Spiritual Warfare 1 - Introduction

Spiritual Warfare 1 - Introduction

Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we know that it is your will for us to live in continual victory in our own lives and wherever we contact the lives of others, it is your will for us to bring victory there. We know Lord that we are under the great original commission to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and to spread the order of the Garden of Eden throughout the universe. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you have given us all the power and equipment that is necessary for that task. We thank you Lord, that this is the real answer to the world, not the governments, or the police forces, or even the United Nations, but a body of people who walk out in your purity and in your power and bring your peace and order to the world.

So we thank you Lord, that you have committed to us a certain part of the world and you have committed to us the task of bringing Eden and its order into our homes, and into our apartments, and into our dormitories, and here this morning. Lord that for that we need your power, for our antagonist is one who is stronger than we are, but one who has already been defeated by you and is therefore in a sense weaker than we are. We thank you for this. We trust you to lead us this morning so that you will be glorified in our lives. Amen.

Maybe it is good brothers and sisters to make it clear this morning before we get into the meat of the subject, that with so many of you new in the seminar today, it’s good for me to say again that if you have not been crucified with Christ, you’re going to have trouble with Satan from inside you just because you want to go his way, and so all the spiritual warfare in the world will never overcome that. What is needed is an absolute submission to God’s will for your life.

Now do you see what I’m pushing you on? That some of us have not really come to the place where we are willing to live for the glory of Jesus alone. We’re sort of in that half and half position where we have a ticket into heaven and we believe that he’s died for the forgiveness of our sins but we have never really entered into the reality that we have died with him and therefore many of us are very much alive to self and very much alive to the demands of self and therefore, we have envy, and jealousy, and pride coming from inside us.

Now loved ones, that’s not what we’re talking about in this seminar, that’s what John’s talking about in the seminar in the other room. And it’s vital I think, to see that we need to enter into a revelation of victory within, before we can begin to war against Satan on the outside. Now if you say, “Brother do you mean that we have to come to an absolute victory there before we can engage in spiritual warfare?” Loved ones, it seems to me we have to come to at least an initial revelation that we’ve been crucified with Christ.

At least the Holy Spirit needs to have dealt with us on some areas of our self-life. And if you say to me, “Does that mean then you never die to anything after that?” No, you do, but what I’m talking about is the initial business of dealing with these things within and if you haven’t dealt with the enemy within, you’ll never be able to deal with the enemy without. It’s hopeless. It’s like a boat filled with water; you’re trying to bail the water out, and it’s just pouring in through a hole. You’re trying to bail it out, and there’s no dry area anywhere and there’s water around you, and water inside, water everywhere.

Now, that’s the situation if you haven’t come into a place where you’ve agreed that you were crucified with Jesus and that you therefore have no rights to your own life and you have no right to defend yourself and assert yourself, and to have pride, and envy, and jealousy. Now, if you don’t come into that and aren’t filled with the Holy Spirit and anointed with him for power, then do you see that this is dangerous stuff that we share this morning? And it is really, its dangerous stuff if you’re not in a position where you’re crucified with Christ and live in the ascended position with him. Then what we’re going to discuss this morning will be theoretical and academic and can be dangerous if you try to involve yourself in it in a naïve way.

Now, could I pause there and give you an opportunity to clarify that issue before we go any further because I think it is important. And by all means, if you don’t want to ask any questions that’s good, but I think its good to pause because it is so important and I’ll gladly clarify further what I mean.

[Question inaudible 4:54]

It seems to me you don’t know it because you never sin, but you know it because there’s an absence of that resistance to God’s will as he shows it to you. In other words, God may bring home to you, “You were a bit harsh in your speech there.” And instead of the self-rising up and saying, “Well no, I wasn’t. I was justified in it.” There’ll be a gentle contrite heart. In other words you have a penitent heart, it seems to me. A soft, contrite, and penitent heart, a freedom from having to defend yourself or to try and prove that you were right, anyway, it seems to me that’s it. And that’s what we’ve found over questions of relationships of all kinds. Men/women relationships, relationships with our parents, it seems to me the proof of a heart that has taken it’s position on the cross with Jesus is not that it never fails, or that it never sins but that there is a penitent softness underneath which really results in a life of virtually complete victory, to tell you the truth. It does result virtually in that position of “whosoever is born of God does not commit sin.” But the big mark is not that you don’t commit sin but that it’s that softness and contrite heart and a lack of resistance to God’s will when he shows you new things.

Do push me brothers and sisters if you’re sitting there thinking, “Well, I think I understand him, but I’m not sure.” Then push me.

What many of us have found is after we come into peace in our own lives, and a complete quietness and a victory, we’ve found that in other people’s lives Satan is roaring about like a lion and that again and again when we come into situations we’re really fighting Satan. We come into situations in the home where there is just a desperate pettiness that has got hold of the whole home. Our mother and father are concerned with silly little things, and we’re all jarring against each other, and we’re straining against each other, and we come into victory and before you know it, after an hour there you’re ready to burst out and leave them.

Now, that is because Satan is getting a hold, partly in your own relationship with your parents, and partly on the home itself. Or you come into a lecture theater and some boy flashes off with the evolutionary theory and the whole class goes one way and laugh at Adam and Eve, laugh at Christianity, laugh at the whole thing, and he’s playing to the gallery and the things rocking, and everybody’s moving together. That’s Satan, you see; where you come into an atmosphere where it’s just uncontrollable. It doesn’t matter what you say, there seems to be almost a force of antagonism to Jesus or to anything half sensible or plain or simple, and that’s Satan. That’s Satan working against the whole situation.

Many of us find it in school where something happens and there’s restlessness comes in the class and they going in 30 different directions. Now, that’s Satan you see; wherever there is unrest, wherever there is disorder, wherever there is lack of harmony, wherever there is lack of sensitivity and softness towards Jesus that is Satan operating. Our mistake is we get hold of the mother and father and we try to psychoanalyze them and help them out of their problems, and show them how silly they are being, how immature they are compared with us bright people. Or we get into the classroom and we try to hold them down by sheer force of discipline, or we try to operate purely on our own level as if we were fighting against flesh and blood.

Now, that’s what the seminar was about. We are not fighting against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and the thing is if you want to plunder a man’s goods the thing is to bind a strong man, Jesus said. In order to plunder a man’s goods you bind the strong man who owns the house and then you go in and you just lift out his goods; you lift out the things that he possesses. Now it’s so with Satan. The thing is to learn how to come against Satan, how to discern Satan, how to bind him in the name of Jesus and then you see that there comes a gentleness in the home, and a gentleness in the school, and people are manageable. Do you see that all you’re doing is setting them loose from Satan? You’re not bringing them to Jesus, all you’re doing is setting them loose from Satan so that at least you can deal with them, and their wills are fairly free of Satan’s oppression so they’re at last free to decide for Jesus or against him. But I think it’s important to see that’s all you do. After Jesus had dealt with the man who was cutting himself with stones, the person still had to deal with Jesus. All Jesus did was bind Satan who was making him incapable of dealing with Jesus himself at all. So that’s the kind of thing we’re talking about.

What we mentioned last time is that we’re using this book Spiritual Warfare by Michael Harper. Harper is an Englishman, ex Cambridge, ex Church of England, and ex associate of John Stott, and now is secretary of The Fountain Trust which specializes in the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit throughout the churches in the world. We dealt last time with Harper’s statement that there was a real reason why God at times told the Israelites to destroy everybody – to destroy the lot. At one time he told Saul, “Destroy everybody. Destroy every man, woman, and child of your enemies. Destroy the capitol. Don’t take anything for yourself.” And many of us, at least I in my liberal days, certainly thought, “Well, that is a mistake. Obviously, God did not really say that. Obviously, that’s a mistake by those people who thought God was thinking that.” And many of us get into all kinds of difficulties and contortions trying to explain that kind of passage away.

Harper says the reason God did this at times was that what he opposed in the people who possessed the land of Canaan was not just that they were of a different name to the Israelites, but that they were worshipping gods that were no gods. That these people were bound to the elemental spirits of the universe, that they were worshipping demons and that they themselves were filled and possessed by demons. This is why again and again God wanted to clear them out of the land of Canaan and again and again he told the Israelites to destroy them utterly, because, there comes a time when Satan can get such a possession of willing servants that there’s nothing to do but to destroy them in order to destroy him. That was obviously in those days before the fullness of the Holy Spirit was given, and obviously we’re in a different situation today, so don’t shoot anybody to get rid of Satan now, we don’t need to.

But in those days God called the Israelites to destroy utterly because Satan can get such a hold of a person and so possessed of a person that you cannot distinguish them. So it would be difficult for many of us to look at (Charles) Manson who carried out the (Sharon) Tate murder and distinguish clearly where Satan ended and Manson began. It seemed that the man was utterly under the control of satanic influences. It seems that the girls, even throughout the trial, if you watched them, it seemed they had fixed eyes. It seemed they had no right to their own beings, they were not in control of themselves, and they seemed to be possessed by some other power. That’s about where we ended last time.

I’ll read a little of the very last chapter, “Thus we see in the Old Testament that there are very clear lines of demarcation between the real and the counterfeit. Penalties are sterner in this field than almost any other. Both spiritualism and adultery are punishable by death.” And it’s strange that we think in these days, “Adultery is bad, or sexual promiscuity is bad, or greed is bad but the occult, the Ouija boards, they’re just little errors aren’t they? They’re just little deviations from the norm.” But do you see that God regards them as being as bad, and indeed, he would see them as worse than the other sins because it is worshiping his spiritual antagonist in the world.

“Both spiritualism and adultery are punishable by death.” God knew that the invasion of spiritualism and the breakdown of morals were two of the greatest dangers facing Israel. The full impact of this has in one way been lost by the translators of the authorized version using the words witch or witchcraft to describe what should really be translated sorcery which is a loaded word that means literally “one who knows”, or in other words a diviner. But it conjures up pictures of the hags in Macbeth stirring up their pot, or the equally malevolent creation of Walt Disney in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves who has frightened succeeding generations of children. Such witches originated probably in the rather overactive imagination of those living in Medieval times. The Bible is not primarily thinking of such people, whether they really ever existed or not.” I mean, some people have obviously been on TV and claimed to be witches so obviously some people do really feel they exist and that they are a witch.

“It is referring to people however,” this is the important thing, “It is referring to people of whom there are far too many today who imagine they can break God’s laws with impunity and bypass the means of communication clearly laid down by God. Both in the old and the new covenants he has made it abundantly clear how he is to be approached, how his voice is to be heard, and how his will is to be known. The days of witchcraft and sorcery are not by any means over. In fact, there’s a revival of it throughout Europe but we are not to think in terms of old woman on broomsticks but rather something more sophisticated and therefore more deadly. We must now turn to discovering the remedy over the power of Satan and how God’s son came to triumph over these forces.”

I’d just mention for those of you who came for the first time today, that it is madness to have anything to do with fortune telling or astrology. Jesus said, “The Holy Spirit when he comes will lead you into all the truth and he will tell you the things that are to come.” Now loved ones that is God’s appointed way of telling you the future when he wants you to know it, if you want to try to find the future from the other elemental spirits of the universe, you begin to entangle yourself directly in the power of Satan. And many of us have found with brothers and sisters who have willing submitted to Satan, that it is very, very hard to get them eventually out of his clutches.

So don’t engage in what appears to be innocent little things like Ouija boards or fortune telling, don’t play around with it. Jesus is not pleased with us trying to pretend that these things are unimportant or that they aren’t harmful. He has said again and again in his word that if you do that you’re in trouble as far as the spirits of the universe are concerned. You remember, Saul went to the witch at Endor and consulted her and said, “Will you call up Samuel?” She couldn’t call up anybody. They can’t call up people. They don’t contact the dead. What they do is contact evil spirits that imitate the dead. When she called up Samuel then she was suddenly amazed that Samuel appeared because God made Samuel alive just for that very purpose on that day and she was startled because they aren’t able to call up the dead you see. And séances, they don’t contact the dead; they contact evil spirits that imitate the dead and that’s really what you’re dealing with. But regarding the witch at Endor God clearly said Saul lost the kingdom because he consulted a fortune teller. Now, you will lose your own life if you begin to involve yourself in these things.

Maybe I should stop at that point just once more. Does anybody want to ask questions just about that area that we covered?

[Question inaudible 17:30] might be encouraging to see that the way God looked at it and they said, [inaudible 17:59]

I think Jim first of all, it is true that many people will not believe this because they do not believe Jesus and they do not accept his authority I think therefore it’s very important to see that if a person is poo-pooing the whole idea that you share with them, it’s very important that you see why they are. And if the dear souls don’t even believe in Jesus and don’t believe he’s God’s Son and therefore don’t accept his authority, then obviously they cannot accept the things that we say because we’re saying them on the basis of Jesus.

So I think that’s the first area to deal with: do they believe in Jesus? Because, even if you get them to stop having anything to do with these things, if they don’t believe in Jesus all you’ve done is share knowledge with them and they’ll eventually fall back into it. So I think the first thing is to decide why do they not accept what you’ve said? And if it’s in relationship to Jesus then obviously your first responsibility is to witness along the lines of the truth of Jesus, the empirical evidence for him, the kind of person he was and his resurrection.

Now after you’ve done that, then it seems to me Jim, you share Jesus’ own attitude to these things, and you share some of the New Testament passages, and you share the way he dealt with Satan whenever he came against him, “Get thee behind me Satan.” You share the way he dealt with the demoniacs that he came across, the way he didn’t fiddle around with them, he didn’t tape their voices, he didn’t ask them to hold conversations, he got rid of them right away. He had nothing to do with them. And then I think brother it is important to go through some of those verses and perhaps since we’re recording this class it’s good to look up some of the verses in the Old Testament where it’s stated clearly that these things are wrong.

You find them in Deuteronomy 32:17, in Psalms 106:37, in Deuteronomy 18:10-11, in Deuteronomy 18:12, Deuteronomy 18:15, 1 Chronicles 10:13, Leviticus 19:31, Leviticus 20:6, Leviticus 20:27, Exodus 22:18, 2 Kings 23:24, 2 Chronicles 3:6.

I know dear ones you’re not looking those up very fast this morning but it’s just if we have it on the cassette then you can look them up later. Also 1 Samuel 28, 1 Samuel 15:23, Ezekiel 21:21.

It seems Jim that it is vital for us to know some of those references and to be able to share with them, “Look, here it says that witchcraft is a sin and that God declares that all who involve themselves in necromancy, in trying to contact the dead, will be under condemnation of death themselves.” It seems to me that would be our approach. It seems brothers and sisters, that again in that kind of situation the only thing you can do is minister what the people are ready to receive. And of course, that’s then where prayer comes in because many of the dear souls are so under the deception of Satan that they will not see it. And what needs to be done is we need to learn how to take our stand in prayer against that and in authority over Satan to deliver them by prayer out of his clutches long enough for them to be able to see what is right. God will always give them that much deliverance.

It is always God’s will and responsibility, ever since the death of Jesus, to enable a person to see clearly the truth so that then they can reject it if they want. But we can trust God to do that if we learn to stand against Satan in prayer. Of course, that’s what we’re going onto now.

[Question inaudible 21:40] really seek the Lord in real discernment about the situation because just like so many things that are concrete we can’t use them all the time and especially in the times we’re involved in and the people we come into contact with it is so important we seek the Lord about how we would handle the situation because I think it’s going to be different in many situations and the Lord is going to have to deal with these people differently and so there’s a real need for seeking spiritual wisdom and knowledge from the Lord.

(Answer) Only the Holy Spirit can discern and tell us what stage they’re at, you know.

[Question inaudible 22:25]

That’s right. You remember, at the very beginning Harper said this; “Demonic agency has been attributed to every personal and public ill. If funds are not available it is blamed on demons. Heresy, especially the expression of teaching not hell by themselves is said to be of demonic origin. Sins of the flesh are due to demonic possession. If people are thought to be churchy then the fault lies in religious demons. These bizarre diagnostics have one infallible and inevitable cure for all ills, the casting out of demons. Of course, occasionally by shear process of elimination they are right and this only spears them on to further ministry. When there is failure little attempt is made to lay the blame with themselves.” He says, “The fruit unfortunately is often bitter not sweet and it all seems a far cry from the sane and balanced treatment of the subject in the New Testament.”

I think Jim that only the Holy Spirit can give us discernment as to whether this is a demon or whether it is a fact that the person has not died to self, has not been crucified with Christ, and doesn’t want to do what Jesus wants. And there in that way you’re trying to cast out an evil will and you can’t do that. Even God cannot deal with a person’s will; a person’s will is free completely to do what that person wants. And so I agree Jim, that discernment is needed so that we see Satan normally uses the selfish wills of people to frustrate God’s purposes and normally that’s enough. Normally so many of us have failed to enter into a deliverance from a selfish will that Satan can hold us back on that area alone. And it seems that when it’s demon and satanic activity that prevents the person doing what they really want, then the Holy Spirit is able to show us that clearly.

We talked a little about the signs but I think it’s always dangerous talking about physical signs. I think the big thing is that obviously Satan can oppress, and he can obsess, and he can possess and I think the Holy Spirit is able to give us indication of which it is. Many of us under heavy oppression have found that resisting Satan in Jesus’ name was effectual and lifted the burden off, whereas we could examine ourselves for weeks and we could not discover any sin. I think the situation always is, “Holy Spirit is there any disobedience in me?” And then you give the Holy Spirit time to reveal that. If there isn’t, then you resist Satan in Jesus’ name. Obsession it seems to me is where Satan obsesses the mind. Obsesses the mind with a thought so that he has it going back on that thought again and again, and again; that’s a question of resisting in Jesus’ name. Tonight I’ll try to talk a little more about how to have deliverance from a passive mind which is really the problem with obsession. And then possession is real possession where Satan has taken hold of a person’s spirit and has possessed them utterly. And there it normally is a case where a Christian has to deliver them. Normally a Christian is not possessed, cannot be possessed. You cannot be possessed by Satan if you’re possessed by Jesus, but that’s a case for real deliverance.

But loved ones, we should stay clear of that business of lifting up every stone and looking for a demon, that’s corny. Satan loves that, just to make fun of God’s children. You need discernment. Now, is there anything else along those lines? I know we have dealt with some of this before but is there anything else? In other words, you need discernment whether it is a demon or whether it is a person’s selfish will.

[Question inaudible 26:05]

That’s right. It seems to me Paul, that many Christians who are troubled with demonic activity have yielded ground to Satan in their minds. Now yielding ground is different than being utterly possessed by him. And I think many Christians – for instance, many have been filled with the Holy Spirit and have not dealt at all with what Leighton is dealing with in his class, or Roger normally deals with in the Release of the Spirit where you allow the Holy Spirit to control your mind, and your emotions, and your will. Many Christians have not gone on into that and that’s why they still have psychiatric and psychological problems; because they yield ground to Satan there and I think that that’s the difficulty.

But no, I think this business of Christians running around all the time wanting other people to deliver them – no. He who is born of God keepeth them himself so that the evil one toucheth them not. If we are in Jesus we have the authority and the power to cast out Satan from ourselves and to reject him. And it seems to me that’s the healthy position. That saves us from these so called deliverance meetings where you find Christians running around different meetings being delivered every week from something new. Well, that’s just playing with Satan you see, and eventually they’ll play themselves out of God’s fellowship.

[Question inaudible 27:33]

That’s right. You’re trying to cast out carnality and you can’t cast out carnality. If the person wants to be carnal, or wants to be religious, or thought well of by their friends in their church, you can’t cast it out.

Now brothers and sisters are we okay? It would be good to get onto deliverance. So maybe we’ll just take it step-by-step as Harper presents it.

“With that coming of Jesus Christ we see the perfect demonstration of what this book is all about, for he exposed the enemy and drew him into open conflict. Then he defeated him utterly and completely.” Now wherever Jesus came you see, he didn’t have to search for the demons and that’s why I think it’s foolish for us to go about this like, “I must keep an eye out for demons.” Or we think of someone and we begin to wonder, “Now I wonder, have they a demon?”

I think all you have to do is walk in Jesus fully, give him full sway in your life and the demons will expose themselves. It’ll be obvious. If you press the claims of Jesus in the right way people will expose demonic activity plainly, you see, and so it was with the dear one that Jane and Connie and I met two weeks ago. When you pressed her to the point, “Will you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and has risen from the dead because of this evidence that I’ve placed before you?” And she read Know Why You Believe by Paul Little and then I showed her the New Testament passages and showed her that there is more historical evidence for his resurrection and for him being the Son of God than not. And then she would squirm and cry and say, “No, no, I can’t. No, no, how can I? How can I? How can I tell a lie?” And it was as if she was in a grip of something other than herself.

Now if you press a person logically, I mean, its one thing to press them and not give them enough evidence, that’s silly. But if you give them the evidence and the facts and they say, “Yes, I think that’s true as far as I can see it.” And then they reject it then the demon begins to expose himself and you begin to see that there’s a power holding them back. So it’s important to see that if we’re walking in Jesus fully and freely ourselves, and if we have clean lives and victorious lives, and we’re sharing what he tells us with another person, then the demons will expose themselves as Jesus walks down the road inside us.

[Question inaudible 30:35]

Sister, I think over a period of time if one had had time to minister, you could. Because we didn’t have the resources and we didn’t have the situation here to minister, I sent her to a friend of mine across the city. That’s what I’ve tried to share here and this may be good for us all to understand: brothers and sisters there are times to minister and times when you’re not to minister and I think we better be wise as a young body and start being sensible about that and stop this purely human love that says, “Oh, let’s take on all comers.” If you take on all comers Satan will destroy you completely by sending you all kinds of types that you can’t deal with.

So I think there’s real wisdom required to know by the Holy Spirit, “Does the Father expect us to take on this ministry at this time?” Otherwise what I’ve seen happen is a young body can become utterly lopsided, the whole body can begin to deal with one case and of course, the work of God for the body then is left undone, the body moves into disobedience and everybody becomes preoccupied with Satan. So there’s wisdom required to know when you can minister and when you can’t and with other situations we have ministered directly to Satan where we’ve discerned that this was possible. But now there are certain situations when it’s wise to know when to back off.

Now if you say to me, “Brother would you ever back off without guiding the person to someone else?” Well, you’d attempt not to. You’d try not to, but you don’t let Satan run your life. You see, that is what was so subtle and satanic about the phrase that all we liberals were using some time ago. We were saying, “Let the world write the church’s program for it.” And that’s deceptive. I say we liberals because I was once a liberal and the liberal church was saying that, “Let the world write the churches program.” You let Satan write your program for you and he’ll destroy your life utterly, you see.

Jesus’ people are guided people, guided by the Spirit of Jesus, not guided by every need that crops up, otherwise Satan can keep you worn out fulfilling needs. But you’re guided by Jesus to meet the needs that he wants to meet. No, he didn’t heal everybody; at times he turned away and went into a mountain to pray. At times he had to get away, you see, and so there are times when you need to be guided by the mind of Jesus and know when to minister and when not.

[Question inaudible 33:21]I’ve been in situations and the Lord has taught me, sometimes the hard way, when you’re dealing with the enemy you’re incapable of handling it because you have spiritual ignorance and you’re not strong enough in him. And it’s really true the enemy is just so strong and if you’re not strong enough in Jesus he really will destroy you. And I think that if anybody will look around you can see faces of Christians this has happened to

Human love I think, so often guides us where it shouldn’t, it should be divine love.

You see somebody that is in need and you see that they’re in the power of the enemy and we want to reach out, touch them and maybe more often than not to start out with God is going to say, “Are you really trusting in me? Okay, I want you to sing them this song,” or, “I want you to do this or that.” And I think this is really going to be testing for the spirituality of a person, for all of us, you know, and I don’t think we should ever forget it. We really shouldn’t.

It seems to me we go by the intuition of our spirit. God said to Phillip, “Now you’re there in Samaria but go to a desert road that leads to Gaza,” and then he went, but he went guided not by the need which was less, it seemed to human eyes, on the desert road that leads to Gaza than in Samaria, but he went because Jesus’ Spirit guided him. Paul was about to go into Bithynia you remember, but the Spirit of Jesus would not let him so he didn’t go in.

It seems to me very often we are filled with human love and human sympathy and we want to help the person and often there’s a little of self in it. We don’t want to be shown up as being incapable of dealing with that situation. Or we want them to really be grateful to us for helping them, or we desperately want love ourselves and we want to draw their love to us. Do you see that all that is just sin and disobedience that will lead us into more trouble? There’s a Christlike love that is human, and warm, and empathetic, and it’s not a sort of spiritual cold, “Ah, I wish to help you brother. I wish to help you sister,” it is a warm thing, but it is guided by Jesus and it is discerning.

It’s also a discipline [inaudible 36:30] meeting a young man outside of the Campus Church one day, talking with a girl who had obviously been on drugs and I was rather impressed because this young man was saying, “It is wrong to take drugs. Your body is a temple to the Holy Spirit.” And he was not compromising [inaudible 36:49].

That’s right. It’s a love of truth before a love of our own reputation and even before a love of the body. It seems to me it is a misplaced love of the body that wants to get everybody in.

I’m not sure if some of the older Christians would have done it [inaudible 37:20] but love him [inaudible 37:24].

It seems to me, in order to continue to minister in that way we have to be dead all the time, even to what God is doing among us and dead especially to any names like Campus Church, or body, or anything like that, and be prepared for God to destroy the whole thing whenever he wants, but really to move on -- anxious to obey Jesus more than to get success, more than to minister success. Sister?

[Question inaudible 38:03] the difference that I make between [inaudible 38:21] and at first I was just so upset [inaudible 38:31] I shared Jesus with them, I didn’t feel drained. It wasn’t my love. I was very calm, I was very natural [inaudible 38:48] and I wasn’t drained. Afterwards I felt just the [inaudible 38:54]. It’s not my strength, it’s Jesus’ strength. I’m stronger for doing it because it’s not [inaudible 39:1].

In fact, what happens is as you go out to a need, the life of Jesus passing through you to the need strengthens you also and so if anything, you are exhilarated. Yet exhilarated in a spiritual way and not in a soulish manic way.

[Question inaudible 39:35] and I feel as though I’m in capable of dealing with [inaudible 40:13] situation at school or something where I see somebody fighting, or something like that, and I just watch [inaudible 40:24] and for that reason I wanted to experience [inaudible 40:40] by experiencing that I know [inaudible 40:50].

Here’s what Jesus showed me Dave, in my own life. Be content with what I have done in you and what I am bringing to you. Be content with that and don’t want to move into other things until I want you to move into them. You are right to take your stand, but you are quite right too to say, “Well Lord, whenever you want me to deal with these things I know I have my position in Jesus. I know that I’ll be able to minister and to war against Satan.” Satan would love to get in and say, “Really, to war against me you actually have to war. You have to know.” And he’s trying to say, “You better walk by sight. You better know this otherwise you can’t trust God to come up with it at the right moment.” And your answer is, “No, I’m in Jesus. The powers are available to me whenever I need them. I know that Jesus will tell me when to use them and until then I’m content.”

I agree Dave, if God had not saved me from some of this warfare I wouldn’t be here today. If he had not been kind and generous to me, and I was far older than you were and I was just a fool about these things, and Jesus was gracious and saved me from them, kept me from them. I think it’s good.

I just learned recently because it seems like there’s been a lot of people knocking on the door of this house that have been sent here by Satan, and I have [inaudible 42:15] because at one time I wanted to go in and fight spiritual warfare but I think the Lord didn’t want me to. So when I refused to go in and fight it I actually won victory over Satan by not letting him draw me into something [inaudible 42:30] I wasn’t supposed to be in that [inaudible 42:39].

And don’t you think too we’re getting into this whole area that we so easily fall back into as Paul said to the Galatians, “You began with faith and now you’re ending with works.” It’s so easy for us to fall back into a kind of legalism, a set of standards that says, “If you’re really a Christian who is being used by God you’ll be fighting this and you’ll be doing that.” I think we have to stay clear of standards and see that the body is beautiful because it is many limbed and many membered and that all the members are doing different things at different stages. I think there needs to be a real relaxation and an enjoying of Jesus where we are at instead of this, “Oh, I wish I was where he is” rather Lord Jesus, I’m glad I’m in you.” And this ties up with all these things even though we emphasize being filled with the Holy Spirit in order to make any sense of this seminar yet we’re not saying, “Everybody in the body has to be filled with the Holy Spirit.” That’s you. God will deal with you differently at different times and will bring you on in.

What we all have to be is be in Jesus and be anxious to obey him and submit to him. But I think it’s important to be clear of these layers that we get. Christian and Paul are from Bethany Fellowship and it took me a while to realize that – and maybe it’s true in Bethel (College) -- that in a Bible college or a Christian college you get this business of “spiritual giants” its like “we have spiritual giants” then I don’t know what the rest are, so you must have spiritual dwarves also! But we get so preoccupied, and that is of Satan. That is satanic. I know that would have driven me crazy if I had been interested in that kind of thing. Now don’t; you are in Jesus, you’re to please Jesus. We’re to take our eyes off each other and look to Jesus and do what he wants us to do and if we’re in him he’s the one we’re going to meet on judgment day, not all these other people. And what you often find is you’re far further on than you imagined they are, really.

It’s childish and it can be satanic if we all get preoccupied with we’re this or we’re that.

[Question inaudible 44:55]

That’s right. It equips you, and Dave, we have that already. You have that, you have that power. You are in Christ; you have the power to stand against Satan. That power will be made manifest, just by your faith, immediately as needed. So it’s not that we have to get something extra, all things are yours in Christ and God; the world and everything.

There needs to be a real freedom brothers and sisters. I’ll try to share about self-acceptance later, but there needs to be a real freedom among us about being satisfied to be where Jesus has put us.