Finding God's Will in Spiritually Deceptive Times

Neil T. Anderson

Description

Who has authority to speak for God? Does His message come through other people, through Scripture, or both? According to Neil Anderson, answers to these common questions must be based on two powerful truths: We are alive in Christ, and we are God's children. He examines the danger of counterfeit messages the roles of Scripture, the Spirit, and other believers ways to guard against Satan's deceptions the freedom that can replace fear of wrong decisions true spiritual discernment This confidence-building resource will help readers listen for God's word to their own hearts. Questions for group study or discussion are provided at the end of each chapter. Some material previously released in Walking in the Light.

Sujets

• Christian theology
• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780736938891
• Langue: English

Extrait

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible , 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. ( www.Lockman.org ).
Verses marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
All emphasis added to Scripture quotations is the author s.
Cover by Terry Dugan Design, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Harvest House Publishers, Inc., is the exclusive licensee of the federally registered trademark THE BONDAGE BREAKER.
FINDING GOD S WILL IN SPIRITUALLY DECEPTIVE TIMES
The Bondage Breaker Series
Copyright 2003 by Neil T. Anderson
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anderson, Neil T., 1942-
Hearing God in spiritually deceptive times / Neil T. Anderson
p. cm. - (The bondage breaker series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-7369-1220-7 (pbk.)
1. Discernment (Christian theology) 2. Christianity and other religions.
3. Providence and government of God. I. Title. II. Series.
BV5083.A525 2003
248.4-dc21 2003001913
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 / VP-KB / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
To Sammy and Hannah Anderson, my precious grandchildren
May your lives reflect God s will as He guides you through the maze of life.
Acknowledgments
For 60 years people have been building into my life. Books by authors I never met and tapes by people I never knew have contributed to my growth in Christ. I m grateful for all the teachers that I have had over the years. I m sure each one has contributed something to this book.
I want to thank Dr. Robert Saucy for reading through the rough draft and adding valuable insights to and making suggestions for the original manuscript. I have the highest respect for him because I know he loves the Lord and is committed to the truth.
I also want to thank my wife, Joanne. She has been my faithful companion who supports me and loves me enough to give me honest feedback.
I m deeply grateful for Dr. Bill Bright and the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ. It was through their ministry that I found the Lord. Years later, I was one of the hundreds of people who dedicated their lives to full-time Christian ministry at Expo 72 in response to a message by Dr. Bright. (I was an aerospace engineer at the time.) And it was Here s Life Publishers, a former ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, that challenged me to put together the original manuscript of this book.
I am also very grateful for the relationship I have with Harvest House. To me, they are more than a publishing house; they are my friends.
Contents
From the Counterfeit to the Real
Part I: Discerning the Counterfeit
1. Balancing Reason with Intuition
2. Deceiving Spirits
3. False Prophets, False Teachers
Part II: Taking Hold of the Real
4. Are You Willing?
5. Are You Glorifying the God Who Loves You?
6. Are You Hearing the Truth of God s Word for Today?
7. Are You Experiencing God s Peace in Your Heart?
8. Are You Using Sanctified Common Sense?
9. Are You Living by Faith in Jesus?
10. Are You Discerning the Unseen by the Power of the Word and the Spirit?
Notes
INTRODUCTION
From the Counterfeit to the Real

I N A TELEPHONE CONVERSATION a woman asked me, Dr. Anderson, my pastor says my favorite television evangelist is a false teacher. Is he right?
At a ministerial retreat, a pastor said, Neil, I ve been at this church three years, and here s the situation After explaining some of the difficulties of his ministry, he asked, Do you think God is calling me out of here?
A potential but doubting groom asked, After meeting with my girlfriend and me twice now, do you think we should get married?
A zealous new Christian declared, The Lord spoke to me last night and said I was to leave my family and their traditions and attend a new church that believes in miracles and prosperity. Was that the Lord speaking to him? Or was he being deceived and how can we know?
Good questions. Important questions for those seeking divine guidance and for those who are making decisions that will make a large impact on their lives. Tragically, false teachers and false prophets disguised as ministers of righteousness are distorting God s guidance. People are also paying attention to deceiving spirits. Consider the apostle Paul s warning to Timothy: The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons (1 Timothy 4:1 NIV ). That is happening right now, all over the world.
Are Christians vulnerable to this deception? There is abundant evidence that an extraordinary level of deception is present among believers. I have been helping people find freedom in Christ for many years, and hardly a day goes by that I do not talk to a believer who has been deceived. Many Christians are paying attention to deceiving spirits, and most of them desire to know and do God s will. Tragically, good people can be deceived.
I have listened to hundreds of parents tell of their children falling away. Others have told me about their spouses, relatives, and friends who are being deceived. That s the kind of fallen world we have lived in ever since Satan deceived Eve. It seems the intensity of the enemy s attacks is increasing as the day of the Lord draws near.
Counterfeits from Other Religions
Since the 1960s, Eastern religions have had a huge impact on our Western culture. Religious philosophies and alternative spiritualities based on this influence are not new-what is new is how their beliefs have penetrated every level of society in the Western world. A corporate executive thinks he is going to a helpful seminar on resolving conflicts in the workplace. Instead he is introduced to a meditation technique. Your teenage son or daughter enrolls in a class on holistic health, only to find the teacher espousing medical practices based on Eastern philosophies. Your elementary-school child is frightened by an apparition in his or her room, or terrorized by nightmares that you cannot explain. Later you learn of your child s exposure to the game Dungeons Dragons or the counterfeit spirituality of Harry Potter, which has opened the door to demonic activity. Without spiritual discernment, even well-intentioned Christians can be deceived. That is why we will look first at counterfeit guidance, in part 1 of this book, before we consider how God guides His children.
Counterfeits Result in Bondage
I have counseled people who were heralded as prophets, but who now realize they were in deep spiritual bondage to the lies of Satan. Others believed they were being guided by God, but were actually paying attention to deceiving spirits. A pastor wrote, I discovered that one of the older members of our deacon board, along with two other long-standing members of my church, practice a form of spirit contact that sounds something like a s ance. They told me that not all of the spirits one can contact are necessarily bad, and that one had to consider the enduring nature of the good things they brought, such as healings and messages from the other side.
At the same time, in our technological age, many misguided people are so oriented toward the power of human reason and observation that they have reduced their walk with God to nothing more than an intellectual exercise. Keeping both of these human tendencies in mind, we will take a brief look at the balance between Western rationalism and naturalism, and Eastern mysticism.
Given all the counterfeit guidance in this world, we in the church must know the truth and exercise discernment as never before.
Does God Communicate His Will to Us?
If false guidance is abounding, how can we know what is real? All the questions I mentioned at the beginning of this introduction hinge on the answer to a much larger question: Does God communicate His will to us and if so, how?
The Christians who were asking those questions were on the verge of making important decisions, and like most believers, they earnestly desired to know and do God s will. They were seeking divine guidance. Could I help them make the right call ? Can any mortal know the will of God for another? Isn t God s will revealed in the Bible? Isn t the Holy Spirit supposed to guide us? Does God guide His children through an abundance of counselors or can Christians discern God s will on their own?
God s Will Versus God s Guidance
So what is God s will for our lives? According to the apostle Paul, it is our sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3)-that is we are to conform to God s image. We are to be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:16). His plan is to present to Himself the Church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless (Ephesians 5:27). To be in God s will, we must believe what He says is true and be obedient to His Word. That is God s will for our lives.
That may not answer many specific questions, so let me differentiate the idea of knowing God s will from divine guidance. There are no instructions in Scripture for making career choices, choosing mates, or selecting places of residence. In other words, there is no divine plan that we should be computer techs, plumbers, or engineers, live in St. Louis, or marry Julie or Jake. God s will is more related to what kind of career person, spouse, or citizen we should be. However, God does provide divine guidan