Bondage Breaker - Part 4 — Neil T. Anderson

Satan's Distortion of God's Word

What is the intention of Satan here to do? Well, he's to draw us away from the will of God and to distort the very word of God itself. It's interesting when Satan said, Really? Has God said that you can't eat from any tree?

Is that what God said? No, God said we couldn't eat of that tree. Is that same temptation taking place? Well, if you're a parent, you know that it is. How many have heard your child say that I can't do anything?

Is that what you said? No, you said you couldn't do that thing. I can't go anywhere. Is that what you said? No, they can't go to that one particular place. I can't see any movies. No, you can't see that movie.

So that same track is still there. Somehow or another, our needs are going to get met in Christ or they're going to get met in a world system and we're going to be tempted to fall into those patterns of the world instead of God's answer.

Jesus' Temptation and Dependence on the Father

Then comes the last Adam, Christ. He was tempted in every way such as man. And so we are told in scripture that he fasted for 40 days and was hungry. Isn't that incredible? I fasted four hours once and was famished.

But anyway, he came back. He was on the verge of starvation. And the devil said to him, If you are the son of man, why don't you turn that rock into bread? Now, what is the issue of that temptation? It was an attempt by Satan to get Jesus to use his own divine attributes independent of the Father.

And I want to say that that is the heart of temptation. It's an attempt to get you and I to live our lives independent of God. And the life that Jesus modeled on planet Earth was a life totally dependent upon God the Father.

He said, I don't even come on my own initiative. I don't speak on my own initiative. And the same is true of the Holy Spirit. They only responded to that which their Heavenly Father told them to. And even in the Trinity, there is that sense of unity and dependence upon God the Father.

And the Lord, in every case that he was tempted, he quoted right out of the book of Deuteronomy. In this case, he said, Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

And so immediately he declared his dependency upon God the Father. Then let's look at the lust of the eyes. What's the intention here? When the devil tempted Jesus, he took him up to the temple and he offered him that he would, that the Lord would bear him up if he would throw him off.

In other words, he was going to put God the Father to the test. And I see this as the great religious temptation today, that we're going to put God to the test. I said, it doesn't work that way, people.

We are being tested by God. We're being tempted by the devil. The intention is to destroy our faith. We are being tested by God. And the intention is to strengthen our faith. And I remember several years ago when I was a pastor, I had a man who joined our church and was a nice guy and recovering from a pretty debauched life, actually.

And through it, he had gone through a divorce and had come to Christ. And he just wanted to serve the Lord. He actually had been a mayor of our town at one time. And so here is a committed man. Unfortunately, an awful lot of the rebellious living of his past had caught up with him and eventually got sick.

And they took a long time diagnosing it, but finally it was discovered he had cancer. He was a pretty solid guy. I wish I could say the same for his wife at that time. And she just kind of lost all sense of rationality and started to grasp for any straw that came along.

And next thing I know, some bizarre religious figures were coming into their life. And I went over to their house and she said, I'm not going to let you pray for my husband if you're going to conclude the prayer if it be according to God's will.

And I had to be honest with her. I said, I bow to a higher authority. I think that there's nothing that I would want more for your husband than for him to have God's will. I'm convinced that God's will is good, acceptable, and perfect.

And we are even told to pray in the Lord's prayer that thy will be done. I want God's will for his life because I believe it's best for him. Well, that ended that relationship for a while. Then the word got out in our church that four independent witnesses all testified that God told them that he was not going to die.

Isn't that great, Pastor? Well, that would be great. I like this man. And I did pray for him and I was concerned for him. But I knew in my own heart that four independent witnesses had not heard from God.

And three weeks later, the man died. Now, what happened here, people? Did God tell those four people? And if God did, what would that make God? That would make God a liar. I believe those four people were doing nothing more than paying attention to a deceiving spirit.

What's the intention of this temptation? It's to destroy our confidence in God and to undermine the actual word of God itself. Now God can't be trusted. And when Eve responded to the temptation of Satan at that time, she said, no, God didn't say that.

He said we couldn't either touch that tree. Oh, what did she add, people? She had a touch. Now, what if she touched that tree and she didn't die? Well, again, then God would be a liar. And then Satan comes along and says, you surely shall not die.

He's trying to question the very word of God. The last one is the pride of life. And here the devil offered him to have half the kingdoms of the world if he would only bow down and worship him. Now, people, the Lord did not respond and say, you don't have half the kingdoms of this world.

He knew who the God of this world was. But this temptation was immediately rebuffed by our Lord because he knew that there was only one you should worship. And he said, you shall fear only the Lord your God and you shall worship him.

You see, what he confronted him with was the ultimate lie. It goes right back to the garden. You will be like God. And that temptation is still true today. A new age is trying to tell us, you don't need a savior.

You don't need to repent from your sins. You just need to realize that your God and all you need to be is enlightened. Isn't it amazing that a child comes onto this world, he readily accepts the notions of God.

If they had a godly mom or dad, they would believe in God. They just seem to naturally do that. And what's happening now is they grow up a little bit older, get involved in our public school systems, and they don't believe in God anymore.

And now they grow up a little bit further and they think they are God. That's like me as a child saying, I believed in Santa Claus. Then I grew up a little bit, didn't believe in Santa Claus. Then I grew up a little bit more and I was Santa Claus.

Well, what's the intention of this temptation? It's to pull us away from our obedience to God and our worship of him. We are not God, but we are children of God. So how do we stand up against that temptation?

We have to realize it's really a battle for our mind. And when we see the opposite sex or something out there, it isn't the apple. That isn't the issue. It isn't the object of our temptation. The intention here is to draw us away from the will of God, from the word of God, and from the worship of God to get us to live our life independent of God, to destroy our confidence in God so we will no longer obey him.

And so when that tempting thought comes, we stand against it immediately. No, I do not need that opposite sex. That is not God's answer for my fulfillment in my life. God provided for that in my marriage and my spouse.

And so I'm going to commit myself to that only. But we have to stop that thought immediately. And you do that by choosing the truth. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is light, right, whatever is lovely, think on those things.

And so that threshold thinking, you take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And the world and the devil in the flesh is going to try to say, you can get your knees met out here. And I'm saying, no, sir, my knees are met.

And my relationship with God, for my God will supply all of my knees according to his richness in glory. And I do not have to be tempted to find those knees met in this world. Well, we're all subject to temptation.

Breaking the Sin–Confess–Give Up Cycle

What happens here is, if we give in to that temptation, we sin. And so we confess it. Then we give in again. And we sin. And we confess it. And we get into that sin, confess, sin, confess, I give up cycle.

What's wrong with that? It's not complete. There's something missing here. It's supposed to be sin, confess, resist. I want you to hear a remarkable story of a girl, pastor's wife, who attended our conference, who was caught in that sin, confess, sin, confess, I give up cycle.

Listen.

Dear Neil, I can't begin to tell you all that the Lord has done in my life through the truth you shared with us at the conference. I am now more aware of the deception of the enemy, and this makes my gratefulness for my powerful and gracious Savior real.

I was bulimic for 11 years, but now I can be in the house alone all day with a kitchen full of food and be in peace. When a temptation or lie from Satan pops into my mind, I fend it off quickly with the truth.

I used to be in bondage to those lies for hours and hours each day, always fearing food. Now I'm rejoicing in the freedom which the truth brings.

It's that truth that we have to choose in our own minds and to realize how God has provided for everybody a way of escape. It seems like it may not be there, but it is there, and if we want to know it, we can have it.

Temptation. We're all subject to that. All of us have the power in Christ Jesus to stand against that temptation and realize the basis of temptation are legitimate needs in our life, but those needs can be met in Christ.

So, how do we get out of the sin, confess, sin, confess, I give up cycle? We realize that sin, confess, resist. We're to submit to God, then resist the devil. We have to take into account that reality.

For instance, suppose you open the door. Now, you were told don't open that door no matter what. On the other side of the door, the tempter is saying, come on, you can do it. You'll get away with it. All the other people in the church do it.

So, you might as well too, and you open the door, and a dog comes in and glonks onto your leg. Do you beat on the dog or beat on yourself? Well, unfortunately, as soon as you open that door and he glonks onto your leg, do you know what he says?

You open the door, you open the door, and the accuser of the brethren takes over, and you throw your hands up in the air, and you cry, oh God, forgive me. Guess what God does? He forgives you, but the dog is still there.

You've taken into account half of reality, but not all of it yet. That's why if you confess to God, you submit to God, then you resist the devil. We have to learn how to do that. When he's on this side of the door, he becomes the accuser, and he puts us down day and night.

Accusation. That's the other side. I want you to hear a remarkable letter that was sent to me. My old feelings that life isn't worth the trouble keep coming back. I'm scared, lonely, confused, and very desperate.

I know deep down that God can overcome this, but I can't get past this block. I can't even pray. When I try, things get in my way. When I'm feeling good and I begin putting into action what I know God wants me to do, I'm stopped dead in my tracks by those voices, and a force so strong I can't continue.

I'm so close to giving in to those voices that I almost can't fight them anymore. I just want some peace. I want people like that to have peace, and I'm sure you do too. But can you imagine the frustration of that beat down time and time and time again?

The Accuser and God's Justification

How do we stand against the accuser of the brethren? In Revelation it says he accuses the brethren day and night. Well, there's a remarkable passage in Zechariah chapter 3. Let me read it to you. Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.

And the Lord said to Satan, The Lord rebuke you, Satan. Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is this not a brand plucked from the fire? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel.

And he spoke and said to those who were standing before him, Remove the filthy garments from him. Again he said to him, See, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with festal robes.

Then I said, Let them put a clean turban on his head. So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments while the angel of the Lord was standing by. What a remarkable picture. This is a vision given to Zechariah, but it's been totally fulfilled in Christ.

Take a look at it. Let's reconstruct the course of heaven here. See, Joshua is standing before God. He's the ultimate judge, and he's in filthy garments. This is not a good thing. The high priest would go into the holy of holies and the great day of atonement in the early church.

Before he went in there, he went through elaborate procedures for to become ceremonially undefiled. He could not go in there unless he went through those procedures. Even then, it was an awesome experience.

They used to tie bells around the hem of his garments and a rope onto his leg. And you say, Why did they do that? Well, as he went in by himself once a year to atone for all the sins of Israel, at least he didn't go in there right, the other priests would stand outside.

They'd listen for the bells. And they would say to one another, Do you still hear the bells? Yeah, I still hear them. I don't hear them anymore. Well, go in and check it out. No, you go in and check it out.

Well, that's what the rope was for. Pull them out of there, see? And so here's Joshua, the high priest, standing before God in filthy garments. Not a good thing. And the Lord says, The Lord rebuke you.

Who? Satan. Isn't that great to know that in the face of Satan's accusations, the Lord himself is saying, The Lord rebuke you. Do you realize right now, you have two members of the Trinity praying on your behalf?

Romans 8, 26. I don't know how or what to pray for, but the Holy Spirit does. And Jesus always liveth to maketh intercession. He's standing there at the right hand of the Father himself right now, interceding on your behalf and my behalf.

Look at those courts of heaven. Who's the judge? It's God the Father. Who's the accused? It's you and I. Who's the prosecutor in eternity? It's Satan. Who's the defense attorney? It's Jesus. Are you going to lose this court case?

You could lose it if you wanted to. What power does the prosecuting attorney have? Can he determine a verdict? Absolutely not. Can he pronounce a sentence? No, no way he can. All he can do is bring accusation.

But boy, it is effective. It is amazing how many people are relentlessly pursued by that accuser of the brethren, beaten down, entertaining thoughts like, I'm stupid. I'm dumb. I'm ugly. God doesn't love me.

God doesn't care for me. And I've seen that at the highest level of the church, to the lowest level of the members. It seems to be that all of us are subject to the voice of the accuser of the brethren.

Now the question is, how do I know whether that struggle in my mind is the accuser of the brethren or whether it is really the conviction of the Holy Spirit? That's a great question. And I believe it's answered in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 9 and 10.

Let me read it. He said, I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance. For you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, in order that you might not suffer loss in anything through us.

For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation. But the sorrow of the world produces death. Now what is he saying? He's saying, I'm glad you were made sorrowful.

Not that you were just made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, in order that you might not suffer loss. In other words, God is going to bring that conviction to us.

And if it's coming from God, that conviction will lead to repentance without regret. And so if I've sinned, I've done something wrong, I go before God, God brings a conviction, I confess it to him, it's over with.

It's done. It's passed. But the sorrow of the world produces death. What's interesting is, the same word is used for both. Sorrow. In other words, it may feel the same. What's the difference between the two?

The end result. One leads to life, the other one leads to death. For instance, Judas betrayed Christ, and he went out and hung himself when he came under the sorrow of the world. Peter also betrayed Christ, came under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and he became a spokesperson for the church.

Now the question is, which one is going on in our minds today? Well, if you are constantly being beaten down, never seems to be any resolution, no matter how many times you confess it, people, that cannot be God.

Why can't it be God? Listen to Romans 8, verse 31 and following. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? Can't be God, people. Why not? Because the next verse says, He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?

Well, who will bring a charge against God's elect? It cannot be God. Why not? Because God is the one who justifies. Well, who is the one who condemns? Can't be Christ Jesus. Why not? Because Christ Jesus is he who died.

Yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Well, who is going to separate us from the love of God? And the answer is, nobody is, people, because you are a child of God.

Condemnation, Forgiveness, and the Unpardonable Sin

I have often been asked, well, can a Christian commit the unpardonable sin? The answer is, no way. The only sin that is unpardonable is the sin of unbelief. When the Lord told about the unpardonable sin, He was saying that in reference to the fact that they were accusing Him of doing His work by the power of the devil.

And so He said, that cannot be. Then He goes on to say that any blasphemy against the Son of Man would be forgiven, but any blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would not be. Well, what is the difference between those two members of the Trinity?

Well, the difference is their respective work. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring us to conviction, to draw all people to Christ. If you reject that witness, you never get to Christ. But if you are in Christ, you are a child of God, there is no condemnation.

And so the only unpardonable sin is the sin of unbelief that never allows you to get to Christ in the first place. But Christ died once for all. That is your sins, my sins. And so if you are in Christ, you are forgiven, and there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Let's go back and look at the door illustration again. And let's say there is a little girl there, and you are her parent. And you told the little girl, don't open the door, don't open the door. But she does.

She opens the door. Imagine if you would, some hovering ugly presence hovering over this little girl, and just putting her down and accusing her, and bringing temptation. Is there not a parent listening who wouldn't rush over immediately and try to drive off that ugly stranger to get rid of that presence, and then grab that little girl and say, now honey, don't open the door again.

But I wish I didn't have to say this. But unfortunately, oftentimes, the church joins the accuser and we go over to that and we start putting it down. You open the door, you open the door. That's the role of the accuser, the brethren.

Let's resist the devil. Let's chase off that. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then sit down with one another and say, now don't open the door again. And by the grace of God, we won't have to do that.

Self-Deception and False Teachers

And so we're all subject to temptation. We are all subject to the accusing work of the God of this world, all of which we have all the grace we need to stand against. The most subtle schemes of the devil, however, are deception.

He is the father of lies. Deception. We are confronted in our world today with a deceiver. We are false prophets, a false teacher, deceived people, a wrecking havoc in our church. But we are not just subject to that that is clearly occultic.

We are vulnerable ourselves. We can deceive ourselves. And there are a number of scriptures that allude to that. Listen to some of them. We deceive ourselves when we hear the word of God, but don't do it, according to James 1, verse 22.

1 John 1, verse 8 says, we deceive ourselves when we say we have no sin. Now, people having sin and being sin are two radically different issues. So, if a Christian thinks that they can't sin or somehow don't choose to do that, then we are really setting ourselves up to be in a bad position.

Romans, chapter 12, verse 3 says, we deceive ourselves when we think we are something we are not. So, we are not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, verse 18 and 19 says, we deceive ourselves when we think we are wise in this age.

We are to lean not in our own understanding, but in all ways acknowledge God. James 1, verse 26 says, we deceive ourselves when we think we are religious, but do not bridle our own tongue. And unfortunately, the tongue can be set on fire from hell, he writes in the book of James.

And so, we have to watch over our tongue. We deceive ourselves when we think we will not reap what we sow, according to Galatians 6, 7. 1 Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 9 and 10 says, we deceive ourselves when we think that the unrighteous will inherit the kingdom of God.

I had that driven home once when a young gal who had come to see me had been led to Christ by her sister. She was now, unfortunately, living in a lesbian relationship. And somehow or another, she justified that before God, but she missed this passage that says that is not possible.

Somehow or another, she was either horribly deceived herself or could not have been a Christian to enter into a belief like that. 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 33 says, we deceive ourselves when we think we can continually associate with bad company and not be corrupted.

Because bad company will corrupt even the best of morals. Well, that's sobering to realize that we can deceive ourselves. We have to live our life out of denial, live in a real world, stay in touch with reality, and choose the truth because we can just deceive ourselves.

But we are also very, very subject to false prophets and false teachers. And I realize that that has clearly been taught us in the New Age that we are told that there is going to be an apostasy, a falling away from the faith in the latter ages, and that people are going to pay attention to deceiving spirits.

In Matthew, chapter 24, when he warns us that in the days preceding the second coming of Christ, that there will be many false prophets and false messiahs who will rise and show great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.

Second Peter, chapter 2, talks about false teachers and false prophets who will rise from amongst you. Now, this is not the Maharishi, Mahesh Yogi, or the Rajneesh, or Sun Yung Moon, or Beggy Pants Sneeze, or some false teacher like that.

He's talking about people who will disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness. They will rise from amongst you. They will probably be professing Christians. And the scripture says they will secretly introduce destructive heresies, eventually denying their own master.

And many people will follow after their sensuality. They won't follow their teaching so much. They'll be caught up with a charismatic teacher. And the next thing you know, they'll be denying their own master.

How do we know them? Well, second Peter 2 .10 says that they will despise authority. They have an independent spirit. They will just do their own things. I tell you, this is so sobering to me personally, because in the last church that I pastored before I went on to teach a seminary, my wife's best friend, who sat under my teaching, who is very closely related to us, is now living with a man, all in the name of Christianity, answering the phones for an obvious false teacher.

Our best friends from ten years ago, who sat under my ministry, who were very close to us, got caught up with a false teacher. They eventually lost their ministry, and somehow or another wanted to justify this very, very obvious false teacher.

Testing Prophecy by God's Word

Well, how will we know them? Well, we've been warned. Listen to Jeremiah 23, verse 21 and following. He said, I did not send these prophets, but they ran. I did not speak to them, but they prophesied.

But if they had stood in my counsel, then they would have announced my words to my people, and would have turned them back from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds. So, what's the intention of a prophet?

Well, a prophet in the Old Testament would be much like an evangelist in the New Testament. The intention of God sending a prophet was to reveal unrighteousness. You see the same thing in the gift of prophecy in 1 Corinthians 14, was to disclose and reveal unrighteousness.

The intention was, in the Old Testament, was to draw them back to the law, to bring them again under conviction, and to have a right standing with the Lord. The false prophet won't do that. They'll announce their own words.

And the intention is to get them off that direction, and to lose that sense of a righteous relationship with God. And God responds, Am I a God who is near, declares the Lord, and not a God far off? Can a man hide himself in hiding places, so I do not see him, declares the Lord?

Do I not fill the heavens and the earth, declares the Lord? Well, I've heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy falsely in my name, saying I had a dream. How long? the Lord asks. Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood?

Even these prophets of the deception of their own heart, who intend to make my people forget my name by their dreams which they relate to one another, just as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal.

Verse 28 says, The prophet who has a dream, he may relate his dream, but let him who has my word speak my word in truth. What does straw have in common with grain, declares the Lord? Well, I'm an old farm boy.

I understand the value of straw. It has no nutrition in it at all. You can feed straw to horses or cattle. They won't eat it. They'll sleep on it. So where does the nutrition come from? It comes from the grain of God's word.

And then he says, Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, like a hammer which shatters a rock? See, the church is under the conviction of God, and judgment begins with the household of God. God's not going to come by and give us some pious platitude and tell us that he loves us.

If we got people sitting in our fellowship that are living in immorality, and if judgment came upon that church, it would cause them to confess their sin and to cling back again to the holiness of God, because it's required of all of us that we live a holy life.

Then he says, Therefore, behold, I'm against the prophets, declares the Lord, who steal my words from each other. That's plagiarism. You see, that is God's word, but he gave it to somebody else. And so we ought not to steal the work of another person, but to give them credit where it is due.

Then he said, Behold, I'm against the prophet, declares the Lord, who uses their tongues and declares the Lord declares. Oh, this is subtle. And it's even in our evangelical churches. When somebody comes and says, Boy, the Lord told me that I'm supposed to marry you.

I've seen this happen, that I just had the privilege to marry my daughter to a young man, and when he came to me, he asked for my daughter's hand. He didn't tell me the Lord told him he was supposed to have it.

If he'd have said that, I'd have driven him off. And so it better be a request, not a mandate. Then he says, Behold, I'm against those who have prophesied false dreams, declares the Lord, and related them and led my people astray by their falsehoods and reckless boasting.

So we've been warned, there will be false prophets and false teachers, and they will arise from amongst us and secretly introduce destructive heresies. The point of it is, get back to the Word of God.

Get under the authority of a good, godly church where a man has a servant leadership. And if he's got an independent spirit, he won't answer to anybody, get out of there, because he is highly suspect in that regard.

Discernment and the Voice of God

Well, how can we know? Well, I'm calling for discernment. We've got to learn to discern. Hebrews chapter five says, Solomon is for the mature who've had their senses trained to discern good and evil. In the last century, Hannah Whitehall Smith wrote,.

There are the voices of evil and deceiving spirits who lie in wait to entrap every traveler entering these higher regions of the spiritual life. In the same epistle that tells us that we are seated in the heavenly places in Christ, we are also told that we shall have to fight with spiritual enemies.

These spiritual enemies, whoever and whatever they may be, must necessarily communicate with us by means of our spiritual faculties. And their voices, as the voice of God, are an inward impression made upon our spirit.

Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit may tell us by impressions what the will of God is concerning us, so also will these spiritual enemies tell us by impression what is their will concerning us, though not, of course, giving it their name.

Well, we've realized that throughout 2 ,000 years of the church experience that this kind of battle is taking place. And so we're not sharing anything that is new with you here. I've had people come up and tell me, well, God told me that I was supposed to do so-and-so.

And I've often cautioned them, I don't think so. And they say, well, why not? I mean, God did tell me that. And I say, well, I'm not so sure He did. I say, if God told you to tell me to do something, then what would that make you?

Wouldn't that make you a medium? But the Bible says that there's only one intermediary between God and man. Now, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater here because God has provided an abundance of counselors and teachers who will help one another.

But the intention of a prophetic voice of any kind is to draw us to God where God will lead us, that where the Holy Spirit will guide us in our life. Even when God sent Nathan to David, it wasn't to tell him how he was supposed to conduct his work as a king or where he was supposed to go next, etc.

That prophet was brought to him to bring conviction, to disclose unrighteousness so that his relationship with God would be made right and then God would be his guide, as he would be for all who would hold to a priesthood of believers.