Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 90
TRANSCRIPT
Have you noticed how often the bible talks about deception? Why is that? OK, that was an easy question. The world we live in is being infected by the lies from the father of lies. You can easily see deception today in our schools especially many of our colleges and universities. You see deception displayed across the TV screen every night. You even see deception infecting the church of Jesus Christ. In today’s podcast we are going to talk about what it takes to fight deception in your life.
I’m Lee Whitman with Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom podcast. I know we recently had a podcast called The Power of Deception. So why are we talking about deception again in today’s podcast. I am glad you asked. It is because deception is running rampant in the world today. In the Power of Deception podcast I talked about how our minds get pulled away from the truth by deception. In today’s podcast I am going to look at the deception that comes from a very common demonic spirit that is affecting so much around you, possibly even your life, but we are not aware of it.
Today’s verse is a very interesting and complex verse that we will need unpack for us to really receive all that it says. We will look at 1 John 2, especially verses 26-27 that says, “These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him remains in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you remain in Him.”
I am going to go into teacher mode during this podcast to help all of us understand what this passage is talking about. When we look at passages of scripture like this one through the grid of the RTF Integrated Approach to Ministry it will help us walk in the truth and not be deceived.
On the surface this verse appears to be saying that we do not need teachers because we have the Holy Spirit, that the anointing that we received from Father God through the Holy Spirit is going to teach us all truth. I believe this passage is pointing to something else as the source of the deception.
Marcus and his wife Anna could not find a church that they agreed with. They would go to a church and within a short period of time they would leave because they did not think the pastor was teaching the right things or the people in the church were not spiritual enough, or said another way, the people were not as spiritual as they were. They eventually decided that all they really needed was just to spend time with Jesus on their own terms, so they quit going to church altogether. Their rational was that they had all they needed in the Holy Spirit, and they didn’t need any man to teach them.
In the world today people are leaving the church in large numbers for various reasons. The mindset you will hear espoused by some is “all I need is Jesus”. I don’t need to put up with all the struggle and foolishness found in the church, Jesus and I can have our thing without having to go to church. This verse seems to back up that line of thinking until you take a deeper dive into the entire passage of scripture, which I am about to do.
1 John 2 is a wonderfully encouraging passage of scripture because it affirms who we are as children of God and then calls us into account for how we are living. John starts out by saying that anyone who says they love God and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. That right there goes against the “all I need is Jesus and me” theory because the bible clearly says in Hebrews 10:25-26 “and let’s consider how to encourage one another in love and good deeds, not abandoning our own meeting together, as is the habit of some people, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” Christianity was never intended to be just a Jesus and me thing. It was always mean to include the corporate gathering together of believers for fellowship, to encourage each other, and to be taught.
For example, in Jesus prayer in John 17, He says in verse 11 “That they may be one even as We (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are one.” The body of Christ, the church can’t be one if we are not coming together.
1 John 1:6-7 says, “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” The word fellowship here is the Greek word Koinonia which means shared participation, which usually included the sharing of material goods, the breaking of bread which included both the taking of communion together as well as sharing larger fellowship meals in homes.
1 Corinthians 12:12-13 says, “For just as the (human) body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body are many, they are one body. So it is with Christ. For in one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body.”
In 1 John 2:18 – 24 points out that the source of this deception is an antichrist spirit. It says in verse 22, “This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.” In verses 3-4 it says that the one who loves God keeps His commandments. In fact, the way you know if you love God, is if you keep His commandments. If you willfully do not keep His commandments, you are denying the Father and the Son. The antichrist spirit.
This anti-Christ spirit wants to deceive believers into thinking that Jesus and me is more important than gathering with the body of Christ in your area. When we are not meeting regularly with the fellowship of believers and walking with them in mutual submission then we are much easier to be deceived. God gave pastors to the church to help His children grow into the likeness of Christ. He also gave the body ministries like RTF to help us deal with the hurts and wounds and ungodly beliefs caused by living with other unhealed believers.
So, this antichrist spirit, the spirit that wants to deny the Father and the Son in any form, causes divisions in the church. I mentioned in a previous podcast that I know of a church that split over the color of the new carpet. How many denominations are there representing the Christian faith? People who believe in the same Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and cannot get along. Spirit of antichrist at work!
This spirit also causes people of faith to grow cold in their walk with Christ. If the spirit can get us to doubt who Jesus is, or doubt the truth about God as our Father, or doubt the reality of the Holy Spirit living in us, it causes people to lose hope and their faith grows cold. You know people like this. I went to church with a guy who was so on fire for Jesus he would talk to people about Jesus everywhere he went. Today, he has left his wife and kids and is living with his girlfriend and does not even consider himself a Christian. Spirit of antichrist.
This spirit also causes people to be confused about their identity. You can see the affect this has had on our world. Without an accurate concept of who God is as our Father it is much easier to confuse our personal identity. The Spirit of antichrist.
This spirit also causes people to become biblical illiterates. We live in a culture that gets its news from social media. I also think many people get their ideas about God from social media, and alot of what is on social media is infected by the spirit of antichrist. Hebrews 5:12 says, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the actual words of God.” Many in the body of Christ are not growing their own spiritual muscles but are living from the spoon feeding they receive from social media.
But Lee, you don’t understand. I have tried many churches and I can’t find one that I like. I would ask you to consider if there is something in you that keeps you from being able to connect with a body of believers. RTF ministry is a gift to the body of Christ in helping deal with the things that might be keeping you from being able to connect with a local body of believers.
Zac grew up in a family that went to church religiously. The church they attended was very legalistic with many requirements in order to be right with God. Zac attended church faithfully for fear that if he stopped attending, God would punish him. Over the years the church had much division and strife and suffered several church splits which deeply wounded Zac. Somehow through all of the legalism and hurt Zac did come to accept Jesus as his savior, and according to Zac his motivation was not out of love for Jesus, but to keep him from going to hell. When Zac came to RTF he had quit going to church.
Zac had been convinced by this anti-Christ spirit that he no longer needed, nor could he trust a church. An antichrist spirit is anything that is opposed to the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. There are people in churches all over the world who do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as their savior. In Zac’s case the spirit said that he was not really saved by grace alone but by grace plus his works. As soon as he messed up and sinned, he would lose his salvation over and over again. This anti-Christ spirit also told Zac that churches are not safe places and God would not want him to subject himself to an unsafe situation like that again.
Let me tell you what happened when Zac came to RTF for ministry. The first thing the ministers did was to apply the blood of Jesus to this antichrist spirit and cut it off from Zac’s life. You see, Zac inherited this generational curse of the antichrist spirit from his father who inherited it from his father. They were all living under this curse and gave it permission to operate in their family line. When Zac confessed the sins of his ancestors and his own sin of partnering with this antichrist spirit and applied the blood of Jesus to this sin, the spirit was cut off from his life and from his decedents.
Next the ministers had to cut off an ungodly belief from Zac’s life. His ungodly belief was “I don’t need to be involved in a church to have a relationship with Jesus.” Zac renounced and broke the lie. Then he cancelled his agreement with the kingdom of darkness. Then he asked Father God for His truth. God said to Zac, “You might not need the church to have a relationship with Jesus, but Jesus body needs you and your gifts.” Wow! What God said to Zac is amazing. Next Zac got his heart healed from some of the wounds that were caused by the church in only the intimate way that Jesus can do. Then Zac told the spirit of antichrist to leave. Zac is a new man. He now loves going to church and is a blessing to those around him. And because he is free from this antichrist spirit, he is able to discern when that spirit is at work.
I am going to use a very unmanly example. Cindi has recently had major back surgery and according to the doctor is unable to do work around the house like doing the laundry. So, I am doing the laundry at the Whitman house. As an aside, when I asked the female doctor how long she would be unable to do the laundry the doctor responded without hesitation, “Forever!” I have learned the hard way that the drier has a lint filter and if you don’t clean the junk off the lint filter the dryer does not work well and could even catch on fire. Our lives are sort of like that lint filter. If we do not clean the junk off our filters, our lives do not work as well as when they are clean. RTF cleans away the junk that plugs up our filter. OK, I may never use that example again!
If you recognize that any of these things I have mentioned are at work in your life, get with an RTF minister and demolish the stronghold this antichrist spirit has in your life. Then once your filter is clean (Ok I used the analogy again) once your filter is clean then the anointing of the Holy Spirit will flow freely in your life to empower you to do His mighty work.
Prayer
Father God thank you that we can get rid of things like this antichrist spirit that wants to hold us captive. Father there are some who are listening to this and the deception from the antichrist spirit is keeping them from even seeing the spirit at work in their lives. Will you please reveal to anyplace where we are partnering with this antichrist spirit so we can be set free. Amen
Thank you for joining us for today’s Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast. We look forward to sharing with you again next week. If you have been blessed by these podcasts, let other people know about them.
