How to Recognize the Devil

7/12/2000

One night after dinner with some saints, a conversation erupted as a young boy who was required to "split" his time between a believing parent and an unbelieving parent shared a "shocking" experience...

Reading together something one of the saints had written based on 2 Peter 1...

Because I believe God, I obey Him and turn away from temptations and desires for evil.

Because I’m rejecting evil, God is able to draw near to me, and I’m actually getting to know Him and myself better and better.

Because I’m experiencing what it’s like to know Him and be near Him, I’m gaining strength to control myself, to stay away from the evil that would make me unable to see Him and smell Him and touch Him and be near Him.

Because I’m able to control myself, I can go through difficult and hard times without panicking or reacting loudly.

Because being near Him makes me able to control myself and rest even when it’s hard and I don’t understand why things are happening or how they might end up.

Because I go through hard times and even suffer with poise, I’m becoming like Jesus—my closest companion.

Since I’m growing into His image, I’m really and truly able to love others because He lives inside of me and He is free to express Himself and He is love.

The more I grow like this, the more I’ll become productive and useful to God for real, rather than just knowing a lot about Him.

From "Getting to Know Him"

(12 yr old speaking about a shocking experience) Recently my (unbelieving parent) arranged a ride for me to an educational event with some casual acquaintances, so I was in a car with some boys my age: ages 12 and 14. It was terrible. The boys were calling each other names, pushing and punching each other. They didn’t have any respect for their parents or authority at all...

Everybody in the room who did not grow up in the environment of the ekklesia here, can you raise your hand if that describes your life when you were growing up, every single day? (All the adults raised their hands.)

So what’s the difference? If we all grew up that way in that world, why is this young man (who grew up with his believing mother and the Ekklesia around him) surprised at that world? What changed?

Everybody who raised your hand a minute ago, raise your hand again. That’s what changed! We changed. That’s the point. We came face to face with Jesus and realized He’s not like that, so we changed. And because we changed, you younger ones didn’t have to grow up with that garbage because we looked at Jesus and said, “Jesus isn’t like that. I want to be like Jesus. I want to change.” So some of you children never had to get exposed to all that terrible, terrible stuff because we wanted to be like Jesus instead of like the devil.

But it’s important to understand that we all grew up in that disrespectful, unruly, unloving way. Every day. Every day.

I grew up with seven of us in a house that wasn’t much bigger than this living room, and it was like that all day, every day. Both parents yelling at the top of their lungs, both smoking two packs of cigarettes a day when I was young, curse words, anger, and temper. My dad gave my mom a bloody nose in front of me...my siblings yelling and screaming. And there are worse stories than that just in this room.

But the point is, what do you think happens generation after generation? People pass down their experiences to their children, and then their children pass down those experiences to their children—unless Jesus gets in the way and changes us.

And when Jesus changes us, then that next generation gets an opportunity to have peace, and joy, and honor authority, and love each other, and change. Jesus does miracles.

Do you want to know how to recognize a false religion? Religion without Jesus doesn’t change lives. That’s how you know whether Jesus is there or whether it’s just religious nonsense. Religious nonsense can do good deeds, can sing songs, can quote the Bible, but it doesn’t change lives. Only Jesus changes lives.

Did the boys give you a hard time for working hard? That happens to a lot of the men who work with unbelievers or religious people who aren’t following Jesus. If you work hard, it makes them look bad. So sometimes they’ll make fun of you or even sabotage your work thinking that if they can make you look bad like they do, then nobody will expect anything out of anybody.

At one point the dad was on the phone and there was a big TV playing and it was just really obnoxious and bad. None of the dads were paying attention, so I turned the TV off. The boys gave me a hard time about it.

The rest of your life people will try to convince you that something that doesn’t look like Jesus is really okay. You’re going to have to decide what you want. We all have to decide that. We raised our hands acknowledging we had grown up in that terrible situation ourselves. But you know us all pretty well. Are we still like that now?

No.

We could have been. We should have been if we’d have followed the pattern of our parents, our grandparents, their parents, and their parents. They were all like that. Every time there’s a family reunion or whatever—everybody’s like that. Why is everybody like that? Because the devil’s like that.

Jesus said, “Few will be those who find it.” So how do you know what’s right? How do you know what’s not right? Well, since “Few will be those who find it,” if everybody’s doing it, then it can’t be right. That’s one thing.

Another is: “By the fruit, you shall know them.”

Jesus did not say you would know by their magic words; their convincing words. It doesn’t matter how convincing words sound. Lives being changed is the mark of Jesus, not yak yak, yak yak yak. “Well, it’s here in the Bible. Yak, yak, yak, yak.” Who cares about yak, yak, yak?

Lives being changed is the only thing that proves whether Jesus is part of it or not.

Satan wants to tempt us with alternatives by presenting a kind of religion that sounds like it’s in the Bible, but it doesn’t change lives.

People kind of want that. It’s attractive. What is that shiny thing behind you?

An apple.

And what’s missing from that apple?

A bite.

Remember that when you start thinking about “cool” stuff. The world is full of apples that are attractive to eat. Some almost seem religious. Satan, when he was arguing with Adam and Eve said, “But God said, but God said.” Satan didn’t say, “The devil said, the devil said.” He said, “God said.”

So people who try to use God to tempt you to do the wrong thing... who’s the source of people who try to use God but tempt you to do the wrong thing with no standard of what’s true? Who was the author of that in the Garden of Eden? Who used God to talk to our mother and father, Adam and Eve? Who was it that talked to them and tried to convince them that it was okay with God to do something that God forbid?

Satan.

It’s exactly the same now. Anybody in a discussion who tries to use God, the Bible, church, religion, or worship, but lives don't change—who is it?

The devil.

It has to be the devil. It’s always been that way from the Garden of Eden on. People who try to convince us that God’s involved, but disobedience is okay...that’s always the devil.

That’s the choice in front of each of us. Adam and Eve fell for it because they wanted the apple. They lusted after the apple. They wanted that thing, and so they chose to listen to the devil who was trying to quote God, but poison their hearts against God at the same time by using God in the discussion. But advocating or allowing disobedience and rebellion and lack of respect for authority, fulfilling their lusts, fulfilling their appetites.

Satan says, “Go ahead and do it. God won’t care. God won’t mind. God is a loving God. He won’t care if you disobey.”

Did God care?

Yes!

Obviously, GOD cared. We’re not making that up. He threw Adam and Eve out of the garden. He obviously cared a lot. So that’s not our “opinion” that God cares whether we obey or not. God took action against people who used “God-words” to justify disobedience so they could do things the way they wanted. And who was whispering to them to do it the way they want to do it—using God as a quotation?

Satan.

That’ll be true in every school situation we’re in, and every work situation we’re in. We will constantly be running into people who do what satan does, which is use God. “God said. God said. God said.” And then they justify disobedience, rebellion, lack of respect for authority and lust of the eyes and lust of the flesh and the pride of life.

There will always be a religious world that doesn’t change lives... that tempts people to sell the Real Jesus for a fake Jesus. A fake Jesus that doesn’t change lives.

So, how will you know what’s true?

Changed lives.

“By their fruit, you shall know them.” Not by their good deeds, not by their good words, not by their good songs, but when their lives change. If lives don’t change—it’s not God. If someone tries to use God’s voice, but lives don’t change—it’s the devil.

Read your Bible. That’s the way it reads. Words that lead to disobedience, lack of respect for authority, wild lives, but use God in the discussion—that’s always the devil because it’s meant to confuse people, to make them feel like it’s okay because “God loves us, so God doesn’t care.” That is wrong. God DOES care. We have proof all the way through the Bible, starting in the Garden of Eden.

God does care whether we disobey or not. He does care. The Bible is very clear about that point all the way through from Genesis to Revelation.

In the book of Revelation, who is thrown into the lake of fire? A long list: the unbelieving, the corrupt, liars, cowards, murderers, the sexually immoral, idolaters... Why would God, a God of love, throw those people into the fire? That’s not the religious world’s God. But the God of the Bible says “He’s given us everything that pertains to life and godliness.” He’s given us every opportunity to change. And if we refuse to change, then we’re following the devil no matter what our “God-words” are. If we refuse to change, we’re not following the God of the Bible. God changes lives. Period. If people don’t change, they are following the Wrong god.

So that’s something we’ve got to remember when we’re in the workplace and somebody’s saying, “Oh, oh, come look at this TV. Come listen to our funny, dark, evil jokes and laugh with us. Come, come, come. It’s okay. God doesn’t mind.”

Well, we know where that comes from because God changes lives. It doesn’t matter how religious a person is or how much they sing, how many good deeds they do, or how much they yak about God. If lives aren’t changed, then it’s not God. It’s the devil. That’s the way the Bible reads, and that’s the way real life is. There’s always going to be a fake religion that uses God, but doesn’t change lives.

So these two young guys you mentioned, I don’t blame them. It’s not their fault. It’s their parents’ fault. It’s their religious world’s fault because it doesn’t help them meet the real Jesus. Because the Real Jesus, not the one you just sing and yak about, but the Real Jesus changes lives. They would have turned that TV off if they’d ever met Jesus, but it was a fake Jesus they’d been introduced to. And that fake Jesus doesn’t turn off the TV. It laughs at it. It likes it. It wants it.

So that’s the way you’ll always know—The Real Jesus changes lives.

All of us who are over 40, all grew up watching that junk. We all grew up talking naughty, thinking naughty, acting naughty, tearing things up, mistreating others, and being disrespectful. We all grew up being like that. But we met Jesus, and Jesus always changes lives when you meet the real Jesus. Fake Jesus doesn’t change lives. You just sing with the fake Jesus, but you don’t change. That’s how we’ll always know.

Now, there are people all over the world in every kind of denomination you can think of that we have interaction with all the time. We probably have received letters from ten different “pastors” today of all different religious groups. It’s not about that. It’s about whether a person loves Jesus and wants to obey Him. That’s the real Jesus.

There are people in a lot of different backgrounds that love Jesus and want to obey Him. And there are no walls between people like that.

The walls come when people decide they don’t want a real Jesus. And they don’t want anybody to talk to them about a real Jesus. And they get angry about it and call names and lie and all this sort of stuff. When it’s all said and done—that’s a fake Jesus.

But the real Jesus always changes lives, and don’t let anybody ever talk you out of that. I am putting this in the simplest way to look at it—if lives don’t change, it’s a fake Jesus. No matter what they say. If lives do change, then there’s a pretty good chance it’s the real Jesus because Jesus does miracles.

The way Jesus put it was—“Wisdom is proved right by her children.” That’s literal and figurative. Literally, the children have a chance when Jesus is the real Jesus. The children have a chance to grow up in peace and make their own decisions about whether they’re going to follow Him, rather than being wild and out of control and not having a real chance to decide about Jesus because the influence is so bad.

“Wisdom is proved right by her children.”

“By their fruit, you shall know them.”

Lives change when it’s the real Jesus. Lives do not change when it’s a fake Jesus. It’s just a bunch of words and songs, Bible verses. Who cares about any of that when lives don’t look like Jesus?

No matter what you face in life, remember that God’s Words are True. If you never met anybody on earth who actually lived like Jesus and was changed and changing, everything I just said would still be true. If you never ran into another person on Earth who took Jesus seriously, everything I just said would still be true. That’s what you still have to look for because that is the Word of God. That is what God said about it. Read your Bible.

Anybody who tries to sell you something different is a liar. And if you never met a single person who takes Jesus seriously, that doesn’t mean you can’t. You still should. You can’t lower the standard even if no one else is doing it. If no one else is changed by Jesus, you still could be and should be.

Even if you’re the only one on Earth, you still should be changed by Jesus.

“Though none go with me, still I will follow.”

Everyone Singing...

I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. No turning back.

Though none go with me, still I will follow. Though none go with me, still I will follow. Though none go with me, still I will follow. No turning back. No turning back.

The cross before me, the world behind me. The cross before me, the world behind me. The cross before me, the world behind me. No turning back. No turning back.

My cross I’ll carry till I see Jesus. My cross I’ll carry till I see Jesus. My cross I’ll carry till I see Jesus. No turning back. No turning back.

By the way, thank you for having the courage to go push that button on the TV. Did you feel a little brave at the time? A little scared or...?

Scared inside.

Now, what if the adults that were there said, “Why did you turn that off?” That would be pressure, wouldn’t it? If it wasn’t just the children, what if the adults started coming down on you for it, or the employees or parents, or whoever? Remember: “Though none go with me, still I will follow.”

You look them all in the eye and say, “I did the right thing. You do what you want to do with your life, but though none go with me, still I will follow Jesus. My life is going to change and I’m not putting up with satan’s joke. So you can make fun of me if you want, but I did the right thing.”

Stand your ground. That’s the way life’s got to be. You’ve got to stand your ground. “Few will be those who find it,”—as Jesus said—means that the followers of Jesus are always going to be dramatically outnumbered. That’s Jesus’ prediction. “Few will be those who find it.” Broad is the road that leads to the destruction of people saying, “Lord, Lord.” That’s what Jesus said. It’s people saying, “Lord, Lord,” that are on the broad road to destruction. So it’s religious people as well as non-religious people who are on this broad road to destruction. The ones that didn’t do the will of my Father, verse 21. They didn’t obey. They just sang and whatever, but they didn’t do anything about it. Those are the ones who refused to press the button and turn it off. So those who follow Jesus are always going to be dramatically outnumbered. “Few will be those who find it.”

So if there’s ten people telling you that you did the wrong thing—for every one that gives you a hug and thanks you, so be it. If there’s a thousand people telling you that you did the wrong thing—for every one who says thank you, so be it. That’s just the way it’s going to be. They killed Jesus. That’s what they’re going to want to do to us Jesus said. “No man is greater than His master.” If they treat Him that way, they’ll treat you that way. If you got in all kinds of trouble for pushing that button, that’s okay. That will be small compared to the bigger challenges that lie ahead. It’s okay.

I will say that it is possible, just to show you a slight alternative, it is possible that you could have just said to those a few feet away, “’'m going to step outside and just sit in the chair or on the bench. I’m not staying in here with that television on.” So that’s a possibility as well. The TV wasn’t yours and somebody could have made a big deal of it. They didn’t. That’s good. If you knew you were supposed to turn it off and you did, then it doesn’t matter what happens to you. That’s the right thing to do. But I just wanted you to know it’s also possible to just leave the room. ;)

1/10/2013

Making Stuff Up and Adding It to the Word of God Is Demonic

several years later... when a religious "authority figure" tried to disperse a bunch of godless advice about child-rearing...