This is a continuation of my previous posting, Dealing with the Altar of Baal (Part One).
Using Truth as Bait
I ended the last post with the lie the Devil tries to get us to tell ourselves. It is: “We’ve got this,” or the more personal version, “I’ve got this.” That is what our enemy wants. He works to shift our dependence from God to ourselves so he can legally access us. He wants to disconnect us from our root in God in Christ and the Holy Spirit, exposing us in the Courts of Heaven. There are so many ways he does this. However, he always begins with a truth and then subtly twists its focus away from God. This can be accomplished in many different ways, but they all start with corrupting a truth we embrace.
Using Debt as an Example
Let me give you an illustration. There is a scripture most people know, even if they aren’t Christian, and that is 1 Tim 6:10. Everyone remembers the verse’s first part: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…” So, the first truth in the passage is that money is not the problem. In and of itself, money is neutral. It is the love of mammon (any kind of money) that is the problem.
We need money for all the myriad aspects of our physical life. We need a place to live, to take care of our family, to support our church, and to help those in need. So what happens? We do things to make money. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Initially, it is probably a job. Then we may learn a useful skill or pursue a profession. To pay for the education these pursuits require, we may take out a loan. Student debt has become pervasive and overwhelming.
Then slowly the shift begins. Debt, a harsh master, always demands repayment, and once the debt’s door is opened, the temptation to go deeper begins. We begin to use debt to get things we tell ourselves we need: a new car or, eventually, a house. We quickly become trapped in a long cycle of debt. Then we decide whether we can use debt to our advantage. There are entire financial systems designed to leverage debt, especially to build businesses and buy homes.
But that problem invades Christianity. So many churches go into large debt to build their structures, to build their “ministry.” It may sound harsh, but if you don’t have the resources, maybe God isn’t calling you to do it. God gives the resources for the things He is calling you to do.
Stepping Out in Faith
But you will reply, what about stepping out in faith? Here we go back to basics: what is the faith we are stepping out in? When Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” I have to ask, where is that hope coming from? Is it from God calling you step out, trusting what he has told you to do for his purposes? Or just hope for what you want to do (whatever the reason), even if you see God’s call in it? This is where the subtle deception begins. Then you tell yourself, “God wants this, so doing this, despite possible scriptural warnings, must be OK this time.”
If you look at the primary definition of faith in the Old Testament, it is steadfast faithfulness. Exercising faith that way stops you from going in that compromised direction. You are not being faithful to God’s requirements for your actions. But most don’t think that way; instead, they interpret it as what they have faith in or want.
Don’t do this. You will create an internal altar that grants the enemy legal rights to reside there and wreak havoc. We are constantly tempted to make something besides God the ultimate focus of everything in our lives, leaving us vulnerable to legal attack. We may have convinced ourselves intellectually that we haven’t done this, but our feelings will warn us otherwise.
Other Examples
Here is another example. We take one biblical aspect of God, love, for example, and turn it into the primary thing by which we define God. Distorting God into something He is not, we turn that thing into an altar that gives evil an entry point into our lives.
It’s also essential to understand the distinction between forgiveness and mercy. Forgiveness is the annulment of consequences, while mercy is erasing the record. Often, we ask for forgiveness and receive it, but do not ask for the mercy that we need to move forward in our lives.
Using the Courts of Heaven
Demons use the legal system God created to their advantage. While the blood of Jesus covers forgiveness, it doesn’t cover mercy. See Hebrews 12:24. ”and to Jesus, the Mediator of a new covenant [uniting God and man], and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks [of mercy] a better and nobler and more gracious message than the blood of Abel [which cried out for vengeance]”).
So, when you call on the blood of Jesus for forgiveness for your sins, those confessed and those not remembered, say this: In the name of Jesus, I speak to the Earth to swallow up my iniquities by the blood of Christ. See Deuteronomy 4:26a: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today…” Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you…” The bible clearly says that the earth keeps records of our sins, and you are asking the earth to destroy the records it holds.
To combat the altar of Baal that demons have set up in your life, you need mercy. You can’t just repent. Mercy has to come in and erase the records the demons are using, so they have no place to stand. They can no longer use those records in the Court of Heaven against us.
Baal is behind all these sources that attempt to turn our root from YAHWEH. He wants to divert it to counterfeits, then use that against us. Resist him and his minions, and they will flee from you.
We will continue this is Part Three.
