Transcription
[Music] Uh, good evening everyone. Oh, come on, thank you. Good, good evening. I flew a few thousand miles. Good evening. So glad that you're here tonight. I also want to say hello. Let's give a hello to everyone who's watching live streaming across the country and in my country. Glad that you're with us tonight and so thankful that you're going to think this through. As, uh, Tyler just said, um, he called me and he asked me to come to you tonight to begin a conversation. So I want to just be very honest about this. Again, this is only five percent of what a community talks through long-term. And, and my goal today, actually, he called and said, "Would you come throw a bunch of grenades, cause an explosion, and leave?" And I said, "Are you sure?" And he said, "Yes." I said, "Are you sure?" And he said, "Yes." So tonight is the beginning of a conversation for a local church to think long-term about how we can help people who actually are really experiencing this. And I just want to start by reminding you, I know some of you might not be Christians in the room tonight, but for we who are, let me just remind all of us, we're the only people on earth who have this answer. Psychology can't do this thing we're going to talk about. But teaching, education, we're the only ones who've got this answer in this topic. So this is a critically important conversation. So my job tonight is to begin a conversation, to get you all thinking, to start building a common lexicon that you at Bridgetown, or if you're watching from another church, your team that's listening right now, can begin to say, "Do we agree with that? Is that what we mean when I say that word? You mean that word?" And then start fleshing out the implications later. Does that make sense with everyone? Well, okay. So here's what I want to do. I want to begin by reminding all of us what spiritual conflict is and what it's not. You're going to find this with me, I'm a fast, quick speaker. So pull out your phones or how you're going to take notes. This is being recorded, correct? So you can go back and you can listen to this. But I have a lot to cover tonight, and then hopefully the Q&A will help you. Number one, when you hear the word spiritual conflict or spiritual warfare, mostly people think about the devil. And that's a mistake. We need to be reminded as Christians from a biblical worldview that spiritual conflict comes not in one form, not in two forms, but in three forms. So the world, the flesh, and the devil. All are spiritual conflict terms. We worship a holy trinity, the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. And yet, there is an unholy trinity that is at war with every Christian and every human being. Now, worldliness, the word that Paul uses, means the systems in our world that are out of sync from the kingdom of God. And, and what's difficult about worldliness is worldliness takes on multiple cultural forms that actually disagree with each other, but from God's perspective, they're all wrong. So you can have an atheistic worldview, or an amoral worldview, or a materialism-only worldview. Think about this, every great religion on earth is an invention of Babel, the idea that by our acts we get to pierce the heavens and get to know God. That is worldliness. And then, of course, we who are living now, because I live in Canada, I live in the most multicultural city on earth, and we have not only come gone through a sort of a pre-Christian to Christian to de-Christian moment, I'm now living in a pre-Christian moment in Canada. And as it's taken place, spirituality has now also become a great vein of, of worldliness. So worldliness, and you'll notice religions and atheism and agnosticism and spirituality all turn on each other, but from God's view, they're all out of sync with the kingdom of God. And we swim in this. It's like oxygen. It's like being in water with a fish. And so it's very difficult for us to understand sometimes as Christians where we are participating in worldliness.
The second enemy to you, to myself, is us. It's our flesh. As Paul puts it, sinfulness. It is that idea that we love to do things that violate God's law. Remember when God gave the Ten Commandments, he didn't just wake up one day and say, "I don't like murder." He hates murder because he's a life-giving God. He hates adultery because he's a covenant-keeping God. He hates lying because he's a truth-giving God. So every time a human being, any of us, sin, we're not only just breaking God's law, we're violating and attacking his DNA. And so it's critical to understand again that the inclinations we have, even as Christians, to do these things is spiritual conflict. And when we crucify ourselves, we are participating in spiritual conflict. When we deny ourselves and love Jesus more than our other loves.
Now, the third version, of course, is the demonic and Satan, who is the chief fallen angel that existed before time really existed, or at the beginning, depending on your theological worldview. But no matter where you land, he was an angel, and him and a group of angels rebelled. Here's the second thing I want to talk to you about spiritual conflict. It happens in two areas. It happens in doctrine and experience. Spiritual warfare is as much an intellectual spiritual fight as it is an emotional, experiential feeling fight. See, most Christians, when they talk about spiritual conflict, talk about something like being at 3 AM and you're sleeping, and then you feel pinned in your bed, and you try saying the name of Jesus, and you're like, "That's a weird experience." But actually, much of where spiritual conflict takes place is not in the experiential realm alone. It's actually where it's in the intellectual realm. First Timothy 4:1 warns us that evil spirits teach demonic doctrines. Let me read it to you. It says, "The Holy Spirit says clearly that in latter times," and by the way, if your theology is strong, you know we've been in the end times since the birth of Jesus, "some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons." In other words, sentient, living beings that used to be angels, now that are warring against God in all goodness and beauty, are actually manipulating and directing grand thinking that takes place all around the world. In other words, there are philosophies you've been taught at university whose heartbeat is not intellectual, but a spiritual being trying to deceive hundreds of millions. So again, let me just work this out. You can have a doctrinal thing, and then you can have an experiential thing. You play with a Ouija board, you used to, you used to worship another god, and on and on it goes. And so experiential, intellectual is where the fight takes place.
Now, there are 300 references to the demonic in scripture: devils, Satan, demons, evil spirits, God of this age, spiritual forces. And what's so striking is that almost all great theologies that have been written, especially narrative theologies, don't include this as one of the grand arcs in scripture: covenant, sin, salvation. If you are more a theological person in the audience, a theo-head, you're like, "Oh yeah, yeah." But what blows my mind is spiritual conflict begins in Genesis 1:2 and ends in Revelation 20. It runs the whole length of the Bible. And so this should be one of the main things we do talk about as Christians, because it's one of the main things in scripture.
Now, here's an interesting question. A lot of people ask me as we get going, "Why in the world do the demonic love being in human beings?" Let me give you the answer. Number one, every single human being that has ever existed and will exist is made in the image of who? God. That's right. We are made in the image of our Creator. Every time a demon sees a human being, even a Hitler or a Stalin, they see their enemy. So they absolutely hate human beings with an intensity that I cannot preach or explain to you, because you are the living embodiment of the one they rebelled against before the beginning of time. And the thing that Satan wanted, if you read scripture carefully, was one thing: he wanted to be God and sit on God's throne. And the only other place within the universe where there's a throne where God sits is the human heart. That is why they love being in human beings, because it is the second best place to be since they couldn't get the first one. And it is pure mockery of the living God every time they sit in a human being.
So this brings us to actually a very difficult moment that is very offensive to a Western worldview, but has to be recaptured because it's a biblical worldview. In other words, the Bible teaches this, that every human being that you know, the kindest, most sincere person, is either owned by God or owned by Satan. Uh, I want you to hear this. Each human being on earth at this moment is positionally possessed. I'll define that in a minute. Either by the Spirit of Jesus or the Spirit of the Age. Every human being at this moment is either in one kingdom or another. See, listen to what Paul said, and it's such a striking thing that has been preached so much, and yet so many of us don't believe it. Second Corinthians 4:4: "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." So let me just say, do you actually believe this? Every human being that you know who is not a Christian does not have the ability to see Jesus, understand Jesus, or embrace the gospel. It is an impossibility because they are literally blinded by an external force and an internal force. This is why evangelism is so hard. This is why churches fail all the time when they don't actually pray before they go to do new initiatives, because they actually think there's an ability for a human being to see. They can't.
So let me work out the word "possess" because I just used it. Some of you started tweeting very scary. So possession is always positional, and sometimes in presence. Let me say this again: possession is always positional, but sometimes in presence. In other words, every human being on earth has, since the, since the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, is either owned by God through Jesus, possessed by the Spirit, or is still owned by the other side. We are all, in heaven's view and in hell's view, either positionally possessed, owned by one of two sides. And sometimes we're also inhabited. There are only two kingdoms. That's why when Paul was writing to the church in Ephesus, in Ephesians 2:1, he described their precondition like this: "As for you," just hear the scripture, let the scripture be scripture tonight, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, dead in which you used to live when you followed the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient." Unsaved. So the world, the flesh, and the devil are all right there. And pre-Jesus, they're the dominating forces. You're spiritually dead, you're positionally owned by Satan, and you're in some form of worldliness that is another kingdom expression that is not ours.
So then the real question that so many people are thinking about tonight, this is why you're here. Some of you are like this, ready to see if I'm in or not, is what happens when you switch sides? What happens when you become a Christian and you switch allegiances? Well, we know the very first thing that happens is ownership changes hands. And the biblical language is unbelievably offensive and needs to be brought back. It says in Romans that if you are not a slave to Jesus, you're a slave to sin. But Paul says if you are owned by God, you're a slave to Jesus. And that's a good slavery because we all know that when we try leading our lives, we do a really bad job. And He's the best Master. Remember Jesus says himself, right, "My burden is light," but "my yoke is still on you." In other words, we are positionally owned, and Paul calls us slaves to Jesus. And slaves, this is a willing slavery because we know that Jesus is a better Master. His burden is light, and we want to be led by Him because He understands more than we do. By the way, if you resist slavery, another way of saying His Lordship to Jesus, your Christian life will be terrible. Willing slavery is where freedom is in our movement.
So then the question that always comes out, because again, we're all, we're doing setting a theological foundation for this amazing church to think in 10 years from now, how can we be helping people be set free from evil? When someone becomes a follower of Jesus and switches sides, the question that is asked is, "How much influence can the demonic have in my life now that I'm owned by Jesus?" That makes sense to everyone? Okay. So here's the first grenade moment. Everyone ready? If you've got a Bible, virtual or physical, I'd like you to turn to Luke 13. Now, this, when I first understood this, I was a pastor, and this rocked my world that went totally sideways. I always jokingly say when I do this talk that this is when all the light bulbs go off and the pitchforks come out on Twitter and Instagram real quick. So Luke 13:10. It's probably going to be probably behind me too. I'm going to read the passage and I'm going to unpack the passage for you.
"So on Sabbath, this is starting verse 10 in Luke 13, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues. And a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for 18 years. She was bent over, could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said, 'Woman, you're set free from your infirmity.' Then he put his hands on her. She immediately straightened up and praised God." And then the pastors got a little angry, indignant, because Jesus healed on the Sabbath. The synagogue leader said to the people, "There are six days for work, but come and be healed on those days and not on the Sabbath." And the Lord answered, "You hypocrites! Wow. That's Jesus, meek and mild. Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it to get it water? Then should not this woman," I want you to pay attention, if you're a highlighting person, highlight this, "a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for 18 long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?" And when he said this, all his opponents were humiliated. The people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.
Okay, let me begin to unpack this. Number one, I just want to say this so we're all together. When Jesus starts setting people free, religious people will be angry. Just want to say that up front. The pastor is the one who's upset. Remember, he doesn't even deny that the miracle takes place. He's upset it happened in the wrong time schedule. The woman is like having a Pentecostal moment, she's running, she's running, she's running. The people are praising God, and he's like, "No, no, no, it doesn't fit in my box." Here's the other thing that really is important, and we've got to catch this, especially we who are part of the Western community, the Western church. You didn't just walk into synagogue. It wasn't seeker-sensitive time. There were no coffee stations, or as you have in Portland, I found out, kombucha on tap. Wow, very, very cool of you. Now, see this? Yes. Can you believe that? You watch it. I'm like, kombucha on tap. Anyway, my friends in the East are like, "Uh, Portland." Anyway. So, so here, here's what you gotta catch about this. This woman was part of the synagogue. They all knew her. You had to have an introduction to go to synagogue if you were an outsider. So she is part of this. Let me use our vocabulary, church. She's known. She's a member. Oh, and every week as she comes to church, Sabbath after Sabbath, she's sitting under what? God's word. Do you believe that the Old Testament is as inspired as the New? Is it still as effective? Yes. So you've got a woman who's in right community, right with God, in the sense of in church and doing godly things, sitting under community, and oh, and under God's word. And here's the problem: she has what we call reverse hunchback. So she has a massive bone that actually is preventing her from straightening up. It's right here. And anyone want to tell me what Luke's job was? He was a medical doctor. And actually, if you read just the original language, he uses the problem, it's still used by doctors today. So Luke goes, "Oh, I know this problem. I've seen this before. It's this problem." And yet then Jesus tells us that a genuine, medically diagnosed problem has a supernatural internal source. And so this reverse hunchback is from Satan. So Jesus does this thing, calls her forward, and then He sets her free. And here's where everything goes really wild. He says, "Should not this daughter of Abraham?" Now, lots of people want to say, "Oh yeah, she's Jewish." No, no, it's not what this means. See, if you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John carefully, you'll realize that each one of them, though they're telling the ark story of Jesus, have their own personal theological agendas to their own community. Luke writes Luke and Acts for a reason. Every time you see the phrase "son of Abraham," it is a salvific term in Luke and Acts, not an ethnic term. When Zacchaeus, anyone, wasn't breaking a little song, Zacchaeus was a, we love, oh man, you still know it. We love a man. Okay, wow. I'm really shocked you know that. I thought it was just like baby boomers and Gen Xers and up. Okay. So, so here's the thing. When, when Zacchaeus repented and became a true follower of Jesus, even though he was in league with the Roman government, what does Jesus say in Luke 19? "Today you have become a son of Abraham." All the way in the book of Acts later, amazingly, shockingly, this is really important, in Acts 13:26, Paul says that the people in Antioch of Pisidia who are followers of Jesus are truly sons of the, uh, family of Abraham. So here's what this is a declaration. This woman, to use our vernacular, is saved. And by the way, this is the only place that a woman is called the daughter of Abraham anywhere. So this is a woman in church, sitting under good preaching, in right community, and Jesus not only medically declares what has gone on, He spiritually declares that she is in right relationship with the living God, like salvifically, not just ethnically. And you have a woman who's right with God, and a daughter of Abraham, and in church, who has a demon in her giving her this. What do you do with that? Because there's no way that believers could have something inside of them and be with God, right? Wrong. What are these? Very correct. So if I say these are my glasses, this whole crowd, you watching online, would immediately say, "Oh, I understand that." I wouldn't have to declare it for you. I would be declaring that I, what? These, I own these, or I, what? I possess these. See, every time you, as a, especially if you speak English as your first language, when you hear the word possession, you immediately presume what? Ownership. So when I say, "Oh my goodness, that person is possessed," then you could say, "Well, they are what? Owned by the other side." And since I'm owned by Jesus, that's an impossibility. Here's the problem. The problem is the Greeks loved owning things. Like they loved owning things. They were such materialists that in New Testament Greek, they not had one word for ownership, they invented five. So if you ever get to learn New Testament Greek and you look this up, you will find that they had five specific terms just to talk about what they possessed. Here's the wild thing: every time in the New Testament you see the word "and they were demon-possessed," not one of those words is ever used. Okay, I'm going to do this again. You also from blank. Every time you see the word "possessed" in the New Testament, it does not mean ownership. It just means, in Greek, to have, to be tormented, or to be vexed. So you have a woman who's in right standing with God, and right relationship with God, in right community with God, and she is positionally possessed correctly, but she has a demon. She's tormented by a demon. And oh, by the way, it's not oppression, it's not outside, it's an internal experience. So what do we do with that? Oh, it got real quiet in here real quick. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, especially the theological people among us. You tend to have ESV Bibles, very large ones. You're going, "Well, that's fine, John, but that's pre-cross. And then Jesus died, and everything changed. And so that just cannot be." Okay, let's keep walking this out. So I'm going to do something for you that's hopefully going to be helpful and really encouraging to you. And as we're going to resolve the question of what do we do with that woman in Acts 13 after the cross, and what does it mean for you, your family, your small group, and your church, I'm going to talk about upstairs theology and downstairs theology. Everything you might want to write that down. It might help you if you want to take notes. So upstairs and downstairs. Upstairs theology is how God views you, and downstairs theology is how you try to work it in everyday life. Makes sense? Upstairs, downstairs. Okay.
My favorite verse of the Bible when it comes to spiritual conflict is found in Colossians 2:15. This is what this is, heaven's view of what Jesus accomplished between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. And it's an epic verse. It should become a T-shirt. It's great. "Having disarmed the powers and authorities, Jesus made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." Anyone want to say amen to that? By the way. Yeah. Good. Good. All right. So there's a few things I want to talk about that's really important. Number one, disarm means to take off, put off, or strip. And so what you have from heaven's view is when Jesus died and then rose from the dead, He broke ultimate power of the kingdom of darkness in the heavenlies. But what's even more beautiful is when you see that phrase, "He triumphed over them." What I love about this is this is actually something every Roman here would understand. So I don't know if you've heard this before, maybe you have in your own community. When a Caesar or a general from the Roman context would go to another place and have a great victory, what they would do is they would humiliate the king, the one they'd conquered, by putting them in irons and kill off probably half the army and keep the other half. They'd bring them to Rome. And this is what would happen: Caesar or the general would go in first, then his army would go in first, then the defeated king would have to walk behind him, and then the army that had been defeated would be in chains. And all the people of Rome would come out and pelt them and spit on them and say, "You're defeated." What this is declaring is that when Jesus rose from the dead, Satan and the demonic had to go be behind Jesus and admit their defeat. They said, like an unbut, like that would preach all day long in any context. And I'm done. God bless you. I'm going to Toronto. Okay. So no, like beautiful and powerful, right? So we know that is what positionally and ultimately true. Right now, in Portland, 2021, Jesus has disarmed the powers and authorities and He has mocked them. This was a good thing.
My favorite passage, or my favorite book in the Bible, is the book of Ephesians. I'm a Calvinist. I really like it. Some of you're like, "Now I can't listen to the guy." I met, okay. So why do I love Ephesians? One, especially because it is the best. Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 2, in my opinion, outlines what God has done for us in the heavenlies in explicit terms. You want to know your identity in Jesus tonight? No matter how screwed up you are, no matter how good you are, this is it. I love it. Ephesians 1:4: "In love, in love, he predestines us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure in his will." So God loves us, He predestined us, He adopts us, and sonship, or daughtership, sonship here is even deeper than that. That was saying in, again, a historic context, you would take an adopted son and give him all the rights to the estate. And so this is a declaration that you are predestined tonight, you are loved tonight, you are adopted tonight, and you are a daughter or son of the King. That is where you build your identity from. And then verse 7: "In him," that's Jesus, "we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace he's lavished on us." Redemption is a strong word. It's such a strong word. To be redeemed in ancient times meant I went to the slave market and I bought you back out of a slave market to come home again. War, uh, this happened all the time when you were captured in the war. People would be put into slave markets, and families would come and buy their relatives back. So this is declaring that we were all enslaved and owned by the devil, and Jesus, through His work, redeemed us out of that slave market and then covered our sins by His blood and liberated us. And then the most amazing thing is in verse 13, and I promise this is all going to connect to demons in a minute. "When you believed in Jesus, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession, to the praise of his glory." Most of you will know this, I think. In ancient times, when a king would make a law, he'd get wax, he'd get a signet ring, and he'd declare it. So, so the Holy Spirit is God's internal tattoo in your life that you're possessed and owned by Jesus and the Father. And He's your guarantee that when you die, the cremation fire or the graveside does not have the final say, because you will be physically resurrected like Jesus was physically resurrected. So all of that's in Ephesians 1, and all of that's upstairs theology, because when God the Father looks at you tonight, He sees you through the work of Jesus, and He sees you possessed by the Spirit of Jesus. That's a good place to start.
Ephesians 2, if you flip the page, it goes even farther than it says. And God raised all of us messed-up people with Jesus and seated us in the heavenly realms in Jesus Christ. He's not going to do this, He's done this. This means positionally, at this moment, you are in Christ. And where is Christ, by the way? This is not a trick Sunday school question. Where is He right now? I don't have the gift of translation. Right. In the Father, right hand of the Father. So that means He's the position of all authority. And though you are messed up, and I'm messed up, and we sin, and we're broken, we are positionally in Jesus. Which means that every principality, power, rule, under 30 are under our feet because we're in Christ. Wow. And then it even gets better, because it goes from a "me" thing to an "us" thing. I'd say a small "c" catholic thing, where in Ephesians 3, we suddenly see why God even did the church the way He did. And He says in verse, chapter 3, verse 10: "His intent was now that through the church," so through Bridgetown, and through Sanctus, where I am, and every other church on earth, "the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord." So here's what's unbelievable. Bridgetown, in God's view, is called the manifold wisdom of God. Now, what does that mean? Well, manifold wisdom in Greek is the idea of every color you can imagine is found in that spot. So first of all, this is a beautiful hint towards that God's intention is that the local church and the global church has to be intricately beautiful, multi-generational, multi-gifted, and multi-racial, because that's where we're ending up in Revelation 7. But not only that, this is even in the Old Testament where Joseph's coat of many colors, this is the word used in the Greek version of the Old Testament. Why does this matter? Because what this is declaring is the most screwed-up and broken-down, not functioning well, dysfunctional little church on earth, it's still the billboard to Satan that he lost. So every time, forget the building, though love your building, when you gather, the demonic are told by your presence, "You lost, you lost, you lost." So the local church is the manifold billboard of their defeat.
So I want to go through this again, and I'm going to work this out. So you're predestined, and I would say you really, really are predestined and called. Just saying it's good, it's pastorally helpful when you mess up. And adopted, and redeemed, and forgiven, and sealed, and seated in the heavens, and you're the billboard of Satan's defeat. Now, here's the point. Paul in chapter one and two works out everything we have in common before he talks about all our problems. Then in chapter two, three, and four, and five, he deals with all the problems in the church: husbands and wives, church leaders and people, slaves and masters. He's trying to say, "You've got to have your identity solidified before you try working out unity, because the unity is grounded in someone external to you. If it's not external, you'll turn on each other." Hey, Portland, have you seen that lately? People turning on each other. The unity has to come from outside of us, not inside of us.
Now, halfway through this amazing unity talk, and by the way, trick question, not true question, is Ephesians written to Christians or non-Christians? Come on, people. Yes. Christians. Yes. 100%. This is for believers. In the middle of the unity talk, Paul addresses habitual sin and he says this in Ephesians 4:25: "And I want to remind the theologian people in the room, post-cross, we're even in the epistles. This is like legit, legit. Now, for some of you, therefore, each of you must put off falsehood, stop lying, speak truthfully to your neighbor, we're members of one body. In your anger, do not sin. Don't let the sun go down while you're still angry, and do not give the devil a what?" Okay, let's talk about this. So to you who are predestined, and you who are adopted, and you who are sanctified, and you are sealed until the day of redemption, and you who are the billboard of Satan's defeat, and and and and and, "do not give the devil a foothold." What this is where we go from upstairs to downstairs. So this is what foothold means in Greek. It's the word "topos," T-O-P-O-S. It's used somewhere between 85 and 92 times in the New Testament, and 99% of the usages in the New Testament are spatial: room, reef, region, location, place, space. So here's what Paul is saying, and here's where the bomb is going to drop for all sorts of you. And while this happens, do not be afraid. Paul is saying to predestined, loving Christians who do more Bible studies, if you don't deal with your anger, you will open a door internally to the demonic. It's not just opportunity, it's region. Think about a house. Uh, and it switched sides. The, the owner used to be Satan. Now it's Jesus. Jesus is in the house. How's He in the house? Because the Spirit of Jesus is present. We're sealed by the Spirit. And then think about the left bedroom window is left open, and squatters have now moved in. The house. Did the squatters own the house? Yes or no? Of course they don't. But can they do damage to the house? A million percent. This is saying that if Christians are involved in habitual sin, they don't even have to believe the demonic are present, and they're still going to show up. Does this describe every single church meeting you've been to? So anger. Now, some people are like, "Oh, see, anger's the only thing that opens the door." No, no, no, no. He talks about all sorts of them here: rage, bitterness, anger, brawling. Now, here's the unbelievable sort of a solidification point. Look at verse 30. He says, "So don't give topos." And then he says, "And do not grieve the Spirit of God with whom you are sealed for the day of redemption." So here is the wild thing. Are you telling me, John, that I can be adopted, sealed in Jesus, and saved, and predestined, and I literally sealed to the day of redemption, and a demonic being can be inside of me, but not own me? And when the demonic come into me, I grieve the Spirit, but He doesn't leave? Exactly. Exactly. See, most of you, if you've grown up at church, I don't care your background, Presbyterian, Anglican, you call them Episcopalians down here, I suppose, Baptist, Brethren, Alliance, you have been taught this North American lie that you're safe. And it's not biblical. It's not your security is guaranteed, your ceiling is guaranteed, your safety is not. So what we see here is that you can yield to the presence of the kingdom of darkness, as an example, we'll talk about other things later, through habitual sin. You don't even believe the devil's in the room, and the devil doesn't care. Why? Oh, right, because this is a real war, and there's no, there's no such thing as human rights here. There's no such thing as a standard of war here. It's like if you go to Syria and you interview children that have been through the last three years, they will tell you there is no fairness. This is the same. And so you have multiple, multiple Christians who love God, who go to small group, who go to church every week, who read their Bible, who listen to Bethel or don't listen to Bethel, depending on where you're at, or Gaither, or whatever you want to say, but it, you love Jesus, and you're worshiping the Holy Trinity, and at the same time have this thing going on that you can't classify in your head because you've been told by pastors it's not allowed. Paul explicitly says here, you can actually be possessed by Jesus and demonized at the same time. See, demonized just means to have, possessed means to be owned. Now, I know what someone's thinking in the room, or someone is very angry in New York and is DMing me right now on Instagram because they're like, "Satan and God can't share the same space." What Bible are you reading? Uh, first of all, let's just get this out of the way. God's omnipresent, correct? So they share space all the time. And second of all, Job chapter 1, Satan walks right into the throne room of God. And then there's the temptations where Jesus and Satan are in the same space together. See, here's the thing that confuses me that we need to undo. For some reason, we think, especially as confessional, biblical, some somewhat conservative, I mean, evangelical in the historic sense, not the current sense, as Christians, we believe that we can sin and the Spirit of God, every time I don't sin, the Spirit of God doesn't leave. He's what? Grieved. If, if the Holy Spirit left me every single time I sinned, whoa, we're done. We wouldn't make it through five minutes. I have children. Two minutes. Um, um, I'm married. She'd say one minute. Um, so here's what you gotta catch. For some reason, we've elevated Satan to be more wicked than sin or worldliness. But let me tell you, all three enemies are wicked. So when I sin, the Spirit of God doesn't leave, He gets grieved. When I become worldly, or I participate in a world system, whether I understand it fully or not, the Spirit is grieved. And when the demonic walk into my life, He's also grieved, but He does not leave. This is not ready for some of the theology, theological people. This is in the wrong category. If you're making this about salvation, you've missed it. This is about sanctification. This is about growing in holiness. Conversion is when you switch sides. How you work out the conversion of sanctification down here. So positionally, let me do this again, just to do this. You can be owned by God upstairs, and be inhabited downstairs by the evil one, and the Holy Spirit, 100%. Let's stop there. He said, "No, you don't have to clap." They're like, "I don't know, should I?" Thanks, friend. Cheers. Thank you. We don't know what to do. If no one plays a synth pad underneath. No. Where's the Holy Spirit? Two minutes. Yeah. Oh, no, it's okay. Totally great. All right. Thank you, brother. Let's, uh, let's jump into a few questions. We'll do about 10 minutes, and then we'll take a brief break.
So I'm, uh, going to try to summarize a few themes here. Um, first, let's start here. When there was, uh, a couple of examples in there about a link between physical illness and demonic possession. Demonization. Yeah. Thank you, sir. No problem. Um, so when, how might that inform how you pray for someone for healing? Yeah. Great. So, uh, one of the things that I'll talk about next, uh, and then maybe even tomorrow, you'll talk about the podcast we're going to do. Uh, please, um, we've got to be really careful. So, um, in our community, we work with nurses, we work with doctors, we work with psychologists. We were clinicians. Not everything that's medical is demonic. I want to say this explicitly right now. Mental illness is real, has to be addressed, right on, and is not always demonic. So one of the questions that you need to ask is, how do you diagnose if the demonic are present in a physical or mental condition, which I'm going to get to next? And if they are there, then it's not a healing moment, it's a miracle moment. It's two different things. See, healing, when you read spiritual gifts really carefully, Paul distinguishes the difference between healing and miracles. They're two different gifts. Healing is physical or emotional. Miracle is authority over death, over demons, over nature. And so if you notice in the Luke 13 account, Jesus does not heal her, Jesus cast out a demon, and then she's righted. So it's a, it's a different, it's a connected but different conversation that covers about 75% of people's questions. Fantastic. They're all coming next. Thank you. Awesome. No, but I know we've, we've had some conversation together, and I think the distinction between healing and miracles is something that you and I have chatted about, which is quite helpful, particularly in the season that we've been in as a church, we're talking about the expressions of the person of the Holy Spirit, right? And how that works itself out. So that's, that's a very helpful note. So then one person in particular was asking, I think this is a good question that's connected to that theme, what about the, this kind only comes out with prayer and fasting moment in Mark chapter 9? Excellent. Whoever you are, thank you. And maybe just give a little bit of context to that biblical moment before you answer that question. So there's this wild moment where, um, the disciples are trying to cast out a demon, and they can't. And Jesus takes them aside, and they say, "Why couldn't we do it?" And He says, "This kind." This kind, the word "kind" there is the word "species," that you think about a variety of fish, for example. What is being implied there is there are multiple different types of demons. What I mean by that is they're all angels that fell, but think about it like this, they have different strengths or assignments. First thing. So some are weaker, and some are stronger. That's right. Of the text, and that's also from experience. The second thing is that He involves spiritual disciplines in the act of deliverance. And why this verse is very important is because I'm not going to tell you why you've seen every fight in every church right from this verse and how it helps in deliverance. So there's this thing, if you come from a more reformed background or a very Southern Baptist background, you have grown up in an environment where you read the Bible as something called regulative. And basically, the summary, summary of regulative is, if I see it in there, I do it. If I don't see it in there, I don't do it. Make sense, everyone? So far? So if I see it in there, I do it. If you're right, the other side of the coin, which Bridgetown, I know, holds to, and so we, is the normative reading of scripture, that says, if it's in there, I do it. If it's not in there, sorry, if I'm told not to do something, I don't do it. But if it's not in there, and it doesn't violate the scriptures, I get to do that too. Was that confusing? I'm with you. Okay. Do I need to do it again? Okay. Here's why it matters. Jesus doesn't tell us the purpose-driven life. Next moment. He just says, "This kind doesn't come out with prayer." Well, like, how long? The fast? What fast? Do I have to turn Hillsong louder? Do you have to? Yet, like, like there is no context. And here's the problem with a, a radical conservative reading of scripture, and I'm conservative, genuinely, is that if you stop where the text stops, you're just told you have to do an activity, but not how to do it. So every local church has to start saying, "How do we do spiritual disciplines in a context?" And how do we work out processes that are not unbiblical, but they're not found in the scriptures, but they're rooted in the scriptures themselves? It's the fight in the 1980s. Is it unbiblical to use drama in the church or not? Well, of course it's not. Well, if I don't see it in the Bible, you shouldn't do that. Well, show me a first-century worship service. Show me a youth pastor in the Bible. Show me a, uh, one in the Bible. Show me all sorts of things in the Bible. It's just not there. So most people who are regulative act normatively, they're just not willing to admit it. And when it comes to disciplines and gifts, you have to get real normative because you have to work it out. And that's exactly what that's saying. You have to fast sometimes. How you fast, you better ask the Holy Spirit. What type of fast? We're not told. But the point is, fasting doesn't get God's attention in that case. Remember, when you fast, it's not like God goes, "Oh my goodness, you're, I have to listen to you so much closer now." Like, that's not what God's not attracted to our spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines, as I'll teach in a minute, clear the environment so we get to hear Him. So that's the fundamental reverse. It's not duty-based, it's actually love-based, and it's, it's discipline-based. And I guarantee in that place, they were not actually hearing what the Father wanted to do.
Talk to me about over-spiritualizing. You know what, what about the danger of everything is now spiritual, or is that a danger? Yes, it's a danger. Massive danger. The demon of the spirit of, and everything that everything is in society is something. So we've got to be really careful diagnostically not to call sin Satan. They're not called worldliness, Satan, or vice versa. So they're, you know, in more charismatic circles, uh, and in Pentecostal, traditional Pentecostal circles, they will almost address every struggle as the spirit of. And that's just so unhelpful. Here's why. Let me make it medical first. If someone is bipolar here tonight, you are living with something that is unbelievably difficult, unbelievably difficult, and we don't even understand how difficult that is. And the danger in an environment that's trying to be biblically charismatic is if we over-spiritualize that, we're giving you hope that I can just pray that out of you and you're gonna be okay. But what if there's no magic bullet? What if, actually, you're gonna live as a follower of Jesus with bipolarism, and it's not spiritual? So the sweet spot in the middle of this is not to over-promise or under-promise, but do the hard work in the middle to find out what's really going on. Because the church I grew up in, none of this was right. Other churches I've been in, it's all was wrong, or always right. And I'm pleading with Bridgetown, as you begin this conversation, to begin to set up processes and gift orientations that make you do the hard work so you don't hurt people by mistake. And it's hard because some of you want it to.
Be all demonic, and some of you are terrified by it. And usually, I always say this: the devil's not behind every bush. He's probably behind every third. He, he, he's more around than a lot of people want, and he's a lot less around than other people want. Yeah, so one out of every three bushes. Whatever. Cast it out. Cast it out. Cast it out. Yeah, that's right. Thank you. That's maybe in Portland. Maybe in Portland. Yeah.
Finally, can you tell us a story of a time when you saw a demon leave? Sure. Like, you're asking when I cast something out? Yeah. You, John, can you tell us what, when this has happened? Yeah.
So, I, I've had the privilege of being in hundreds of cases, uh, where people have been set free. Just to give you some context, uh, this all started. This whole ministry, we didn't go, "Oh, let's be a deliverance church." We were like, we were a Willow Creek-style church. We're like, "The weird people down the street do that. We're going to meet them in heaven. Other than that, all right, we're out." Right? So, this all was forced on us by pastoral care. Like, it happened to us. And, um, so, just, you know, we, we have two staff members. We have 110 volunteers that serve just in this ministry. So, every Tuesday night.
When you say this ministry, you mean casting out demons? Yeah. And it's been built over 23 years. My, hi Natalie, my prayer pastor right now is watching online, who oversees this. And so, we've seen hundreds of cases and hundreds of cases. But I'll maybe I'll do this one in the early days. And again, this is not to, uh, be glamorous or make this exciting. Uh, some of you are really excited about this. You shouldn't be. Uh, this isn't like you become the Oracle in the Matrix or something. Like, calm down. Um, love Jesus way more than this. He, he's the one we're all about here. And, and as I talk about a lot in the book, like, this isn't a show for you to feel better about yourself. The person needs to be set free. Just this really matters. We got to care for people. Um.
So, years ago, when this all started, and, um, I, I started having experiences. Again, to give you translation, I was saved in a variation of a Southern Baptist church in Canada. My parents were missionaries. I grew up in Ecuador in the 80s. I've been to 40 countries, but I had no exposure to this. And I didn't grow up in a charismatic environment where this was ever talked about. And then, when I was, uh, in, uh, starting my pastoral ministry, some stuff happened in my history we can maybe talk about later, but I actually started hearing and seeing the demonic. And I was like, "Am I hungry? Am I angry? Am I lonely? Am I tired? Is this mental illness? Like, like, what's going on?" And then I realized, actually, it was a spiritual gift of discernment.
And so, an elder of our church called and said, "We're having really weird experiences in our house." And I was like, "Why are you calling me? I'm the youth pastor." He's like, "Well, you're the only one who will do the weird stuff." I'm like, "Crap." So, I mean, because we were a conservative, very white church back then. We're so different now. Anyway. Uh, so I went over, and I didn't know what I was doing. And two other people that were weird, I brought them because they were weird. And I did no really. And that's how it all started. That's literally how it started.
And we're walking through this very beautiful 3,000 square foot home, and we're praying, and we're praying, we're praying, and we're walking through the house. And I was like, "I don't even understand what I'm doing." I'm walking through a house. And then I got to the basement, and then I was just like, "Something's really wrong here." And I just didn't understand it. And right when I said, "In Jesus' name," the wife fell over. And I was like, like, again, well, I swore I won't do it here, in my head. And I was like, "Oh, I thought it was the house, but it's the wife." Um, so we'll meet you at church in a few days, and we'll talk. Elder John, you know, like, ah.
So, so we got together and got some prayer people together. And I knew these people. I knew I, I knew their conversion story. I knew how they were saved. It was a profound. They were both saved actually, uh, out of really bad backgrounds. They had married each other as non-Christians after leaving their spouses. Radical conversion, came to faith. She was running the women's ministry in our church. He was an elder, like, just loved Jesus deeply. And so, I sat in front of my friend, and I was praying for her, and I was just like, "Well, really simply, in Jesus' name, like, I don't understand, but you have to leave." And then her face changed. Radically changed. And this voice came out over and see and said to me, um, "You can't have her." And I remember saying, "Well, I, I don't want her. She's owned by Jesus." And, uh, it snarled at me and said, "I've been in her fa, I've been in her family for a thousand generations." And I'm, I'm going, "No, that doesn't fit my theological box." I'm thinking, "How old are you at this point?" I was like, 26. This is the kind of stuff I was doing in my mid-20s too. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. That's great. Uh, yeah. Uh, yeah, no, it's true.
Uh, so I, I just said, "Well, you gotta let them breathe." Yeah. Yeah. That's that's good. So they, my staff agree with you wherever they are. So, um, I just said, "Well, in Jesus' name, you can't have her, and you don't own her, and I don't care who you are." And it yelled out, "I'm the family's household god." What? I didn't know about this woman. She's half Burmese, so she's from Myanmar or Burma, and her family had generationally rededicated themselves to an idol. And this was the thing behind the idol, and it was showing up to guard its property. And I just said, "Well, I don't care who you are. I don't care your rank or size." And I read Ephesians 1. I got all Calvinist and charismatic at the same time. And I was like, "She's predestined." I said to it, "Are you stronger than God the Father's predestination before the beginning of time?" "No, I'm not." "That's right. You're not." And I just, "Are you?" And you know, "Adopted?" "Stronger than adoption?" "No." "Stronger than redemption?" "No." I just kept going. I said, "Well, why are you here?" "Why just want to be here?" "Irrelevant. In Jesus' name, get out." She shook and left, and she's been set free. [Music]