Charismatics And Evangelicals Get A Lesson In Deliverance

Video Presentation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6lWyLwefVI

There is a lot of talk and debate lately asking the question whether deliverance ministry is valid for today and whether Christians can become controlled by demons. Those taking sides are usually those of a charismatic persuasion and the opposing team is mostly evangelicals. So what are the basic tenants of each group?

The Charismatic group; holds to the belief that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit are still practiced today allowing believers to expect supernatural results in their daily lives. They affirm that a continual trust in the Holy Spirit, in conjunction with the counsel of the Bible, is an example of walking by the Spirit. These have been called continuationist.

Those of an evangelical persuasion; believe that freedom and renewal is first derived from the gospel message and is realized at the time of salvation. However their beliefs say the gifts of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12 went away with the passing of the Apostles. They say God can still be miraculous but they limit the boundaries of His reach. They see the Bible as their highest authority, and question whether God speaks today, other than from the pulpit. These have been called Cessationist.

This is actually not an obscure doctrinal divide. The subject remains pivotal when asking how the believer is able to mature in life and faith. However, what I hope to achieve on either side of the argument is away to move the church from faith to faith and glory to glory. But that doesn’t happen through osmosis; Jesus did provide us a very simple and clear template for renewal. This in its own right makes us ask the question whether “deliverance ministry” can help us sort through some of the disagreement; or maybe that too has passed away in the minds of some. Answering that question may help us decide what it means to be successful in Christ. If I can share what I know of the good news I think the walls of doctrine can come down on both sides of the fence.

Let’s take a look at the gospel to discover if deliverance remains valid for today. I begin by asking a question:

“When was the first time in your Christian life you found yourself delivered in either physical, emotional, intellectual or spiritual ways?

Wasn’t it on the day of salvation?

That one day was actually the only time all believers agreed that God came into their lives in a supernatural way. In that moment He brought about a radical change in the heart and a new perspective on life and faith was born. No longer were any of us held captive to the flesh, the world and the Devil and that was our simplest example of being set free.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

However that day often becomes a past and fleeting moment in time for many. We stop celebrating the significance of being born again and start thinking about what else we can add to our steps. We take on the mindset that somewhere there is extra wisdom, somewhere there is more popular truth and somewhere there is reward just waiting to be apprehended. We strive always looking ahead for answers, as if the answers are something other than Jesus Himself. What it does is reduce the Christian life to a search for more and more knowledge; but that remains synonymous with eating from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The Christian life is not a pursuit of knowledge; it’s a pursuit of intimacy with our Savior. Only then are we able to make wise choices and gain an understanding of our King and His Kingdom. The Christian life is then about coming to know a God that freely gives of Himself and stands before us complete in His nature and character. If we open the right door of discovery it becomes a journey into His strength, His hope and His love. Yet if we miss it, it turns into a religion based upon our own human inadequacies.

This is the problem; a complete God is ready to share of Himself if we can just get past our fallen and fleshly view points. And this explains why we need to be delivered; not just once but every time we think life and faith should be held in our corner.

For this reason the day of salvation answers the question “What is deliverance”.

Let’s talk about this marvelous way of escape beginning with what happened at the Cross.

When Jesus died on the Cross He was taking humanity in to death with Him. No, we didn’t die physically; but rather we were supernaturally brought into Jesus’ own death so that we can know His life.