X. Learning From Israel And Applying It To The Church
1Co 10:6 And these things were our examples, that we should not be lusters after evil, as they also lusted.
7 Nor should we be idolaters, even as some of them, as it is written: "The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." 8 Nor let us commit fornication, as some of them fornicated, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. 9 Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted Him and were destroyed by serpents. 10 Nor murmur as some of them also murmured and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11 And all these things happened to them as examples; and it is written for our warning on whom the ends of the world have come. 12 So let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
Was
2Ch 6:36 If they (Israel) sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin), and if You are angry with them and deliver them up before their enemies, and they carry them away captives to a land far off or near, (see also – I Kings 8:46-50; Neh. 9:27,33,36; Ps. 106:40-41; Judas 2:14)
When God tells us as Christians not to sin and for us to remember His divine object lesson in
The Apostle Paul is not stating a new spiritual principle or insight. Paul is only offering a specific instance of the general principal that when God's people continue in sin, He gives them over to an enemy. Yet many in today's church completely deny even the possibility of this biblical, and spiritual dynamic. They are "just sure" this could not happen, even when it does.
After the prisoners of war were released after the
2Ti 2:24 But the servant of the Lord must not strive, but to be gentle to all, apt to teach, patient, 25 in meekness instructing those who oppose, if perhaps God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, 26 and that they awake out of the snare of the Devil, having been taken captive by him, so as to do the will of that one.
Imagine a man caught in a bear trap. He cannot free himself, because he needs help. Suppose he then sees his friend approaching through the trees, and feels terribly embarrassed to have gotten into this predicament, so he tries to duck down and hide. But his friend has already seen him, so the helpless captive decides to straighten up as if he were standing there on purpose. His friend, approaching, says, "Where have you been? We've missed you. Is anything wrong?" "Oh, no. Nothing at all." The captive man smiles the best he can through the pain and hopes that his friend will go away, so that he can get back to the struggle of trying to free himself. But the friend has noticed the trap and is already prying the jaws open. "You nut!" the friend says, "Why didn't you call out for help? Why did you try to hide from me and then to hide the problem? Come, you are free now--it was easy for me, and the pain will go away soon.
Another wrong reponse would be if the captive told his friend that he had been caught in the bear trap but the friend said, " I don't believe you because that just doesn’t happen to people, only bears". You can see that both men need a proper response.
Setting The Captives Free
Luk 4:18 "The Spirit of the Lord is on Me; because of this He has anointed Me to proclaim the Gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim deliverance to the captives, and new sight to the blind, to set at liberty those having been crushed,
The aim of deliverance is to uncover and isolate the demonic within the individual; so that it can be expelled. The greatest difficulty exorcism is the pretense that everything is Ok while the demon hides within the person. For the deliverance to occur, the pretense must be broken; the demonic must be uncovered and brought out into the open.
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April 2, 2008 11:45 AM
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