Demonic Tricks

"For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12

I have never in my life experienced as much spiritual warfare as I have since I moved to Silicon Valley. To some of you that read this, you'll think this topic is absolutely ridiculous, but to others, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about and probably experience it yourselves.

The things I'm writing here are my personal experience with the demonic world in the last couple years of my life. I'm not exactly sure all the reasons what, why, and how this stuff happens, but I'll do my best to give you a glimpse of our experiences here.

First, let me give you my opinion of why I think demonic activity is seen and experienced more here in our environment:

• Variety of Religions - there is a high concentration of every world religion and cult in this area. I believe that false religions are inspired and, in many ways, controlled by the demonic world - whose goal is to distract people from the Truth of Scripture.
  
• Evangelistic Focus - as a church, we are very evangelisticly focused. That is, we put a lot of value on reaching people who are far from God and bringing them into relationship with Jesus Christ. Churches who lose that focus are not a big worry to the Enemy.
  
• Demonic Domination - the San Francisco Bay Area has for many years been know as an area dominated by liberal thinking, anti-family values, and opposition to Christianity.
• Unchurched - The Bay Area is one of the most unchurched metropolitan areas in the country - 96% of people here don't attend church services anywhere. This is a weird thought, but Satan does not have many options of churches to attack, unlike other places.
  
• Big Vision & Aggressive Agenda - If I were Satan and I heard the magnitude of the vision of our team - to start a church planting movement and transform the Bay Area with the Gospel - I would also be trying my best to stop them!
  

Secondly, let me share with you some of the things that have happened as a result of demonic oppression. Most of these things happened right before a big weekend for us as a church. For example, a weekend where we will do a focused call for lots of people to receive salvation or take the step to get baptized.

• Cats - Before one of the biggest Sundays of South Bay Church a couple months ago, a group of 5 cats would sit outside our bedroom door (opens to the patio) and make horrific noises all night long. Trust me, this was not the normal cat meows, they were very loud noises that sounded like people screaming in HELL. I would kick them out and they would come right back. After the 3rd night of getting almost no sleep, my wife and I prayed together for them to go away and they did. (I mean no offense to cat-lovers).
  
• Kids screaming - Just last Saturday night, again before a huge Sunday, my daughters came out of their room screaming at the top of their lungs saying they were scared. I put them back in bed, but every hour at night (a total of 6 or 7 times) one of them would come out screaming. The last time, Cailyn - my 2-year old, screamed: "it scared me... it scared me and went away!" I stayed up that night praying on my knees until they fell back asleep.
  
• Vivid Nightmares - I can't tell you how many times, especially on Saturday nights, my wife or I have very vivid demonic dreams. My last one I woke up and couldn't move or speak. Then I finally got the name of "Jesus" out and whatever held me let go.
  
• Other countless incidents: There are some so many other things I can share, from neighbors partying all night, to computers crashing right when we need it most (we have Macs and they don't crash easily), to our family getting sick during key weekends... They might seem like coincidence to some people, but their timing and patterns are almost predictable based on the magnitude of our events and impact.
  

Lastly, let me share why I think God doesn't protect us from all demonic activity, though I believe He shields us quite a bit already:

• Reminds us to stay dependent - when this stuff happens we are reminded that the battle is bigger than us. It is a spiritual battle for the souls of people. We cannot do it on our own.
  
• Keep us on our knees - nothing will motivate you to pray more than to see the demonic world attacking your family. They are reminders for all of us to stay on our knees and pray hard.
  
• Remind us that this battle is more spiritual than physical - the Scriptures are clear that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of the spiritual realm.
  
• Same reason we're not exempt from pain - As Christians, we are not exempt from pain and suffering, because pain protects us from deeper suffering (like burning your finger on the stove), it reminds us of the temporal nature of our lives, it makes us long for eternity with God...
  

In spite of all this, in a strange way I feel very encouraged when we face these attacks. It shows that whatever we are doing is causing the Enemy to get very upset. He sees the potential in our vision. Also, I love seeing God come through as victorious every time. Just last weekend when my kids kept getting up due to something scaring them, we ended up having one of the biggest Sunday services in the history of our church. People still get saved, restored, and take huge steps of faith.

The Enemy cannot stop God's Church. He can play dirty tricks, disturb our sleep, attack our families and even our flesh, but God's Church still advances. She is an unstoppable force, because the Spirit of God lives in her and He cannot be shaken!

Life Apps Series 2010

Life Apps 2010 from South Bay Church on Vimeo.

Teaching human ideas as commands of God.

Some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked him, “Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.”

Jesus replied, “And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God? ...And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,

‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship is a farce,
for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’"

I've been thinking a lot about this little phrase that Jesus quoted to these people: "they teach man-made ideas as commands from God" or as the NKJ says it: "And in vain they worship Me,Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” I wonder how much of what I believe and teach come from human ideas, more than God's Word. They are things that are deep in the "church" culture, but you can't really find them clearly in the Scriptures. They are beliefs that people teach as "essentials", yet the Bible doesn't even mention them. They are man-made, but we treat it as God-spoken.

Think about these ideas that are often treated as commands from God or doctrines, but clearly did not come from the Scriptures. Some of them are actually pretty funny.

1. Christians shouldn't drink alcohol - even though Jesus and his disciples and the early Church clearly drank alcohol, so many people and churches treat this as the 11th commandment. The biblical command is "don't get drunk" and obviously consider your context so you're not "a stumbling block". But come on... drinking some wine with your family and neighbors at dinner time is more Christ-like than most of the other things we do.
2. Tattoos are wrong - Ok, there's a mention of this in the O.T. but it's clearly a cultural command for that time and makes no sense in our day. No time to explain that here, but if you're going to treat that one as a command from God to us, then you need to treat the one before as one also: "Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard." Lev. 19:27. Good luck.
   
3. You need to dress up or differently to go to church. Several things are wrong with this statement, but it's amazing how many people and churches emphasize church dress-code like it came from God. First of all, you would never find the term "go to church" in the Bible. We are the church, we don't go to church. Secondly, Jesus spoke and dressed in the language of the people. If that's a way you want to "honor" God by dressing up to "go to church", that's fine, but let's not treat it as God's requirement for church attendance.
   
4. Worship Service Order - you're not doing things right as a contemporary church if you don't have 3-4 songs sung by a cool band, a 35 minute message, quick announcements, and an offering time during an upbeat song. Be careful to do it just like that or you're not doing it God's way--at least that's what I've heard. :)
   
5. Daily Quiet Time & Journaling - do you remember the passage where Jesus is sitting by the mountainside and he said "you should open your Bibles daily in a quiet place and read a chapter from one of the Gospels. Then make sure to spend a few minutes in prayer and write your thoughts in a journal If you do these things you will be godly like me." Maybe we like thinking of "quiet time" as God's standard of godliness because it's much easier than actually imitating Jesus, who would often spend "all night in prayer", would walk in communion with God every minute of the day... I think it's very important to have quality daily time with God, but there's no biblical "quiet time" guide.
   
6. Being Green - Don't get me wrong, I think it's important to be responsible with how we treat the earth and, we as a family and church, recycle properly. However, here in the Bay Area, being green is often treated as a command from God Himself and is often put as a priority even above humans. Often the people who want to "save the earth" are the same ones "destroying human life" by promoting abortion rights. Pretty backwards.
   
7. Praying to saints or Mary, Infant baptism... - There are so many ideas like these in some denominations that are taught as commands of God, but are not consistent with His Word.
   

Do you know some things we do that would fall under the category of human-ideas, but are treated as God-commands? Think about, we're all guilty of doing it at times...

What Does God Want?

You ever wander what God really wants from us? So much of our energy is spent trying to figure out that question. What should I do next... what is my purpose in life... how should I live my life... what does God want from me?

Well, I love texts like this one I came across this week where God just plainly tells us what He is really looking for from us:

"What does the Lord your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the Lord your God, and live in a way that pleases Him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul. And you mus always obey the Lord's commands... for your own good." Deuteronomy 10:12-13

When you don't know what to do, just ask yourself these questions that I'm asking myself this week:

1. Am I living in a way that pleases Him? Do I have a healthy fear of God?
2. Am I loving God with all my heart and soul or is my heart cold?
3. Am I serving God with all my heart and soul or is my life lived for myself?
4. Am I obeying the things I already know He wants me to do?
5. Do I believe that obeying Him is really for my own good?

Maybe things would be much better for us if instead of trying to figure out our specific purpose in life, we would focus on pleasing Him, loving Him, serving Him, and obeying Him. Maybe that's how our purpose unfolds and we find fulfillment in life.

CATALYST WEST: What I learned from Donald Miller, Scott Belsky, Kay Warren, Wes Stafford, and Andy Stanley

CATALYST LEARNINGS #3:

Donald Miller – Author, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” and “Blue Like Jazz” (www.donmilleris.com)

• We often try to avoid problems, danger, and conflicts, but those are the things that make life thrilling, interesting, and gets us to big results. Every good story has a character that wants something and overcomes an obstacle to get it.
• What is the something I’m going for? What’s my story about? Will I overcome the obstacles to get it? What if…

Scott Belsky – Founder and CEO, Behance & Author, “Making Ideas Happen” (www.behance.net)

• When working with the creative, set clear guidelines and timelines.
• In our culture there are too many incoming information vessels (Twitter, Facebook, Emails, Instant Messaging, Texts, etc), so create windows of non-stimulation in your day and week: no task list… do only the important things, not the urgent ones.
• Create short-term goals and measure your progress. Share them with others so that you stay accountable to them.
• Measure the effectiveness of meetings with the action steps that result from them.

Kay Warren – Author, “Dangerous Surrender” and wife of Rick Warren, Saddleback Church (www.kaywarren.com) / Wess Stafford, President of Compassion International (www.compassion.com)

• If our faith is genuine, we must do something about the poor, orphans, and widows in the world. It is not optional; it is a requirement of our faith. (James 1:27)

Andy Stanley, Lead Pastor or Northpoint Community Church & Author, “The Principle of the Path” (www.northpoint.org)

• LEADERSHIP WISDOM: The less you do, the more you accomplish. The less you do, the more you enable others to accomplish. So do only what only you can do.
• Focus on your strengths, position others to make up for your weaknesses.