|
How
Deliverance Ministries
Lead People to Bondage
by Bob DeWaay
The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able
to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are
in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the
knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from
the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.
(2Timothy 2:24-26)
In 1977 I was in a ministry that specialized in inner healing and
deliverance. People came to us from all over the country seeking release
from hearing voices, addictions, emotional trauma due to past hurts and
abuses, and many other forms of spiritual bondage. At the time our
ministry was considered “cutting edge” in the world of spiritual
warfare. Ours was a Christian community where people could come and live
with other Christians to find healing.
About that time a woman from another state came to stay at our ministry
center for a few days to receive prayer and deliverance. She had grown up
in a family that was deeply involved in the occult and had been named
after a Greek goddess. When she called us she was trying to get out of her
occult bondage and was being attacked by evil spirits who did not want to
let her go. They manifested themselves through her taunting us and making
hissing sounds. We soon found out that the demons that tormented her were
powerful and had no intention of leaving. Two of us took on the
responsibility of ministering to her. After we had led her in some
prayers, confronted some of the demons, and demanded them to leave in
Jesus’ name, she found some relief.
The most dramatic event in our ministry to her came after one of our
Tuesday night meetings. After most people had left she stayed for more
prayer. Before we even got to her, she was taken over by a violent evil
spirit. Her countenance changed, her voice altered, her face contorted and
her hands became like claws. She let out a loud scream and charged at me,
intending to gouge my face with her fingernails. As she screamed and raced
across the room, I and the other man who had been ministering to her stood
our ground and said, “Stop! in the name of Jesus.” When she got two
feet from us she hit what seemed like an invisible wall and fell to the
floor whimpering. We prayed with her and asked God to set her free.
We had encountered many cases of demonic manifestations in our ministry,
but this was the most dramatic. As I look back on this incident now, what
is most significant is not what happened that night, but what happened the
next day. The next day she felt much better and asked to talk to us before
leaving for home. She told me, “Bob, Satan is very scared of you. You
have much power and authority.” What that statement and the event that
led to it meant to me then was very different from how I understand it
now. The difference is due to the “warfare” worldview I held then and
the “providential” worldview I hold now. The way we interpret events
is determined by our worldview. In this article I will discuss exorcism
from the perspective of each of these worldviews.
Exorcism in the Warfare Worldview
The warfare worldview holds that the battle between good and evil, God and
Satan, is played out in human history, with an uncertain outcome. By
uncertain I mean that God does not sovereignly determine the outcome.1
There are casualties in this battle. The battle to free individuals from
spiritual bondage is carried on by people of faith who have learned the
tools of battle and become mighty warriors for God. According to many who
hold the warfare worldview, even the destiny of nations is in the hands of
human spiritual warriors who will capture nations for the Kingdom of God.
My fondest hope in 1977 was that I would become one of these mighty
warriors who would plunder Satan’s kingdom on the field of battle.
So in that context I interpreted the woman’s statement to mean that I
was succeeding. At age 27 I had become a mighty warrior who was equipped
to go to battle against anything Satan could throw at me. I was so charged
up by that incident that I spent the next couple of years dealing with
dozens of hurting people, many who were in horrible spiritual bondage. Day
and night I was casting out demons, confronting the powers of darkness and
helping people escape from the clutches of demons. That woman went back
home and I do not remember hearing from her again. Others who lived
closer, I ministered to time and time again over a period of years.
According to many exorcists who embrace the warfare worldview, demons
possess their victims because they have discovered a “right” to do so.
For example, a person might be under an unknown curse that gives the demon
a right to torment him or her. Famous exorcist Bob Larson explains how he
sees this working: “Curses are exacting, legal arrangements of the
spirit world. Just like human contracts contain fine print and carefully
crafted language, satanic curses are often filled with minutia that
require detailed voiding.”2 To get free requires the counselor to ferret
out the exact wording and nature of the curse and then formulate a
renunciation to break it.3 When I was a deliverance counselor holding the
warfare worldview it was my job to find out what may have given the demons
the right to enter and to close that entrance. I taught that if the demons
found a legal “right” to stay they would, and that if they had no
legal right, they would try to stay anyhow because they are nasty
deceivers.
Those who hold to this view of the spiritual universe see the battle as
being fought on all levels. On the level of the heavenlies, they enlist
troops of “prophetic intercessors” to identify, bind and cast down
rulers over cities and nations.4 Warriors are enlisted to take spiritual
control over cities by conducting prayer walks around areas of the city.
In the warfare worldview, the deliverance counselor is the foot soldier
who does hand to hand combat on the spiritual battlefield. He or she
fights the forces of darkness that have captured individual souls. In 1977
I was a deliverance counselor and had just found out through a powerful
experience and the testimony of one who had been deeply in Satan’s camp
that I was a powerful warrior whom Satan feared. My sails where set to
spend the rest of my life as a career spiritual military man freeing
captives. Exorcism was where the battle got personal and I was chosen to
be there.
To continue to improve in my counseling ministry, I read the books of
those who had more experience. This increased my understanding of how
demons worked. Many of the people I counseled, however, continued to
struggle with demons in spite of many exorcism sessions. This required
fine tuning and the development of further strategies. Battles are never
easily won. In a war there are always set backs. Some of the teachings I
used were very Biblical: repentance, forgiveness, the study of God’s
word, and getting one’s self in right relationship to the body of
Christ. Also, my counseling involved helping people make wise choices in
their lives.
During those years I visited people in the lock up wards of most of the
mental hospitals in our area. I had ministered to so many troubled people
that one time when I went to the largest lockup ward in our county, I knew
three of the patients personally.
Secret Spiritual Laws
During those years of believing the warfare worldview, I noticed that the
same people kept having the same problems. As part of my study to fine
tune my approach I read a book written by a famous Christian that claimed
to be given to him by divine revelation. In the book he said that there
are spiritual laws that govern the spirit world. One of these has to do
with “passivity.” Demons are able, according to him, to move in and
take over when a person has a passive will.5 For a long time I
incorporated this “truth” into my counseling, figuring that passivity
was why these people kept falling back into demonic bondage. I worked out
techniques for people to use to strengthen their passive wills so that the
demons would no longer be able to influence them. I no longer believe that
what I was doing is valid.
This type of teaching is still around. Bob Larson writes, “If the core
of a person’s identity is strong willed, it seems harder for a demon to
take over, no matter what that person does.”6 In this scheme of things,
the human will is crucial: “I always tell those bound by demons to call
upon that small portion of their will that is not dominated by the
devil.”7
The problem I saw was this: “passive” people seemed to be not strong
willed by nature — no process changed that. They continued to feel
oppressed by demons and lamented their inability to overcome
“passivity.” At the time I did not realize that by telling people
their will had to be stronger, I was throwing gas on the fire. The warfare
worldview had led me so far astray that I did not see the relevance of the
simplest of Scriptures, “blessed is the man who trusts in God . . .
cursed is the man who trusts in man” (Jeremiah 17: 5, 7). According to
the theory I taught, the “spiritual law” of the universe is such that
passive wills get demonized, even if one is a Christian. To keep free one
must gain a strong will. A person could not trust God for freedom unless
the person had a strong enough will; otherwise God’s hands were tied by
the spiritual law He had created.8 Bob Larson writes, “The will of the
victim is the spiritual battleground on which the war of exorcism is
fought. The slightest reluctance can mean defeat.”9 So where is our hope
— in our own will? Larson says of one of his clients, “Her initial
unwillingness to admit what happened gave the demons legal grounds for
remaining.”10
Evidently we need a spiritual “lawyer” to figure out the spiritual
contracts of the universe by which the demons operate, and the laws that
apply. In the warfare worldview the battle is between humans and wicked
spirits. The humans are at a huge disadvantage because the spirits have
been navigating the spirit world for thousands of years and only they know
all the “rules.” The exorcist must query the demons to find out needed
information and then beat them at their own rules. Bob Larson forces
demons to tell him the truth under threat of being punished by angels and
sent to the pit (I had never thought of that strategy when I was a
deliverance counselor). Having done so, he makes the demons tell him what
he needs to know to deliver the person. He gives this advice to those who
would do exorcism: “Someone should be designated to keep a log of the
information received while interrogating the demons. As the internal
structure of the victim’s demonic system is revealed, list the spirits
according to their ranking, cite their right and occasion of entry, and
note their legal ground for remaining.”11 How do we know this in
reliable? — “The demons will be forced to give you this information
because they must submit to the name of Jesus and His authority.”12
When I believed the warfare worldview and did exorcisms, I believed that
what I was doing was valid because the reality of demons manifesting
themselves was so vivid and people were being set free in the name of
Jesus. There were many who felt much better after the sessions. They came
in miserable and left our ministry session with a sense of love and
freedom. So I believed they were being helped. I do not doubt the
sincerity of Bob Larson and others like him, nor do I doubt the reality of
the stories. What I am questioning is whether the worldview that under
girds their ministry is Biblical. Is it true that there is a whole unseen
legal world that governs demons and other levels of Satan’s hierarchy
that must be discovered and exploited to gain victory over Satan? Is it
true that we need trained exorcists who have this knowledge in order to
see captives freed? Later I will tell you how my ministry changed for good
when I came to doubt the premises that provided the basis for what I was
doing.
Secret Knowledge and Deliverance
Those who hold to the warfare worldview claim that knowledge about Satan,
his emissaries, and their hierarchical structure is important in winning
the battle. This is true on all levels, from battling principalities over
nations to casting demons out of individuals. For example, when I was in
this movement we were seeking to purchase property in one of the suburbs
here in the Twin Cities. Because of difficulties with the purchase, we
decided to hold an all night intercessory meeting. During the middle of
the night, someone got a revelation that a principality called
“Manitou” was ruling over the city, keeping us from buying the
property. This principality supposedly ruled because Native Americans had
practiced their religion there at one time. So we were instructed by our
leaders that we needed to cast down the spirit of Manitou over the city so
that we could claim it for God. The successful finishing of the purchase
“proved” that our prayers had been effective which consequently
reinforced the idea that we needed special revelations to cast down
principalities over cites.
When one holds the warfare worldview such practices make all the sense in
the world. Everything one wants to accomplish is tied up in the complex
interaction of curses, demons, principalities, and the legalities that
control the spirit world. There is no part of life that does not operate
in this realm. Individual exorcism is the micro level of the battle,
cities and nations the macro level. On every level it is necessary to gain
knowledge if one wants to win battles. The necessary knowledge is usually
the names of demons or principalities, the nature of the curse invoked, or
the structure of the spiritual hierarchy in Satan’s kingdom. Bob Larson
tells about performing an exorcism when one of the demons was away on
another mission and had been missed during the procedure.13 He learned to
“lock out” these demons. Larson writes: “If I had ended the
procedure prematurely, I would never have known about this spirit, and he
would have come back later.”14
One might ask what role God plays in the warfare worldview. The answer is
that He commissions us to the battle, equips us for the battle, and gives
us the tools we need. God gives the exorcist knowledge and power for
battle. However, it is up to the exorcist to use his toolbox to cast out
the demons. The exorcist must use the tools properly or the demons will
stay. For example, Larson tells how he taught a pastor why demons kept
coming back: “You probably never found the gatekeeper demon. It didn’t
matter how many demons you cast out, they don’t have to go to the pit
because the gatekeeper kept the door open for them to return.”15 The
arrangement and locations of the spirits are determined by the knowledge
and ability of the exorcist. Larson claims the right to assign demons to
the pit if he does everything right.
What we must keep in mind is that the information needed to do effective
spiritual warfare according to the warfare worldview is not revealed. What
I mean is that it is neither found in God’s specific revelation (the
Bible) nor in general revelation (what may legitimately be learned about
the creation using our natural senses and rational mind). The knowledge
that is required is secret knowledge. God has not revealed the names of
demons over nations, cities, neighborhoods, or in demonized persons. The
only source of such information is from some other type of revelation,
either extra biblical divine revelation or revelation gained from demons
themselves. Those who hold to the warfare worldview believe that it is
their role to gain this knowledge and use it in the battle. Since the
knowledge is “secret” it is of the realm of the occult. They have to
somehow justify gaining forbidden knowledge in the name of helping the
victims of evil spirits.
Spiritual “Geek Squad”
In our city there is a company called “The Geek Squad” which will come
to your home or place of business and solve your computer problems. They
are very good at what they do and fix most hardware or software problems
promptly. The reason they can do so is that they understand the nature of
computers and computer software. They have technical knowledge. How is
this possible? It is possible because humans created computers. Detailed
manuals are available or computers can be reverse engineered by experts.
Having complete knowledge of a computer is possible because computers are
human creations.
The problem with the warfare worldview is that it has created the
perceived need for a “Geek Squad” for souls. Not only must the demons
and curses that are affecting the person be understood in detail, but the
human soul must be also. The complex relationship between all the
spiritual factors affecting the person and the nature and inclination of
his or her soul, must be discerned and diagnosed by a skilled spiritual
“technician” (they call themselves counselors) who can do the proper
“fix.” Computers are complex, but they are exponentially simpler than
the human soul and the spiritual world it inhabits.
For example, consider Bob Larson’s description of his ministry to a
person in bondage. The person in question had numerous “alters”
(multiple personalities) as well as demonic bondage. This person with
“dissociative identity disorder” had a demon called “Gatekeeper”
who kept letting demons back in after they had been cast out.16 Larson
describes the causes of such disorders and how he learned to speak to
different identities within a person.17 He was dealing with a person who
had alternate personalities called “Facilitator” and “Regulator.”
Larson theorized that in this person demons could possess an “alter.”
18 Larson explains:
In the realm of multiple personalities, there are good alters and bad
alters. Good alters are the part of the person’s consciousness that has
acknowledged Christ as Savior. Bad, alters, for one reason or another,
refuse to make that spiritual surrender.19
This complex situation leads to this task for the spiritual technician:
“Our task is to sort through the maze to gain the assistance of the good
alters. Then we can attempt to win the bad alters to God.”20 Larson
proceeded to have the alternate personality within his client help him
identify the “dark ones” and went through an incredibly complex task
of sorting out the demons and “alters” within this person. He even
leads “Facilitator” to Christ.21 Larson uncovers hidden memories,
legal ground that the demons had, and the names of obscure demons.22 This
is one prayer he used to help the victim find freedom: “I command that
angels of God search out and torment the spirit of pain. I bind Pain to
Regulator the demon, and command that both of them experience all the
torment they’ve put on Randall. I increase that torment seven times
greater.”23
The complexity of this process is mind-boggling. How can we be sure we are
talking to demons, alters, or a real person? How does one know that a
person can be saved but some of his alter egos still need to accept
Christ? Do we really have authority to command angels to torment demons so
that they will decide to leave? The problem, in my opinion, is that the
complexity Larson is describing is actually under estimating the
complexity of the bondage and neediness of the human soul. The reason
there can be no ultimately successful “Geek Squad” for souls is found
in the difference between computers and humans. Computers were created by
man, souls are created by God. Only God truly knows the heart of man. Only
God knows the details of the spirit world and its interaction with the
human soul.
The Bible tells us why no human spiritual technician can solve the
problems of the inner person: “The heart is more deceitful than all else
and is desperately sick; Who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the
heart, I test the mind” (Jeremiah 17:9, 10a). That only God knows the
heart is a claim found throughout the Bible.24 Those holding to the
warfare worldview see a pressing necessity to train a cadre of spiritual
technicians who can free human souls from the complex psycho-spiritual
situation that torments them. These technicians by whatever name they are
given must rely on techniques and knowledge that are not revealed in the
Bible. Furthermore, they must gain information about human souls, secret
curses, hidden or forgotten memories, demons, names of demons,
relationships between demons, relationships between alter identities
within a soul, and relationships between demons and alter identities. All
of this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. The “Geek Squad” for
souls has no reverse engineering capabilities, no detailed record of the
process by which a soul came to be, and no objective tools for examining
the soul and the spirit world it inhabits.
Not only this, but the spirit entities that they interview to gain
information share at least one attribute with their leader Satan — they
are liars. This does not stop the priests of the warfare worldview from
interrogating demons for secrets. For example, Bob Larson tells this
story:
Step by step I cornered the adversary until he could no longer resist.
Before his final doom was pronounced, the demon looked at me quizzically.
“Who taught you the rules?” he asked curiously. “What do you mean by
that?” I asked. “The spiritual rules that determine what we can and
can’t do. Someone from our side must have taught you. I’ve never met
anyone who knows the rules as well as you do.”25
It seems to me that if this warfare worldview is true and the claims of
its technical “priesthood” are true, then we are all in very serious
trouble with no clear way out. One must interview demons for years to
figure out the “rules” since the information necessary to deal with
them is neither revealed in Scripture nor accessible by any ordinary
means.
In my case I was to run out of energy in trying to “tweak” the details
of the warfare worldview to make it work. I would find out that what was
necessary was a conversion to an entirely different view of the world God
has created and governs. This conversion changed me from a spiritual
technician to a gospel preacher. The rest of this article will describe
how that happened.
Converting to the Providential Worldview
Two years after that encounter where I learned that Satan was afraid of
me, I was wearing down from the longs days and nights of helping people in
bondage. There were late night phone calls from troubled people and the
burden of the shear number of ministry cases. Some individuals were in
constant need of help. One very troubled person could sap the emotional
and spiritual energy out of a counselor. I was dealing with up to 15 of
them every week.
About that time one of these people was going off the deep end. She was
running off late at night leaving her husband and children behind to go to
bars and meet men. She had been through all of the various ministries we
had to offer. Her husband would call me desperately needing help because
she was destroying him and the children. One night after a 3:00 am call
from this woman in which she blamed me for her problems because I was a
bad counselor, I felt I could take no more. I cried out to God, praying
something like this, “Dear Lord, I really want to help this lady and the
others. I have prayed for her, ministered to her, helped her and her
family in practical ways, and cast out demons, I have done everything I
know how to do. I cannot take this anymore. If I do not get some better
answers I cannot stay in the ministry.”
The answer to that prayer came in the form of a Scripture. It changed my
life and ministry from that day on. I did not know it at the time, but
what resulted from that situation was my conversion from the warfare
worldview to what I am calling the providential worldview.26 The passage
that the Lord brought to my mind is this one:
And the Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all,
able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who
are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the
knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from
the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.
(2Timothy 2:24-26).
The first thing that struck me about the passage is the description of the
bondage the people are in: “having been held captive [by the devil] to
do his will.” I reasoned that no one could be in more bondage than that.
It definitely fit the description of the woman whose situation drove me to
question everything I was doing.
The second thing that came to my mind about the passage was how applicable
it was to my situation. Paul was telling Timothy how to deal with people
in the church who had serious problems and were causing problems for
Timothy. That was precisely what I was dealing with. Later, after I was
able to look more objectively at the Scriptures without my mind being
influenced by the warfare worldview, I realized that this is the key
passage in the New Testament that tells about dealing with people in the
church who are in bondage to Satan. Most of the passages I looked to for
support of my ministry of exorcism were either from the Gospels which were
before the church came to be as a result of the cross and the pouring out
of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. The others were in Acts where the
apostles were confronting demonized people who were unsaved. Exorcism was
never used in the New Testament as a therapy for born again Christians.
The third thing I learned from the passage was the means of escape. This
was what led me away from the warfare worldview toward the providential
worldview. People in bondage to Satan escape only when God grants
repentance! This shocked me when I first read it. It says, “if perhaps
God may grant them repentance.” The view I held before was that if
things did not change either: a) I am a bad counselor or better get some
better counseling techniques or b) the person is messing things up by not
following my prescriptions and thus letting in seven worse demons. We went
around and around trying to see which was the case. I finally came to see
that if God grants repentance they will escape from the devil, and if He
does not they will not. That was the key! Why He does in some cases but
not others is part of God’s secret will (Deuteronomy 29:29) that I
cannot know.
However since I did not know if God would grant repentance, it was always
possible that He would in any given case. This gave me encouragement in
the fourth thing I learned from this passage — how to counsel such
individuals. Paul wrote, “Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome,
but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness
correcting those who are in opposition.” We used to be up a 2:00 am with
three elders holding down a screaming, writhing demonized person as we
shouted, “Come out of him you foul spirit in the name of Jesus.” I
thought later, “That is hardly teaching and correcting with
gentleness.” Since now I realized that the means God uses to deliver
people from their bondage to Satan is the gospel and all of its
implications, I could patiently teach the truth, trusting that God will
use it to change lives. God can deliver the most demonized sinner from the
clutches of Satan through the power of the gospel (see Colossians 1:13 and
Ephesians 2:1-5). What I had been doing wrong before was assuming that
because the people I was counseling all said that they had met Christ, and
yet they were still in bondage, that therefore the gospel does not deliver
people from darkness unless special techniques and processes are added to
it. Now I believed in the power of the gospel.
The great thing about gospel truth is that is can be delivered at other
times besides 3:00 am when people are freaking out! I never again went
running out to cast out a demon when someone was having a late night melt
down. I began to correct the troubled woman by telling her she needed to
repent, to trust God and by His grace obey Him. It is a sin to run off
from your family to live in drunkenness. She ended up divorcing her
husband and spending the next twenty years going from one bad situation to
a worse one. But I knew it was not my fault. She either embraces the
gospel or lives in bondage. There is no plan “B” that can fix the
human soul. She still may repent and escape from the devil, but if she
does it will be by God’s grace through the gospel, not through the
spiritual Geek Squad.
How we Evaluate our Experiences
I now believe that God is in sovereign control of everything in the
universe He created, even all wicked spiritual powers. Satan can only do
what God allows him to do. The issues between freedom and bondage,
blessing and cursing are clear and simple from this perspective. It all
boils down to one’s relationship with God through the gospel or lack
thereof. The Bible says, “blessed is the man who trusts in God . . .
cursed is the man who trusts in man” (see Jeremiah 17:5-8). I now
believe that calling for spiritual technicians to manipulate the soul and
the spirits that influence it constitutes “trusting man,” no matter
how much Christian lingo is attached to the process.
I believe that the things that happened to me when I was a deliverance
counselor were very real. I believe that demons were definitely involved.
In the case of the woman who was taken over by demons that wanted to claw
my face, I now interpret the event differently. When I believed the
warfare worldview I was energized and excited to learn that I had great
authority and that Satan respected it. I believed that the incident proved
how badly hurting people needed me to be there with my experience with
deliverance and demons to help them find freedom. That is what led me to
years of working day and night fighting the powers of darkness that were
afflicting Christians.
Now I see the same incident in a totally different light. I believe that
Satan put on that show for me to get me and the others involved to trust
man rather than trust only in God through the gospel. As hard as it was
for me to see at the time, Satan had a reason to make me think that what I
was doing was “scaring” him. Doing so diminished my confidence in the
gospel by getting me to think that not the gospel but deliverance
ministers like me delivered people from the hostile powers.
Satan’s Protection Racket
The bondage and deliverance process is very much like a cruel, spiritual
“protection racket.” The devil is working both ends of the game like
one would in a protection racket where bullies threaten you and other
bullies protect you from them for money. Satan does everything he can to
get people into demonic bondage through overt occultism and other means.
He then entices those who hold to the warfare worldview to think that
their unbiblical teachings and practices are the key to freedom. Both ends
of the game serve his purposes. The devil puts on a convincing show to
make it all so very real.
He has one of his demons tell the Christian counselor “secrets”
regarding how demons afflict their victims and then leave at the
counselor’s command. The demons respond to threats of being tormented in
the pit by angels for a very simple reason — the demons want to get
Christians to think that Christian counselors and not God have power over
angels and power to pass judgment before the time on the hostile powers.27
This serves Satan’s purpose in promoting “the lie” which tells us we
can be like God. It makes us think we have power that only God has.
For example, when I was told that Satan was afraid of me, in as much as I
believed that I embraced the lie and lost confidence in the truth of the
gospel. The issue is whether we fear God and escape His judgment through
the gospel, not whether Satan thinks we have great power and authority.
The woman’s demon induced attack and her subsequent deliverance showed
both ends of the protection racket. Through her, Satan attacked (the
threat) and then withdrew at my command (the protection). The result was
that I had more confidence in my spiritual power and was diverted from the
gospel.
The warfare worldview drastically diminishes our hope through the gospel.
It tells us that putting our hope and trust fully in God through
Christ’s finished work on the cross does not deliver us from Satan and
demons nor assure us that God will ultimately conform us to the image of
Christ. Everything we are trying to do could be thwarted if we lack the
special knowledge and techniques to fight the battle. Apparently the
gospel does not really “work” for those who consult the spiritual
“Geek Squad” unless many things are added to it. They teach that the
gospel only potentially delivers us. After believing the gospel we now
need professional curse breakers, exorcists, prophetic intercessors, inner
healers, psycho-spiritual counselors, and others who constitute a new
class of priestly technicians. These specialists mediate the “middle
ground” between the soul and God. These are the “good” guys in the
racket who keep the bad ones from beating us up.
The middle ground is the secret world of spirits that is hidden from our
view. According to their view, our spiritual and material well being is
determined by what goes on in this world, and they have the secrets to
guide us to freedom and prosperity. Neil Anderson claims that many
Christians are in spiritual bondage because they have a defective
worldview with an “excluded middle.”28 Thus they see no reason for
spiritual warfare because they have “Western,” rationalistic premises.
What Anderson fails to realize or address in his book is that there are
two different world views within Christianity that both accept the
Biblical teachings about the reality of spirits and their influence on
people. Anderson promotes the warfare worldview and simply calls it the
“Christian” worldview.29 I say this because he never addresses the
perspective of the providential world view and provides his readers with
“steps to freedom” that go beyond the gospel and the means of grace
provided in Scripture.30
I do not doubt the motives of the spiritual technicians. When I was one I
sincerely wanted to help people. I was working day and night, without
salary or benefits. I wanted to serve God fully and advance His kingdom. I
sincerely believed I was doing so. However, my deception caused me to put
people in more bondage rather than to deliver them. I was unwittingly a
bondage maker.
For example, I taught that if a demon was cast out, and the person went
back to whatever sin was deemed to have opened the door for the demon,
then seven worse ones would enter (based on a misinterpretation of Matthew
12).31 This put those seeking deliverance into bondage. If the person came
for deliverance from a spirit of lust (which commonly happened) and then
later lusted after a woman, he then became exceedingly agitated and
fearful because he knew he gave Satan a right to send demons to torment
him. Then he would come back for more deliverance.
What this teaching does is make people think that their freedom is
dependent on them living a nearly sinless life. Any mess up and the demons
come back. To show how much this depends on man rather than God’s grace,
consider what Bob Larson says: “I’ve known people whom I refused to
help until they matured in the Lord to the point Satan didn’t want them
any longer.”32 Evidently if you are not a good enough Christian you have
to keep your demons. This worldview can only result in fear or pride. Fear
if you believe that you cannot behave well enough to keep the demons from
getting you, or pride if you think that you are such a powerful, sinless
Christian that Satan fears you and cannot touch you. These outcomes (fear
or pride) are the result of trusting man rather than God.
Conclusion
The key issue is the underlying worldview that one holds. The warfare
worldview claims that history is played out as a battle between the forces
of evil and believers. According to this view, God works through believers
as much as they allow Him to. The more knowledge and power believers gain
the better they can defeat the forces of darkness. If believers lack
knowledge and techniques for spiritual warfare they will be victims and
not victors. There are casualties in this battle and God does not assure
the outcome.
The providential worldview believes in God’s sovereignty over all the
forces of darkness. Spiritual forces of darkness cannot harm believers
without first getting permission from God. What He allows them to do
always is for our greater good. The key issue is not our knowledge about
the forces of evil but our knowledge of God through the gospel. The battle
is between the lie of Satan that man can be like God and the truth of the
gospel.
Those who promote the warfare worldview mislead us by claiming that the
options are only between a worldview that believes that there are demons,
curses, and real Satanic activities and a “western” worldview that
effectively denies that spiritual activity, good and bad, exists. This is
a false dilemma. Do not be misled. The providential worldview also
believes very much in the reality of demons, fallen angels, curses,
principalities and powers as well as good angels and the presence of the
Holy Spirit.
The options are whether one believes in God’s sovereignty over all of
these spiritual beings and realities or whether one believes God is
allowing the battle to run its course on its own. Those who hold to the
later view see God there to help if we figure out and use the right
techniques but not sovereignly keeping us and carrying us to glory. Does
God determine the outcome or is the outcome determined by humans and
demons?
I believe that God uses the gospel to deliver people from the hostile
powers and that the gospel effectively accomplishes all God intended to do
from all eternity to save sinners. Those who believe are “saved to the
utmost” (see Hebrews 7:25) and need not fear the hostile spiritual
forces of the universe. The means of grace provided in the Bible are
sufficient to cause us freedom and growth in the grace and knowledge of
the Lord.
Those pushing the warfare worldview want us to think otherwise. They want
us to believe that teachings, techniques, and spiritual processes that
were not even conceived until the 20th century are necessary for us to be
free from Satan’s bondage. This means we must believe that Christians
throughout the centuries lived without freedom because the gospel they
believed was insufficient. By convincing us of the insufficiency of the
gospel they become bondage makers. I used to be one. I thank God He freed
me from that condition through the truth of the Scriptures.
End Notes
Greg Boyd, God at War, (Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 1997) 13. Dr. Boyd
defines the “warfare” world view: “Stated most broadly, this
worldview is that perspective on reality which centers on the conviction
that the good and evil, fortunate or unfortunate, aspects of life are to
be interpreted largely as the result of good and evil, friendly or
hostile, spirits warring against each other and against us.” The
worldview that Dr. Boyd rejects he calls the “providential blueprint
worldview.” 292. He categorically rejects the idea that the forces of
wickedness are ultimately serving God’s greater purposes.
Bob Larson, In the Name of Satan — How the forces of evil work and what
you can do to defeat them; (Nashville: Nelson, 1996) 109.
Ibid. 109, 110.
See Critical Issues Commentary Issue 48 “The dishonoring of God in
Popular Spiritual Warfare teaching”for documentation of these teachings.
http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue48.htm
Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man Vol. 3, (New York: Christian Fellowship
Publishers, 1968 – first published in 1928) 125. Nee identifies
“passivity” as a key way demons influence Christians. His chapter
“The Path to Freedom” is original material that is very similar to
what is being taught today. Nee was teaching these things many decades
before those who are doing so today. His influence on me during my years
of doing deliverance was extensive.
Larson, 48.
Ibid. 80.
Op. Cit. Nee 90. “All actions are governed by laws . . . Should anyone
fulfill the conditions for the working of evil spirits (whether he
fulfills them willingly, such as the witch, the medium, or the sorcerer –
or unwittingly, such as the Christian), then he has definitely given
ground to them to work on him.” 90. As with modern versions of this
teaching, the only way we can know about these laws is through
extra-biblical revelations such as those provided in Nee’s book.
Larson 190.
Ibid.
Ibid. 208.
Ibid.
Ibid. 91
Ibid.
Ibid. 133.
Ibid.
Ibid. 135-137.
Ibid. 138.
Ibid.
Ibid. 138, 139.
Ibid. 141.
Ibid. 142 – 144.
Ibid. 142.
For example, consider 1Kings 8:39: “then hear Thou in heaven Thy
dwelling place, and forgive and act and render to each according to all
his ways, whose heart Thou knowest, for Thou alone dost know the hearts of
all the sons of men” See also: Psalm 44:21; Acts 15:8; and 1John 3:20.
Larson, 205.
The process was immediate in that I followed the teaching of the verse
from then on when I counseled people. It was slow in the sense that my
conversion to the providential worldview was not complete until 1986 when
I saw that my Arminian (free will) thinking was unbiblical and embraced
God’s comprehensive sovereignty. This happened through a detailed study
of the Book of Romans. The providential worldview holds that God is always
in control of His own universe and is guiding it toward His decreed
purposes (Ephesians 1:11).
The incident in the Gospels shows that Jesus is God and thus the One who
will execute the final judgment: “And behold, they cried out, saying,
‘What do we have to do with You, Son of God? Have You come here to
torment us before the time?’” (Matthew 8:29). Any human teacher who
claims the power to do this is claiming something that is a divine
prerogative and thus trying to be like God. This is sinful.
Neil T. Anderson, The Bondage Breaker; (Eugene: Harvest House, 2000)
30-33.
Ibid. 33.
Ibid. 199-252. These steps include prescribed prayers, confessions,
renunciations, checklists, ancestral curses to be broken, etc. The
implication is that the gospel fails to deliver us from curses, demons, or
other spiritual maladies unless certain techniques are applied. Rather
than the simple, Biblical means of grace, Anderson offers techniques and
canned prayers that “work.” Thus he has adopted the warfare worldview
and not the providential world view.
I explain the passage on this audio: demons.mp3
Op. Cit. Larson, 191.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scriptures taken from the New American
Standard Bible, © Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,
1975, 1977, 1988, 1995 The Lockman Foundation.
Copyright © 1992-2005 Critical Issues Commentary
Bob Dewaay is Senior Pastor Twin City Fellowship church
For more Free Bible Studies, visit our internet website
Ministerios
Vida Eterna Ministries.
http://www.vidaeterna.org
-------------------------*---------------------------
Have
teh freedom to duplicate, show, or distribute this publication to whom
you wish, as long as the copyright notice is kept intanct and no changes
are made to the article. This publication can be distributed only in its
original form, with editing and without cost.
|
|
