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