AN AMERICAN METAPHOR

 “When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, searching for rest. But when it finds none, it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from'. So it returns and finds that its former home is all swept and in order. Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before” (Luke 11:24-26, NLT).

In Luke 11, before Jesus shared this rather troubling and prophetic passage, He had been challenged by a group of legalistic, religious people. They challenged Him because He had cast a demon out of a man who was mute. Jewish exorcists of that day felt it was necessary for them to know the name of a demon before they could cast it out, which put this poor man in an impossible place since the demon had rendered him mute.

Jesus laid this misguided thinking to rest by casting the demon out without asking it anything—and the man was immediately set free and spoke.

Jesus’ action created a controversy and some of the people accused Him of casting out the demon by the power of Satan. Such is the illogical thinking of legalistic fundamentalists—and it hasn’t changed in 2000 years.

Jesus finishes this incident by explaining what happens when a demonic spirit is removed from a person but the person does not invite Jesus/the Holy Spirit to take residence in him. The demon spirit, Jesus says, will eventually come back to see what has happened to its previous residence. If it finds the place cleaned and empty, it will go and find friends more evil than it is and the end result will be worse than the first.

As I read and studied this story I was struck with an understanding that this is a prophetic warning for America.

America was begun as a Christian nation. The first settlers came to this country to escape the religious bondage of their homeland. They made the treacherous journey across the Atlantic to establish a land where they would be free to worship and serve God. When the new nation finally freed itself from the domination of Great Britain, it was founded to be a Christian nation. Emblazoned across our money is the phrase, “In God We Trust.”

For the first two hundred years of existence, this nation has enjoyed the blessing of the Lord in ways that are virtually unparalleled in history. For a nation to rise so quickly and dramatically to become the most powerful nation in the world as quickly as the U.S. has is unprecedented. The blessing of God that has been on the nation is indisputable.

Unfortunately, America’s prominence and power has been tarnished and is dwindling.

How could this be happening? Why is it that America seems to be on the edge of an economic meltdown? Why are terrorists beginning to strike in the heart of America? Why is violence and lawlessness on the rise all over the nation? Why is there so much pessimism throughout the land?

I believe the answers lie in the story that Jesus told in Luke 11. When the evil spirit was cast out, it had to go. When this nation was founded and began to function as a Christian nation and the people were free to worship God as they wanted, the demonic spirits were no longer in control and they had to flee. 

Jesus said that the demon spirit came back and found that its previous home was not being occupied. Therefore the demon went and found friends that were more evil than it was and brought them back with him (Luke 11:25-26).

Demon spirits are again taking up residence/control in America for, in my opinion, two major reasons:

1.      Secular humanists and atheists have demanded and are causing the removal of all evidences of America’s Christian heritage and beliefs, and they are being aided by liberal politicians and theologians.

2.      The contemporary American church has largely become a powerless social club preoccupied with feeling good about itself—consumed with numbers and not with spiritual life. The power of the Word of God has been replaced with “feel good” messages; meaningful worship has been replaced with songs that are largely narcissistic; prayer meetings are virtually nonexistent, as is preaching about sin, holiness and repentance. The American church of 2015 is the most biblically illiterate church since America was founded as a nation.

An invasion of America by demonic spirits is underway!

Revelation 12:12 (ESV) says about this time: “Woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

Our only hope is for a prayer revival to break out, led by burdened, broken-hearted people—those willing to pay the price in fasting and prayer to see the church visited by revival before it’s too late.

DID YOU SEE THE PRETTY BLONDE?

I was in New York City for a time of ministry and made arrangements to have lunch with my former boss and friend, David Wilkerson.

I met Brother Dave at the offices of the church he had begun, Times Square Church, and we chatted for a few minutes and then prepared to walk a few blocks to a restaurant. As we walked through the reception area of the office building, Brother Dave greeted several staff and church members and then we were on the street.

As we headed toward the restaurant, Brother Dave turned to me and said, “David, did you see that tall, pretty blonde woman in the reception area?” My mind immediately went into overdrive as I thought, “Did my eyes linger too long or something?” I answered honestly, “Yes, I saw her.” His response was unexpected and left me speechless: “She is not a she, she is a he.” The woman had been very professionally and attractively dressed in a skirt and blouse and looked very much like a woman.

I’m sure Brother Dave saw the dumbfounded look on my face, and calling the blonde by name, he said, “He attends our church regularly. This gives you a glimpse into what it’s like to pastor a church in New York City.”

After we reached the restaurant and were seated, we talked for a few minutes about the transgender, sex change issue. I finally asked him, “When a man says, ‘I’m really a woman and I’m going to go through sex change operations and I’m going to dress and live like a woman, not a man’—how do you handle this issue in the church?” Brother Dave said without hesitation, “Whatever they were when they were born is how we treat them.”

I did not detect any anger or disdain in David Wilkerson about this whole complex issue. What I did detect was compassion and a willingness to be a pastor to some of society’s undesirables.

Now skip forward twenty-plus years and here we are in 2015. Who would ever have thought that one of the biggest news stories of this year would be about the whole transgender issue? And we are having it pushed at us by the media. 

A couple of things trouble me about our contemporary world.

1.      The blatant attempt by the liberal mainstream media to sell us on alternative lifestyles, including sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, and now “transgenderism.” In the eyes of the media, this is acceptable and therefore should be acceptable to all. And especially targeted are the conservatives.

2.      Even more troubling to me is the movement within the church that suggests that the New Testament writings about sex in and out of marriage are grossly out of date. A number of liberal theologians feel that the New Testament should be reinterpreted from a more contemporary position on moral behavior.

Please understand that what appears to be an attack on the validity of Scripture is not that at all. It is a direct attack on God Himself. Scripture is not out of date, because God is not out of date. Scripture is the Word of the eternal God who changes not—and neither does the meaning of His Word.

I find no ambiguity about this issue of “transgenderism” but, then, I believe in an eternal, almighty God about whom the Psalmist David said:

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139:13-16, ESV).

God made each of us as a man or a woman and there is no confusion with Him about our “identity.” We were born to be who we were supposed to be.

The liberal media is being manipulated by the enemy of our souls to negatively influence people's views on God's moral laws. The media is promoting as something beautiful the transgender transformation of someone well-known. But the transgender issue is only a small portion of the influence being exerted by the liberal media. They are also promoting the relaxing of moral values by presenting sex outside of marriage and homosexuality as being normal and acceptable.

As we draw closer and closer to the end of the age, we are going to see a corresponding rise in potentially confusing issues like the one I’ve written about in this blog. This is not a time to be casual in your relationship with God or His Church.

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:23-25, ESV).

THE INCREASE OF GOD

In 1967 Carol and I moved to New York at the invitation of David Wilkerson to assist him in his fledgling crusade ministry. For the next eight years I traveled with him in citywide crusades throughout the U.S., Canada, Western Europe and parts of South America. It was a phenomenal time of harvest as God’s Spirit was outpoured in an unprecedented way.

David Wilkerson was a powerfully successful minister of the gospel. The Teen Challenge Centers that he began now number over 1100 throughout the world. He began Times Square Church in Manhattan that is now a megachurch in the heart of New York’s theatre district. The Cross and Switchblade book, with sales of over 20 million, was made into a full-length feature film and his devotional writings continue to be read online by hundreds of thousands of people daily.

Below is a sample of David Wilkerson’s devotional writings. If you are interested, you can read his articles online or subscribe to receive his daily articles as an e-mail by visiting www.davidwilkersontoday.blogspot.com or www.worldchallenge.org. 

THE INCREASE OF GOD
by David Wilkerson  

You may be totally oblivious to the tremendous maturing process taking place inside you. Paul likens our spiritual growth to the growth of our bodies. He says our souls are nourished in the same way as our physical joints, muscles and fibers. He calls this being “[increased] with the increase of God” (Colossians 2:19).

Such growth comes from the Head. Simply put, as you trust and abide in Christ, a never-ending flow of His life is pumped into your soul. Jesus is a constant life-force in your being, a living stream that never shuts down. Therefore, His life is constantly emanating into yours, even while you are sleeping. He provides a fresh supply to you every day, no matter how you feel on the outside.

How do you think Israel survived forty years in the wilderness? They lived on manna, bread sent from heaven. This “angels’ food” had all the nutrients needed to build up the Israelites’ immune systems. That is why God’s people never contracted any of the diseases of Egypt. All around them, the Canaanites and Philistines were dying of plagues, yet the whole time, Israel remained immune.

So it is with Christ, our manna today. He is the bread sent to us from heaven and He builds up our spiritual immune systems against sins of all kinds. We may not see outward signs that this manna is at work in us (just as we don’t see our physical bodies’ immune systems growing stronger). But God’s Word promises that all who love Jesus will grow stronger in their spiritual immunity.

Think about it: At times you still may be tempted, but over the years you’ve found growing power to resist the world’s seductions. And you’ve grown more disgusted with the filth you see around you. You no longer thing or talk as the world does. That’s because you are growing.

Every day you do things over and over that become boring and repetitious. For example, every weekday you get up at the same hour, eat the same breakfast and make the same drive to your office. You go to the same restaurant for lunch, stop at the same coffee shop on your way home, and listen to the same radio station during the drive.

The same can be true of our spiritual lives. On Sunday morning, we go to church and sit in the same seats. We sing the same choruses and hymns. Even our prayers can sound the same. We do the same things over and over and we are tempted to think, “I’m not doing anything more than I’ve always done. I read my Bible and pray. I sing in the choir. But there’s no variety to it. I’ve done these same things for years and I’m not growing at all.”

What lies your feelings tell you! Such thinking can rob you of God’s grace. Growing in grace doesn’t mean doing more or greater things for God. True growth comes in doing the same things over and over, with more heart assurance that we’re doing everything for Him. It’s like learning to write in first grade. You begin with looping circles and lines, forming big letters. But after a while, the letters become smaller and closer together and eventually, you learn to put words together and finally form sentences. Even though you’ve been doing the same repetitious things for a long time, you’ve been writing. The whole time, something worthwhile was being accomplished.

I am convinced that spiritual growth occurs more in the repetitive things than it does by jumping from one ministry activity to another. It takes more grace simply to keep going when we’re tired, broken, downcast or afflicted than it does when everything is new. You may think you’re spiritually dead, going nowhere in the Lord, but most likely you’re increasing in Christ every day.

STAND AND WALK

When our granddaughter, Faith, was three, Carol and I watched the Disney classic movie “Bambi” with her. It was a fun experience for G-pop to watch his little granddaughter enjoy (and for a few minutes be scared by) scenes in this classic film. Thumper was amused, too, as Bambi tried to stand on shaky, spindly legs.

In most of creation, all two- and four-legged creatures have to learn to stand before they can walk. And then they must learn to walk before they can run, jump, play and generally live life as they were destined to do. Think of it as going through stages.

The nature of the creation is to allow time for the young to mature to the point that they are ready to be on their own. I used to watch the ducks in the lake beside our house in Plano, Texas; it was fascinating to watch them grow from little fuzz balls about the size of my fist to nearly the size of their parents. All during this growing process, mom and dad duck maintained a vigilant watch over their little ones. As the children became more mature and were getting ready to go out on their own, their mom and dad seemed to be less visible—still around, but not nearly as close as before.

Babies crawl before they walk. One day they suddenly pull themselves up on a chair or a sofa or a coffee table and start standing for the first time. No steps yet but they are beginning the process and this is a milestone moment. Stage one is about to morph into stage two.

The great world we live in is God’s creation. God created everything in nature and the processes that guide it. There are many parallels between the way things are done in the natural world and the way things are done in the spiritual world. It is true in the spiritual that before you can walk as a believer you need to learn to stand as a believer. Once we have learned to stand, to find out who we are in Christ, we can really learn then to grow and mature. And once we begin to walk in Christ, we can do service for Him and perform exploits on His behalf. It is imperative that before we move from stage one to stage two, we have had the time and the desire to explore stage one; otherwise, Thumper is going to laugh at us as we try to walk on shaky, spindly, underdeveloped legs.

To stand means to know who I am in Christ. It means that not only do I know who I am, but I begin to understand all that is available to me as a believer, as a follower of the Christ. In many ways it is a lifelong pursuit to explore stage one.

To walk means to begin to live out this life; we begin to find our destiny, our calling, what our life’s work will be and how all this flows together. Again, in some ways we never get fully past stage two.

I have been reading a lot recently in Ephesians. I find Ephesians to be both very comfortable and extremely profound. It is one of those books that welcomes you to read it but is somewhat mystifying in its meaning (but maybe that’s just me).

I divide the book of Ephesians into two sections. Chapters one through three are about the believer and his/her position in Christ; chapters four through six are about the believer beginning to walk in his/her life’s calling.

Stage One Living!

Ephesians 1:3 (Amplified Bible)

"May blessing (praise, laudation, and eulogy) be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual (given by the Holy Spirit) blessing in the heavenly realm!"

The spiritual blessings of being in Christ are many but they include being chosen, adopted into God’s family, made joint heirs with Jesus, forgiven, and the wonderful list goes on and on.

Stage Two Living!

Ephesians 4:1 (New International Version)

"I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,"

Worthy means that we acknowledge the awesome work that Christ has done on our behalf. We value this great work and live our lives in such a way as to show that we give open acknowledgement to Christ’s work in us.

Stage Three Living!

This is being written by our lives right now! If we have learned how to stand and how to walk, then we can learn how to live our lives to the fullest for Christ. Paul finishes Ephesians with the statement in 6:20: “I am an ambassador in chains.” Paul was in prison as he wrote this book. An ambassador was a representative of the ruling authority and would have been chosen from the ranks of mature, experienced men or women. To be an ambassador for Christ means that we have learned to stand and to walk . . . and then we are ready to represent Him.