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Work of the flesh or work of a demonic spirit?

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Author Topic: Work of the flesh or work of a demonic spirit?  (Read 540 times)
Lisa
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« on: May 02, 2011, 02:37:18 pm »

Have been thinking about this scripture-and wondered, how do you know whether a person is displaying a work of the flesh or whether a work of another (demonic) spirit??? I think im getting them mixed up and binding when i should be praying for a releaseof the Holy spirit...Does it make a big difference?Huh

Galatians 5
18But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

 19Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

 20Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

 21Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

 23Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

 24And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

 25If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

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Kilika
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« Reply #1 on: May 03, 2011, 04:43:53 am »

Quote
how do you know whether a person is displaying a work of the flesh or whether a work of another (demonic) spirit???

One can only know by the Holy Ghost, as that kind of thing as scripture says is spiritually discerned. Those that are born-again, it can be a work of the flesh as the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Unfortunately, we don't always walk in the Spirit as we should.

We know them by their fruits, right? And scripture says to not believe every spirit, but try the spirits, and the only way one can know what manner of spirit a person is is by the Holy Ghost. Those without the Spirit have the spirit of antichrist.

The verse you presented explain the works of the flesh. And for works of the Spirit, look at 1 Corinthians 13. Then trust the Spirit to guide you to the truth of any given matter.
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Lisa
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« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2011, 12:19:20 pm »

I thought that this was the answer-Im not sure im always tuning in. May i ask how you do this. I can tune into false teachers like eating my breakfast, but i think this is a little more technical or am i over complicating it. Is this just a matter of gifting or am i seriously missing something.
Bless you
L
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Kilika
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« Reply #3 on: May 03, 2011, 12:54:33 pm »

How do I do it? I don't. The Spirit does, at least that is what I believe, based on what scripture says.

Now if you want to know if a person is saved or unsaved, we know one who is saved will confess Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, and those who aren't saved won't be able to confess. What their fruits are will indicate where that person's heart is at. Remember that which comes out of the man defiles the man. But, that doesn't mean that perosn won't ever be saved, and I believe we really shouldn't judge whether a person is saved, but only their fruits are judged to be of God or not. Ultimately only God knows their true heart.

Is it a gift? Well, scripture does say that discernment is a gift. Do some have the gift more than others? I'm not so sure about that as scripture says God gave us of His Spirit without measure, so I believe that who are saved have the same amount of Spirit. Different people are used by God for different things, so I believe it is ultimately up to God to decide how He may use you and His Spirit within you.

Ultimately, all this is based on belief. Unless your reprobate, you know that you are sealed with the Holy Ghost, and it is the Holy Ghost that gives the increase, right? So YOU don't matter really, it's about the Spirit in you doing the work as God see's fit, not how you think it should be. Obviously you want the best for everyone, so the desire which is also from the Spirit, moves you to want good for people, but God ultimately decides where the Spirit will go and what it does, "whence it cometh or whither it goeth".
« Last Edit: May 03, 2011, 12:56:35 pm by Kilika » Report Spam   Logged
Lisa
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« Reply #4 on: May 03, 2011, 03:29:20 pm »

Thanks for that-my concern-actually can i pm this stuff as im not sure i want all the world to hear this if you get my gist.

L
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Kilika
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« Reply #5 on: May 03, 2011, 03:46:18 pm »

That's fine.
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Lisa
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« Reply #6 on: May 04, 2011, 05:17:26 pm »

Ok here is my biggy of the moment...
David Wilkerson-He did some amazing things and then gave all those false prophesies (consorting with katherine Khulman etc). Now i have had to pray much about this and the issue is;
a. Was he ministering all the time in the power of the Holy spirit-NAW
b. The false prophesies were they a work of a deciving spirit-OR
c.The work of the flesh
d. Did he ever minister in the power of the Holy spirit

I prayed about this-as in the flesh i had to assume in the end that he was ministering much in the flesh-
In the spirit-Father revealed to me that i am often oppressed by a critical spirit and needed deliverance of this (Yuk).
Interested in your thoughts?
L
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nuclearnuttery
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« Reply #7 on: May 05, 2011, 12:57:00 am »

from what others used to tell me:

first, the armor of God (and not just words, but a habit of awareness)
your beautiful free will is the second defense,
"resist the devil and he will flee from you",
and consistency is number 3.

So ask God for deliverance, resist the temptation/devil, and practice 1&2.

it's something I don't do enough, maybe when I catch myself messing up bad,
I will think of you and pray for myself as well!

Don't let Satan get you into the self defeating cycle, i call the "black hole" (since this morning)
it's hard to get out. certainly too windy for candle light, and how do you measure a bushel in a black hole?  Wink
we can all hide our light in the black hole of shame and cultural self hate!!!!

I think one of the things Christ measures by is the desire to win souls.
And if you make a mistake, apologize and try harder to do right.
That is how to make God happy.
sometime though people like frank peretti and job are such good servants (from what i know) that they get semi-permanently afflicted because they are simply too powerful on the spiritual playing field.

I hope that you find peace in the Lord!!!
You sound more obedient and watchful.
myself, i make mistakes when i am not guarded.
family motto really made me eat my own words today.
"look well"... i don't even take the plank from my own eye before i criticize

however with the masons and catholics i have taken on a very dangerous enemy potentially,
and if you have as well, there might be a lot of struggle before it's "over".

Paul said "finish the race"
don't get tired!!!
I have not really experienced the full "joy" of the lord and it is easy to despair in that situation,
He knows our sorrows and tribulations, he knows our world is tired and old.
He forgives faster than we can ask.

our linear habits can't keep up with His super-quantum love
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Lisa
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« Reply #8 on: May 05, 2011, 02:15:27 pm »

 “O WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM!” (Andrew Murray)
“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:24, 25).

 

You know the wonderful place that this text has in the wonderful epistle to the Romans. It stands here at the end of the seventh chapter as the gateway into the eighth. In the first sixteen verses of the eighth chapter the name of the Holy Spirit is found sixteen times; you have there the description and promise of the life that a child of God can live in the power of the Holy Spirit. This begins in the second verse: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:12). From that Paul goes on to speak of the great privileges of the child of God, who is to be led by the Spirit of God. The gateway into all this is in the twenty-fourth verse of the seventh chapter:

“O wretched man that I am!”

There you have the words of a man who has come to the end of himself. He has in the previous verses described how he had struggled and wrestled in his own power to obey the holy law of God, and had failed. But in answer to his own question he now finds the true answer and cries out: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” From that he goes on to speak of what that deliverance is that he has found.

I want from these words to describe the path by which a man can be led out of the spirit of bondage into the spirit of liberty. You know how distinctly it is said: “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear.” We are continually warned that this is the great danger of the Christian life, to go again into bondage; and I want to describe the path by which a man can get out of bondage into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Rather, I want to describe the man himself.

First, these words are the language of a regenerate man; second, of an impotent man; third, of a wretched man; and fourth, of a man on the borders of complete liberty.

The Regenerate Man

There is much evidence of regeneration from the fourteenth verse of the chapter on to the twenty-third. “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” (Rom. 7:17): that is the language of a regenerate man, a man who knows that his heart and nature have been renewed, and that sin is now a power in him that is not himself. “I delight in the law of the Lord after the inward man” (Rom. 7:22): that again is the language of a regenerate man. He dares to say when he does evil: “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” It is of great importance to understand this.

In the first two great sections of the epistle, Paul deals with justification and sanctification. In dealing with justification, he lays the foundation of the doctrine in the teaching about sin, not in the singular, sin, but in the plural, sins—the actual transgressions. In the second part of the fifth chapter he begins to deal with sin, not as actual transgression, but as a power. Just imagine what a loss it would have been to us if we had not this second half of the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, if Paul had omitted in his teaching this vital question of the sinfulness of the believer. We should have missed the question we all want answered as to sin in the believer. What is the answer? The regenerate man is one in whom the will has been renewed, and who can say: “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.”

The Impotent Man

Here is the great mistake made by many Christian people: they think that when there is a renewed will, it is enough; but that is not the case. This regenerate man tells us: “I will to do what is good, but the power to perform I find not.” How often people tell us that if you set yourself determinedly, you can perform what you will! But this man was as determined as any man can be, and yet he made the confession: “To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not” (Rom. 7:18).

But, you ask: “How is it God makes a regenerate man utter such a confession, with a right will, with a heart that longs to do good, and longs to do its very utmost to love God?”

Let us look at this question. What has God given us our will for? Had the angels who fell, in their own will, the strength to stand? Surely not. The will of the creature is nothing but an empty vessel in which the power of God is to be made manifest. The creature must seek in God all that it is to be. You have it in the second chapter of the epistle to the Philippians, and you have it here also, that God’s work is to work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Here is a man who appears to say: “God has not worked to do in me.” But we are taught that God works both to will and to do. How is the apparent contradiction to be reconciled?

You will find that in this passage (Rom. 7:6-25) the name of the Holy Spirit does not occur once, nor does the name of Christ occur. The man is wrestling and struggling to fulfill God’s law. Instead of the Holy Spirit and of Christ, the law is mentioned nearly twenty times. In this chapter, it shows a believer doing his very best to obey the law of God with his regenerate will. Not only this; but you will find the little words, I, me, my, occur more than forty times. It is the regenerate I in its impotence seeking to obey the law without being filled with the Spirit. This is the experience of almost every saint. After conversion a man begins to do his best, and he fails; but if we are brought into the full light, we need fail no longer. Nor need we fail at all if we have received the Spirit in His fullness at conversion.

God allows that failure that the regenerate man should be taught his own utter impotence. It is in the course of this struggle that there comes to us this sense of our utter sinfulness. It is God’s way of dealing with us. He allows that man to strive to fulfill the law that, as he strives and wrestles, he may be brought to this: “I am a regenerate child of God, but I am utterly helpless to obey His law.” See what strong words are used all through the chapter to describe this condition: “I am carnal, sold under sin” (Rom. 7:14); “I see another law in my members bringing me into captivity” (Rom. 7:23); and last of all, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). This believer who bows here in deep contrition is utterly unable to obey the law of God.

The Wretched Man

Not only is the man who makes this confession a regenerate and an impotent man, but he is also a wretched man. He is utterly unhappy and miserable; and what is it that makes him so utterly miserable? It is because God has given him a nature that loves Himself. He is deeply wretched because he feels he is not obeying his God. He says, with brokenness of heart: “It is not I that do it, but I am under the awful power of sin, which is holding me down. It is I, and yet not I: alas! alas! it is myself; so closely am I bound up with it, and so closely is it intertwined with my very nature.” Blessed be God when a man learns to say: “O wretched man that I am!” from the depth of his heart. He is on the way to the eighth chapter of Romans.

There are many who make this confession a pillow for sin. They say that if Paul had to confess his weakness and helplessness in this way, what are they that they should try to do better? So the call to holiness is quietly set aside. Would God that every one of us had learned to say these words in the very spirit in which they are written here! When we hear sin spoken of as the abominable thing that God hates, do not many of us wince before the word? Would that all Christians who go on sinning and sinning would take this verse to heart. If ever you utter a sharp word say: “O wretched man that I am!” And every time you lose your temper, kneel down and understand that it never was meant by God that this was to be the state in which His child should remain. Would God that we would take this word into our daily life, and say it every time we are touched about our own honor, and every time we say sharp things, and every time we sin against the Lord God, and against the Lord Jesus Christ in His humility, and in His obedience, and in His self-sacrifice! Would to God you could forget everything else, and cry out: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

Why should you say this whenever you commit sin? Because it is when a man is brought to this confession that deliverance is at hand.

And remember it was not only the sense of being impotent and taken captive that made him wretched, but it was above all the sense of sinning against his God. The law was doing its work, making sin exceedingly sinful in his sight. The thought of continually grieving God became utterly unbearable—it was this that brought forth the piercing cry: “O wretched man!” As long as we talk and reason about our impotence and our failure, and only try to find out what Romans 7 means, it will profit us but little; but when once every sin gives new intensity to the sense of wretchedness, and we feel our whole state as one of not only helplessness, but actual exceeding sinfulness, we shall be pressed not only to ask: “Who shall deliver us?” but to cry: “I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord.”

The Almost-Delivered Man

The man has tried to obey the beautiful law of God. He has loved it, he has wept over his sin, he has tried to conquer, he has tried to overcome fault after fault, but every time he has ended in failure.

What did he mean by “the body of this death”? Did he mean, my body when I die? Surely not. In the eighth chapter you have the answer to this question in the words: “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” That is the body of death from which he is seeking deliverance.

And now he is on the brink of deliverance! In the twenty-third verse of the seventh chapter we have the words: “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” It is a captive that cries: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” He is a man who feels himself bound. But look to the contrast in the second verse of the eighth chapter: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” That is the deliverance through Jesus Christ our Lord; the liberty to the captive which the Spirit brings. Can you keep captive any longer a man made free by the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”?

But you say, the regenerate man, had not he the Spirit of Jesus when he spoke in the sixth chapter? Yes, but he did not know what the Holy Spirit could do for him.

God does not work by His Spirit as He works by a blind force in nature. He leads His people on as reasonable, intelligent beings, and therefore when He wants to give us that Holy Spirit whom He has promised, He brings us first to the end of self, to the conviction that though we have been striving to obey the law, we have failed. When we have come to the end of that, then He shows us that in the Holy Spirit we have the power of obedience, the power of victory, and the power of real holiness.

God works to will, and He is ready to work to do, but, alas! many Christians misunderstand this. They think because they have the will, it is enough, and that now they are able to do. This is not so. The new will is a permanent gift, an attribute of the new nature. The power to do is not a permanent gift, but must be each moment received from the Holy Spirit. It is the man who is conscious of his own impotence as a believer who will learn that by the Holy Spirit he can live a holy life. This man is on the brink of that great deliverance; the way has been prepared for the glorious eighth chapter. I now ask this solemn question: Where are you living? Is it with you, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?” with now and then a little experience of the power of the Holy Spirit? or is it, “I thank God through Jesus Christ! The law of the Spirit hath set me free from the law of sin and of death”?

What the Holy Spirit does is to give the victory. “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live” (Rom. 8:13). It is the Holy Spirit who does this—the third Person of the Godhead. He it is who, when the heart is opened wide to receive Him, comes in and reigns there, and mortifies the deeds of the body, day by day, hour by hour, and moment by moment.

I want to bring this to a point. Remember, dear friend, what we need is to come to decision and action. There are in Scripture two very different sorts of Christians. The Bible speaks in Romans, Corinthians and Galatians about yielding to the flesh; and that is the life of tens of thousands of believers. All their lack of joy in the Holy Spirit, and their lack of the liberty He gives, is just owing to the flesh. The Spirit is within them, but the flesh rules the life. To be led by the Spirit of God is what they need. Would God that I could make every child of His realize what it means that the everlasting God has given His dear Son, Christ Jesus, to watch over you every day, and that what you have to do is to trust; and that the work of the Holy Spirit is to enable you every moment to remember Jesus, and to trust Him! The Spirit has come to keep the link with Him unbroken every moment. Praise God for the Holy Spirit! We are so accustomed to think of the Holy Spirit as a luxury, for special times, or for special ministers and men. But the Holy Spirit is necessary for every believer, every moment of the day. Praise God you have Him, and that He gives you the full experience of the deliverance in Christ, as He makes you free from the power of sin.

Who longs to have the power and the liberty of the Holy Spirit? Oh, brother, bow before God in one final cry of despair:

“O God, must I go on sinning this way forever? Who shall deliver me, O wretched man that I am! from the body of this death?”

Are you ready to sink before God in that cry and seek the power of Jesus to dwell and work in you? Are you ready to say: “I thank God through Jesus Christ”?

What good does it do that we go to church or attend conventions, that we study our Bibles and pray, unless our lives are filled with the Holy Spirit? That is what God wants; and nothing else will enable us to live a life of power and peace. You know that when a minister or parent is using the catechism, when a question is asked an answer is expected. Alas! how many Christians are content with the question put here: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” but never give the answer. Instead of answering, they are silent. Instead of saying: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” they are forever repeating the question without the answer. If you want the path to the full deliverance of Christ, and the liberty of the Spirit, the glorious liberty of the children of God, take it through the seventh chapter of Romans; and then say: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Be not content to remain ever groaning, but say: “I, a wretched man, thank God, through Jesus Christ. Even though I do not see it all, I am going to praise God.”

There is deliverance, there is the liberty of the Holy Spirit. The kingdom of God is “joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17).


Romans 8
 1There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

 3For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

 4That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

 5For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

 6For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

 7Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

 8So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

 9But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

 10And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

 11But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

 12Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

 13For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

 14For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

 15For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

 16The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

 17And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

 18For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

 19For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

 20For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

 21Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

 22For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

 23And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

 24For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

 25But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

 26Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

 27And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

 28And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

 29For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

 30Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

 31What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

 32He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

 33Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

 34Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

 36As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

 37Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

 38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.


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Lisa
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« Reply #9 on: May 06, 2011, 03:37:25 am »

WHY DID THE DEMONS KNOW PAUL?


SOME preachers master their subjects; some subjects master the preacher; once in a while one meets a preacher who is both master of, and also mastered by his subject. The Apostle Paul, I am sure, was in that category.

          Look at Paul in Corinth (Acts 19). Seven men were attempting to use a religious formula over a Gadara-type of victim. But slinging theological terms or even Bible verses at devil-possessed men is as ineffective as snowballing Gibraltar in the hope of removing it. One man, demon-controlled, was an easy match for these seven silly sycophants. While the seven sons of Sceva fled into the streets, shirtless and shamed, the man filled with an unholy spirit increased his wardrobe with seven suits. And so, the seven wounded, fearful men told their own tale, for God turned their folly to the glory of Christ, so that His name was greatly feared and magnified. Spooky spiritists were converted; Jews and Greeks were saved; at a public bonfire, cult books to the value of fifty thousand pieces were burned. Surely that was making the wrath of man to praise Him! Listen, too, to the testimony of the demon, "Jesus I know, AND PAUL I KNOW, but who are ye?" (Acts 19:15). This is the highest praise that earth or hell affords - to be classified by the enemy as one with Jesus.

          But how did Paul get that way? Why did demons know Paul? Had they beaten him too, or had he beaten them? Consider for a moment this man Paul. God and Paul were on intimate terms. Revelations were granted him. His servants were angels; at his finger tips were earthquakes. His Spirit-powered words shattered the fetters from the soul of a spirit-bound girl, whom men had snared as a fortuneteller. In Corinth, this mighty man Paul drained a part of the Slough of Despond, and there on the devil's doorstep established a church. Later, he snatched souls from under the nose of Caesar, right from Caesar's own household. And before kings Paul was at home, for he said, "I count myself happy King Agrippa!" Paul also stormed the intellectual capital of the world (Mars hill) with resurrection truth and thereby routed their learned. While Paul lived, hell had no peace.

          But what was Paul's armory? Where did he edge his blade? Paul more than once uses the phrase "I am persuaded," and therein lay his secret. Revealed truth held him like a vise. The Word, like the Lord, was immutable. Paul's anchor was cast in the depths of God's faithfulness. His battleaxe was the Word of the Lord; his strength was faith in that Word. So the Spirit alerted Paul to the coming strategy of the devil. Paul was not ignorant of his devices; therefore hell suffered. Even when men willed to assassinate Paul, an informer uncovered the plot, and men and demons were foiled.

          Spirituality that saves men from hell and keeps men from vulgar sins is wonderful, but, I believe, elementary. When Paul went to the Cross, the miracle of conversion and regeneration took place; but later when he got on the Cross, the greater miracle of identification took place. That I believe is the masterly argument of the Apostle - to be dead and alive at the same time. "Ye are dead," Paul wrote the Galatians. Suppose we try this on ourselves first. Are we dead? - dead to blame or praise? dead to fashion and human opinion? dead so that we have no itch for recognition? dead so that we do not squirm if another gets praised for a thing that we engineered? Oh sweet, sublime, satisfying experience of the indwelling Christ by the Spirit! We, too, can sing with Wesley:

                    Dead to the world and all its toys!
                    Its idle pomp and fading joys!
                    Jesus, my glory be!

          Yes, Paul was dead. Then he added, "Nevertheless I live, yet not I." Christianity is the only religion in the world where a man's God comes and lives inside of him. Paul no longer wrestled with flesh (neither his own nor any other man's); he wrestled "against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world." Does that shed any light on why this demon said, "And Paul I know?" Paul had been wrestling against the demon powers. (In these modern days, this art of binding and loosing that Paul knew is almost forgotten or else ignored.) On the last lap of his earthly pilgrimage, he declared, "I have fought a good fight." Demons could have said amen to that statement, for they suffered more from Paul than Paul suffered from them. Yes, Paul was known in hell.

          Another anchor that held this soul undaunted was the wrath of a holy God upon sin. "Knowing the terror of the Lord he persuaded men" (II Cor. 5:11). Paul accounted men as lost! The other night I saw a picture thrown onto a screen; but in its blurred state it had no meaning. Then the operator's hand reached out and focussed the slide. What a difference! Even so, we Christians need the Divine Hand to sharpen the picture of the lostness of men to our eternity-dimmed eyes. Because Paul loved His Lord with a perfect love, he also hated sin with a perfect hatred. Thus he saw men not only prodigals but also rebels - not just drifters from righteousness but conspirators in wickedness, who must be pardoned or punished. With the fierceness of Love's intensest blaze, he burned at the injustice of men subordinate to demon power. His watchword was "This one thing I do." He had no side issues, no books to sell. He had no ambitions - and so had nothing to be jealous about. He had no reputation - and so had nothing to fight about. He had no possessions - and therefore nothing to worry about. He had no "rights" - so therefore he could not suffer wrong. He was already broken - so no one could break him. He was "dead" - so none could kill him. He was less than the least - so who could humble him? He had suffered the loss of all things - so none could defraud him. Does this throw any light on why the demon said, "Paul I know?" Over this God-intoxicated man, hell suffered headaches.

          Yet another anchor to the spirit of this saint was the efficacy of the blood of Jesus, and so the ability of Christ to save fully. "ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Yes! But Christ is able to save to the uttermost ALL who come unto God by Him. Oh that the world might know the all-atoning Lamb!

          With Paul there was no limited atonement. Zealot he was and wanted to be. In the light of an eternal hell what were perishing things of clay? And in our present day what are honors among men? or what are the schemes of hell? Right now men are LOST, as well as after they die. Right now men are being swept into the vortex of a sewer of gross iniquity which ultimately will suck them down to an ETERNAL HELL. Is this true? Paul was convinced that it was. Then, "oh arm of the Lord, awake; put on strength" (Isa. 51:9). "Make me Thy battleaxe and Thy weapons of war," I hear Paul say.

          Another anchor for Paul was the blessed assurance that "to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord" (II Cor. 5:Cool. No soul-sleep here! No interminable intermediate state! Out of life into life! At the thought of eternity, language is beggered and imagination staggered. Paul could "write off" stripes, imprisonments, fastings, weariness, and painfulness as "light affliction" - recompensed by the fact "so shall we ever be with the Lord." All the "shot and shell" of demons was wasted against Paul. Do you wonder now that one of them said, "And Paul I know?"

          The final truth as an anchor to Paul's soul was "WE MUST ALL APPEAR before the judgment seat of Christ" (II Cor. 5:10). Living with eternity's values in view took the sting out of this oncoming test too. Living "right," here on earth (I do not mean just living righteously, but living after the pattern set in the Holy Word) takes care of the hereafter. Paul was so conformed to the image of the Son that he could say, "What things ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do" (Phil. 4:9). To copy copies is not normally safe, but it is safe to copy Paul, for he was fully surrendered, wholly sanctified, completely satisfied, yea, "complete in Christ."

          Do you still wonder why a demon said, "And Paul I know?" I don't.

---
Used by permission, and excerpted from WHY REVIVAL TARRIES by Leonard Ravenhill, copyright (c) 1959, and published
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nuclearnuttery
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« Reply #10 on: May 08, 2011, 03:35:27 am »

i fear my power to harm,
i fear the despair of the lost,
i fear the void of sadness they experience, and i ask myself and Him, "why"?

is that a sin?
i think it is and yet i feel so tired
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