Don't Even Go There

"There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord". (Dueteronomy 18: 10-13)

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The last Harry Potter book has finally arrived, prefaced by weeks of speculation as to the fate of the young wizard, with last minute shots of anxious young kids and adults dressed as characters from the series, waiting at midnight at Barnes and Nobles, to satisfy this particular fantasy addiction. Part of the devoted newsprint was an article by a local minister, who applauds the positive messages of friendship, devotion and sacrifice, enabling good to triumph over evil. She freely admits to mining this potter's field for sermon illustrations. It seems somewhat ironic to me that in doing so she ignores the warnings that the Holy Spirit gives us through holy scripture about being deceived by anything connected with the occult.

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God hates those things, and the reason He hates them is because association with them always leads people away from God and toward bondage, fear, sickness, and sometimes even death. They are connected to the world of the evil one and are accompanied by evil spirits, yet are never advertised as such. There is a spiritual war going on that involves and impacts every living person. The main weapon for the enemy in this war is deception. He has established strongholds and maintains certain territorial rights. When we venture without protection into his strongholds or territory, it gives him what I like to call a legal right to oppress us. I am a mature Christian, and put on the armor of Ephesians 6:12 daily, yet the Holy Spirit tells me to advoid those strongholds and territories. And if they are dangereous for me, why would I want my children or grandchildren exposed to them?

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After becoming a believing Christian and being filled with the Holy Spirit, I began to gradually grow in spiritual maturity as led by the Spirit. Along the way God would show me things, and I would have to make decisions as to how I would respond to those revelations. One day the Spirit put it in my mind to examine the music I listened to. So I decided it would be a good idea to toss out everything that sang about sex, drugs, eastern religion or the occult, thinking that a few albums might have to go. As I began to look over the song titles it occured to me that maybe the only thing to remain of my collection would be the Christmas albums. Ninety percent of the rest did end up in the trash. My bohemiam brother-in-law Larry almost cried. "You could have given them to me!" Of course, that wasn't the idea. Now much of that music is coming back, considered by today's standards, classic, but tame. Still, none will end up on my iPod (if I had and iPod).

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Another time the Spirit had me examine my past, and I prayed that He would bring to mind anytime that I had participated in things where the evil one could have gained a foothold in my life. Some were obvious, such as playing with a ouija board, or a time when I was a child and a neighbor invited me over for a seance where they did some table lifting, or the time I went to see the movie, Rosemary's Baby. But I recalled other involvements as well where God wanted me to seek forgiveness and cleansing. My cousins and I would get together almost every Sunday afternoon from the time we were little until we started college. We made up a make believe world which we called "the ghost club". Although I cannot recall much about what we did in our ghost club, we were smart and creative kids, and I'm sure we invented some great characters who had amazing adventures. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with kids using their imaginations, or with fictional stories, or with having fun by being silly. What I am saying is that there seems to have been a certain spiritual dimension involved in part of what we did. And that those areas should be advoided because they may have consequences that become lifelong afflictions. As parents we need to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit so that we will be able to teach our children principles that will protect them from the attractive deceptions of the evil one.

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We tried to teach our children the principles of the spiritual war that we are involved in, so as they grew they would know not just the what not, but also the why for. However, we did put a fence of protection around them as well. That fence included our prayers, our examples, and our guidance. It also involved decisions on what they could read, or watch, or listen to, and where they could go, and with whom. I know this will seem silly to most, but our kids were not allowed to see the movie, The Wizard of Oz, or watch the cartoon show, the Smurfs, because Papa Smurf was a wizard. We would not let them go to slasher movies, because those types of experiences can also be entry points for demonic spirits. We did not withdraw from the world, but we always had to work to discern what was in the will of God, and what was not. And acceptance by the culture was not a guage we used.

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It is very difficult to raise children in our secular world, and not have them be involved in certain cultural things that most of their friends are. We can lay down a law as a fence to protect them, but we must also lead them to the helmet of salvation, and show them how to put on the coverings of truth and righteousness, and teach them how to use the shield of faith. And as they grow in being guided by the Spirit they will be less inclined to sneak over that fence. Instead, they will learn to wield the sword of the Spirit. That sword will be for protection, but it will also be used by those young boys and girls, chosen by the Lord God Almighty in this special day and age, to tear down the strongholds and destroy the territory of the enemy. Truth is more exciting than fiction, and the stories of the adventures that God has for our young will fill much more than seven volumes.

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"For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever our obedience is complete". (2 Corinthians 10: 3-6)

More Than Overcomers

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus". (Romans 8:1)

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Jackie and I were part of a leadership team with several other couples for a Catholic Charismatic prayer meeting that met for a good number of years in the basement of a local Catholic church. Even though I disagreed with a lot of Catholic doctrine, I always felt freedom to teach what I believed to be truth, careful to be respectful and not openly critical of Catholic doctrine. It was easy to do because most people, including Catholics, have limited understanding of the meaning of the doctrines their churches teach. I was transparent about my relationship with God, sensitive to the move of the Holy Spirit while leading a meeting, excited about worship and proclaiming His majesty, and people responded to that. After helping in leadership for many years, there came a time when a couple of people started to ask for more specific teachings on Catholicism (ideally by a priest or a nun). One time I gave what I thought was quite a good presentation about Mary, but as luck would have it, the people who wanted us to be more Catholic were missing that evening. It wasn't long after that, actually after one of the best meetings we had in a long time, that I felt a loss of freedom to present things the way the Holy Spirit was leading me. Overnight I developed a strong feeling that my time at that prayer meeting was over, and soon Jackie and I left.

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It was only a couple of months later that the Lord finally gave us a release to leave the Catholic church as well. When we did there were several other couples that also soon left, including one of the leadership couples who were very good friends of ours. We ended up going to different churches, and they went to a non-denominational Pentecostal church on the south side of town. Mike became very active in that chruch, but gradually he got sucked into their legalism, and without realizing it, he was being oppressed by their authoritarian pastor. One day he asked me to listen to a tape of one of his pastor's sermons that really made an impression on him. Later that day I put it in my car tape player, and was horrified at what I heard. The pastor began by browbeating some of his congregation, not by name of course, and then went on with some gibberish which made little sense. But it was easy to pick up, even from that tape, the main focus of his teaching. Stated simply, it argues that Christ is coming soon for a bride without blemish - before Christ comes there will be tribulation - people who do not live holy lives may falter in this tribulation and may even lose their salvation - for the bride to be umblemished, judgment will start first in the church -everyone must conform to the pastor's idea of holiness. Even though this was a church where the gifts of the Spirit were allowed, their misguided theology on the meaning of "a bride without blemish", and the subsitution of law for the leading of the Holy Spirit, put on the people a burden where no one ever felt truly redeemed. And anyone who questioned the pastor on this was considered a cancer, brought by the devil, to destroy that local church.

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I felt really bad for Mike. His wife knew that they were losing the freedom in the Lord they once so richly enjoyed, and she had wanted them to leave that church for a long time. I met with Mike to show him the red flags that the tape revealed, but he couldn't seem to comprehend any of my points. He is the type of person who will go 110% at anything he does, and so there was an appeal for what appeared to be a calling for a life totally dedicated to the Lord. But this was leaving him spiritually oppressed and confused. I interceded for Mike for over a year, asking God to lead him out of that place. Everytime during the two hours it took to mow our lawn, Mike was my special prayer focus. And praise God, eventually things came to a boil and he got burned enough that he realized he had to leave that church to retain his sanity. Leaving a church under those conditions can produce the same depression, grief and anguish that a death in the family does, and it took Mike well over a year to recover. We ended up having home church with his family and ours for seven years, and the Lord really blessed it.

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I relate the above as a word of balance, because it is the desire of the Lord for all of us to grow in holiness. In the first chapter of Ephesians is says; "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him, in love". God does indeed want us to be holy and blameless, and we became that way when we were born again by the rebirth of our spirit. At salvation our reborn spirit, which now is perfect as Christ is perfect, also became sealed by the Holy Spirit, to protect our spirit from corruption and separation from God. "In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation - having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory". (Ephesians 1: 13-14)

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So even though or mind and our body may struggle with being out of the will of God, our reborn spirit now belongs to Him, and is protected by Him. When we surrendered our life to the Lordship of Jesus, and our spirit united with His Spirit, from that point on our spirit belonged to Jesus. Many view salvation in the sense of a direction we are heading, which may change based on our actions. Christ then only lives in us while we believe, and proclaim Him as Lord. But I do not believe that a human spirit, once reborn in Christ Jesus, can become un-reborn. The world cannot make it happen, and we cannot. We are allowed to rebel in the body and the mind, but we lost the ownership, the lordship, of our spirit when we surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus. Rebellion will result in the loss of fellowship with the Lord, but we remain part of His family. We belong to Jesus, who is our Lord, our brother, and our good shepherd. And as a good shepherd, Jesus will not lose any of His sheep. "Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8: 35-39)

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This is a hard concept to grasp. We do not make ourselves holy by striving to conform our thoughts and actions to an ideal laid out in scripture, or presented by a pastor, or teacher, or even as directed by the Holy Spirit. We are holy by virtue of having a reborn spirit. Our minds and our bodies, even after we are reborn, may still struggle to understand or do what God desires for us. But holiness is not in what we do, but rather it is in who we are in Christ Jesus. We are saved by grace; "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast". (Ephesians 2: 8-9) This grace came when we were still living carnal lives apart from God. But it caused our spirit to be reborn, making our spirit a holy temple for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. His presence should produce in us a desire to live in a way that is holy and pleasing to God, because we were created by God to do good works and to live in them. And this will come as we allow the Spirit to transform our minds, so that our bodies also will learn to be submitted to His will.

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Jesus is coming for a church that includes both the living and the dead, the great and the small. And all will one day stand before God's throne, hearing the four living creatures proclaim; "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come". (Revelation 4:8) That is a promise to all who know Jesus as Savior and Lord.

A Day, An Hour, A Minute

I was sitting at our dinning table this 4th of July morning eating breakfast, reading the back cover of a DVD loaned to us by an elderly lady whom Jackie was doing some sewing work for. Miss Marple said it was her favorite movie. The DVD seems to be about a swinging single man who ends up having to take care of an orphan, and the cover quoted a review by Playboy magazine, which said; "Terrific!". As luck would have it, the DVD case was empty, the favorite movie of the elderly lady evidently still in her DVD player. The short review brought to mind a picture of Hugh Hefner, somewhere in his 80's, trolling around the Playboy mansion in his bathrobe, with well endowed wannabees, each playing their sad little games. I then thought of Donald Trump, who earlier this year during his TV show called Mr. Hefner, "my very good friend". You too, he implies to the anxious apprentices, can fly in my luxurious jet and visit there. And lastly, Princes Diane came to mind because there is going to be, or just was, yet another show about the tragic early ending to her life.

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Mr. Hefner and Mr Trump, and indeed all men and women, can learn a lesson from the story of Princess Di, and that is that death will eventually call to them. There will be an actual day, a specific hour, and a precise minute when the heart has stopped and the brain ceases to function. The only escape is to have a reborn spirit and be alive when Jesus returns. And Jesus will come, both at the rapture and at the end of the age, on an actual day, a specific hour, and a precise minute. This is a blessed hope for me as a believer, to be alive when He returns on the clouds. But if I am not alive at the right point in history, death is surely coming. And I have a promise, made sure by faith, that there is waiting for me a place, prepared for me by my Lord and Savior. Perhaps this place is a mansion, or perhaps scripture means something else by that, but the nature of the actual abode is not important to me. The great thing is that I will be where my precious Lord is, interacting with family and friends and others who, because of a reborn spirit, are also part of His family. Hefner and Trump live in their mansions, which will one day become dust. And although Di had to leave her palace early, she was living in the mansion of celebrity, which was still unable to keep her from her appointment with death.

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Death came into the world because man rebelled against living obedient to the instructions of his Creator. The Lord had wonderful things planned for mankind, but Eve listened to the serpent, who said; "Did God say?", questioning His instructions, and ultimately questioning the Lord's love for us. Corruption then entered the world, and so did physical death. But death to man was not a total victory for the evil one. There were two special trees in the middle of the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil, and eating the fruit of that tree brought spiritual separation from the Lord, and led to their eventual physical death. But there was also in the middle of that garden the Tree of Life. If they had eaten from that tree after they sinned there would not have been physical death, and the eternal soul and spirit would have never been able to have been redeemed. So God brought the first physical death into the new world. In clothing Adam and Eve with leather garments an animal had to be killed, and its blood was shed. The animal died because of the sin of Adam and Eve, but its sacrificial death prevented an immediate judgement of physical death. By doing this God also provided an example of how they were to approach Him in faith.

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In His second step of mercy God then drove Adam and Eve out of the garden, preventing them from eating from the Tree of Life. And although Adam lived for over 900 years, his day and hour and second eventually came. God prepared a place for those that were to die, and it had two sections. One part was for the soul/spirit of all the righteous dead, who could not dwell in the presence of the Lord until the death and resurrection of Jesus made possible a reborn spirit. The other part was for the soul/spirit of the unrighteous dead. After Jesus sacrifical death He brought the dwelling place of the righteous dead, Paradise, from somewhere under the Earth up to Heaven. The abode of the unrighteous dead remains somewhere under the Earth. One day, at a specific day, and hour, and minute, there will be a resurrection of the physical body for all those with a reborn spirit, uniting those newly glorified bodies with their soul/spirits. God's plan always was for man to be a three part being, and in His mercy, physical death preserved His ultimate design and plan.

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There will be another day and hour and minute when there is a resurrection of the physical bodies of all the unrighteous. They will go first to a judgment, and then to an eternity of torment, separated from the presence and love of an awesome, loving, merciful, yet holy God. I cannot understand eternal physical torment, but scripture is clear that it awaits all who are not reborn in their spirit. Princess Di did not make 50, and Hefner and Trump with all their money, will not live longer than 120 years. There is a day, an hour, and a minute when our eternity will begin. And when that minute comes, earthly time for us will cease. Some will be able to run to the arms of the Word made flesh, and fall down to worship Him without restraint. But many will hear those awful words; "Depart from me, I never knew you".

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"And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged from the things that were written in the books . . . And if anyones name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." (Revelation 20: 12-15)

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"And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. And on either side of the river was the tree of life . . . and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations . . . And there shall no longer be any curse". (Revelation 22: 1-3)