead people. How could you know? But you know now. Think about every person who ever told you a lie about God’s character and reverse it. God’s character is pretty easy to understand. God IS love. He is the very essence of love. God loves you no matter what and would never do anything to hurt you. So if it hurts or makes you feel bad, it’s a lie of Satan. Reverse it.

It’s pretty easy to reverse the lies of the enemy. For example you would say, “When my third grader teacher said I was bad at spelling, she was a liar, and I reverse that right now in the name of Jesus. I always spell words correctly because God gave me a sound mind. It says [find the appropriate Biblical verse to prove the lie is wrong and quote it here]. I am smart because God said so and he never lies.”

Continue to reverse any lie Satan brings to you. You do not have to accept the lies of the enemy. If a thought comes in your head that is condemning or judgmental, immediately say, “I refuse to accept that. God says I am beautifully and wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139:14) This little truth will change your life!

So now you have all three characteristics of Satan. He’ll kill you. He’ll steal from you. He’ll destroy you. But it’s all based on lies and he only has access to do these things if you allow it. Don’t allow it.

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Jeremiah 15:2-3 (NIV)

And if they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ tell them, ‘This is what the Lord says: “Those destined for death, to death; those for the sword, to the sword; those for starvation, to starvation; those for captivity, to captivity. I will send four kinds of destroyers [demons] against them,” declares the Lord, “the sword to kill and the dogs to drag away and the birds and the wild animals to devour and destroy.”

Third Grader Translation: Some will die from stupidity, some will not. Don’t listen to Satan.    

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HOW TO GET SAVED: 

You don’t have to be “good” to get saved. You just have to believe that Jesus is good enough for both of you. And trust me, he is. Say this prayer out loud and believe Jesus can do what he says he can do:

“God, I’m tired of trying to do everything myself. I’m messing it all up. I want Jesus to run my life from now on. Jesus, I make you my Lord and Savior, and ask that you come into my heart today. Amen.”

That’s it. You may not feel like anything happened but it did. God and the angels are dancing for joy over your decision. Soon you’ll notice you have a peace you never had before and others will see it too. Read the Bible and find a Bible-based church to help you learn more about Jesus.

Tell Satan to Take Off

I promised in my last post to tell you how to deal with demonic oppression. So here it is – tell Satan to take off. Of course, this advice only works for Christians, the rest of you are on your own.

The Bible doesn’t say you have to be a strong or mighty warrior to fight demons, it says, “resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) Resist. That’s it. Resistance simply means you push back.

You resist by taking your eyes off who or what is attacking you and you plant them on Jesus. You use Jesus’ words from the Bible as your sword.

My favorite demon slaying words are: “No weapon formed against you shall prosper. And every tongue which rises against you in judgment you [God] shall condemn.” (Isaiah 54:17)

Basically, no matter what the devil throws at you (the weapon), it won’t gain a foothold in your life if resist it. If you are vulnerable to porn on the Internet, you “resist” it by staying off the Internet. If you’re really weak, disconnect your computer completely from the Internet or put the computer on your kitchen table so your entire family can see what you’re doing.

You don’t resist by just praying for strength. Resistance requires some action on your part to work. If you’re a liar, you resist by immediately telling the person you just lied to that you misspoke and you’re sorry. Eventually, Satan stops using lying to keep you in a guilt state because you will at some point be able to honestly say you just told a lie with no shame.  Sounds crazy but it works.

If you give the “weapon” any power, it will grow stronger and you will reach a point where you can’t fight it alone. You give a weapon power by believing the lies of the devil instead of what God says in the Bible. The devil can’t do anything to you unless you agree to it. So don’t agree. Resist.

Worry also gives a demonic weapon power. I’m not saying ignore problems; I’m saying look for the answer and stop worrying about the problem or who is at fault. Read the Bible to find out what Jesus says about what’s happening to you. Remember the answer doesn’t come from you, it always comes from Jesus.

A weapon gets power when you hide it from others too. If there is anything in your life you can’t do in front of your spouse, mother, father, pastor or boss, you’ve got a secret you need to drag out for everyone to see. Again, it’s ironic that the very thing we hide makes us sicker but when we share it with everyone, it heals us. If you have no secrets then the devil has nothing to blackmail you with.

Think of Satan as a mosquito flying around your head; the longer he is around you, the more likely he is to bite you and make an irritation in your life. If you don’t smack him the minute he shows up, he will bite you over and over again until your whole life is an irritation.

When the devil came around Jesus, Jesus told him – “get behind me Satan.” (Matthew 16:23) Satan is in your way. He is blocking you from what God has for you. Tell him to move. Tell him to take off. Tell him he has no authority over you. Tell him you won’t receive what he is bringing. Demons have to obey Jesus. And you, because Jesus gave you authority over ALL things on the earth, including Satan and his demons. You just have to speak in Jesus’ name and the demon will flee.

When I first heard how simple this was I thought, “That’s crazy! These people are nasty, vicious and crazy and all I have to do is tell them to leave?”

About two years ago, I had run-ins with crazy people day after day. These people literally seemed to be everywhere I went. I got upset by these seemingly random attacks so I would yell back. This happened for months on end.

One day I was talking with a friend when this woman locked her eyes on me like a heat-seeking missile. She didn’t even notice my friend. She came right to me and screamed in my face. I yelled back that she was a psycho and needed some serious help. My friend and I walked away. She hurried after us. Then I remembered that simple advice. I told her to stop where she was, she had no authority over me, she was forbidden to come any closer and she had to be quiet in Jesus’ name.

She stopped. Her mouth fell silent. I walked towards her and she backed up. I stood my ground for the next five minutes while she stood there in total silence. I relished the amazing power Jesus has given us over those who are operating under demonic oppression. Right after this happened, the crazies stopped coming. Resist the devil and he will flee.

I know it’s difficult in a work situation to do what I did because others are watching you and let’s face it, it’s kind of weird to watch if you don’t understand it. My friend was a little rattled that I could take a step towards this woman and she would take a step back. That distance between us remained the same no matter what I did because I forbid the demon from coming closer!

At work, try going to your co-worker’s workspace when no one is there and touch something they touch (chair or keyboard), and simply say, “By the authority given to me by Jesus Christ, I speak to the demon living in [co-worker’s name]. You have no authority over me and from this point on you will not be able to speak anything untrue about me [or whatever outcome you want].” That should do it.

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READ: Luke 4:33-36

Once when he [Jesus] was in the synagogue, a man possessed by a demon—an evil spirit—began shouting at Jesus, “Go away! Why are you interfering with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

Jesus cut him short. “Be quiet! Come out of the man,” he ordered. At that, the demon threw the man to the floor as the crowd watched; then it came out of him without hurting him further.

Amazed, the people exclaimed, “What authority and power this man’s words possess! Even evil spirits obey him, and they flee at his command!”

Third Grader Translation: Tell the devil to be quiet then go have fun with Jesus.

We Cannot Coexist

I get irritated every time I see a “coexist” bumper sticker on someone’s car or cubicle wall. I want to follow them to wherever they are going and talk with them about it. I want to tell them that it is not possible to “coexist” the way this bumper sticker is proposing.

On its face, this sounds intolerant but it’s biblical. God promised Abraham that he and Sarah would have a child. Sarah was already well up in age, 90 years old. Sarah figured men can father children in their twilight years but women can’t. So Sarah told Abraham to sleep with Hagar, her servant. Abraham obliged Sarah, and Hagar became pregnant with Ishmael. With his birth, he started a race of people who were born in sin and bondage. Sleeping with Hagar was a sin, and she was in bondage so her son was also born into bondage. Eventually Sarah became pregnant with Isaac (who was the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham) and the descendants of Isaac had God’s blessing on them.

Ever since Ishmael and Isaac, the two peoples did not get along. It’s biblical. Ishmael’s descendants are the Muslims and Isaac’s are the Jews. Every other group of people who existed at the time of Abraham was not in covenant with God, so by default they also were in opposition to God.

Some of the worse disobedience by the Jews in the Bible involved wars between the Israelites (Jews) and these “leftover” people. God told the Jews to kill the people occupying their land, including all their women and children, and even their livestock. But the Jews spared the women and married them, or made slaves of them. The Jews disobedience allowed those who would later persecute and kill the Jews to survive.

Basically, Ishmael and all his descendents should not even exist! Luckily, everyone including Ishmael’s descendents can be “adopted” into Isaac’s family through the New Covenant with Jesus (Christians). So Jews and Christians can “coexist” under God’s covenants, but cannot “coexist” with people who will not enter into a covenant with the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob (but not Ishmael).

As Christians (and Jews) we are to spread the Good News to anyone who wants to “exist” instead of just “coexist”. The Good News is the news about Jesus. This isn’t to piss people of other faiths off, it’s to save them from eternal damnation. It’s to bring them into covenant with God.

Anyone practicing another religion is already seeking God, so doesn’t it make sense to point them in the right direction. If you saw someone heading down a dark road that you knew turned into a rutted muddy road that ended at a sheer cliff that plunged into a bottomless abyss, wouldn’t you stop them? Wouldn’t you turn them around and put them on the right road? If you love other people you will. Stop being afraid and start speaking truth to the lost.

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READ: 2 Corinthians 3:14

But the people’s mind were hardened, and even to this day whenever the old covenant is being read, a veil covers their minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed only by believing in Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:2-3

I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.

Third grader translation: People who don’t know Jesus, will never meet God.

If It is a Cult Call It One

Mormonism is a cult. Lots of people have said this in the past. Mormons have been driven out of several towns and states over the years for their questionable “religious” practices.

Pastor Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, has publicly said it’s a cult. Unfortunately, he said it after an event where presidential hopeful, Governor Rick Perry was speaking. So now everyone thinks Rick Perry said it to or about Mitt Romney. No matter how you feel about Perry, as a man or candidate, it stinks to have someone accuse you of saying something you didn’t say. But I digress.

So what exactly is a cult?

Basically a cult has lots of rituals and secrets. The Mormon faith has secret rituals not open to the casual visitor to their churches. Most people think cults are people in bed sheets with long unkempt hair begging on the streets, or groups of poison Kool-Aid drinking campers in some remote area, or a bunch of dirty old men forcing little girls to have sex with them in the name of God. Those are cults but they are the extreme variety. Several large religious affiliations are cult-like, if not outright cults. The Catholic Church also has lots of rituals and secret societies.

Any religion or faith practice that requires you to do things to win over God or gain his favor, is a cult. God sent Jesus to remove the curse of sin. Once you accept Jesus as your savior, Jesus takes your sins onto himself. You don’t have to do any kind of ritual to please God after that. He’s well pleased when you accept his son, Jesus. God wants you to stop sinning but if you mess up again you don’t have to perform like a circus monkey for Him to love you!

The Bible never says you have to confess your sins to another person, like the Catholics require. The Bible says to repent of your sins to God – which means you vow to stop sinning and work hard at not doing it again.

Confessing your sins makes you conscious of what a bad person you are because you have to list off your bad-ness all the time. Confessing sin actually makes you sin more because you realize how futile it is and that you’ll never measure up, so why try. If you’ve ever thought, “this is just the way I am,” or “I was born like this,” you are sin conscious. (Obviously Lady Gaga is sin conscious) The devil makes you sin conscious because if you feel dirty enough, you’ll never see how much God loves you.

The Bible says Jesus came to redeem us from “the law.” In ancient days, that “law” was all the stuff at the front half of your Bible. You know those chapters that make you sleepy with the lists and lists and lists of things you have to do or cannot do. The law was to make you aware of how much you sin. Jesus came to make you aware of how much God loves you.

If you’re in a sin conscious religion (Catholic, Mormon, Jehovah Witness, etc.) you need to ask yourself if you keep all of those rules, because if you can’t, you aren’t living to the law. That means, God is going to do to you what he did to the ancients who disobeyed the law. That’s right, kill you. God handed all the rules down to make you aware that you can’t navigate sin without him. He doesn’t want to kill you. Get out of these sin-conscious cult-like churches now. Find a full gospel, Bible-based church, and stop feeling “bad” all the time.

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READ: 2 Corinthians 3:6 (GNT)

It is he who made us capable of serving the new covenant, which consists not of a written law but of the Spirit. The written law brings death, but the Spirit gives life.

Third Grader Translation: When you live with lots of rules, it kills you. With God, you can make mistakes and still be alive.