Welcome to Theology Throwdown.

We, the Christian podcast community of podcasters, gather to discuss our theological differences with love and charity.

This is a ministry of striving for eternity.

Well, welcome to another Theology Throwdown.

We are here, those of us who are from the Christian podcast community, to discuss deliverance, demons and spiritual warfare.

I'm sure there's going to be no disagreement ever on such, you know, wide ranging topics as that.

We're all going to be in agreement.

You never know.

But it is a topic that is getting a lot of attention in, in Christian circles.

And so we're going to discuss that.

We always.

This is a monthly podcast where we at the Christian Podcast community.

If you're not familiar with Christian podcast community, go Christian podcast community.org you can find all of our, I don't know, like 50 vetted podcasts that are there and that way you'll be able to see which ones you might like.

We, I guarantee you'll find something you like because we got a good range and so there's, there's biblical ones like mine and then Melissa's.

That's.

Oh wait, no, sorry, I was, I was joking, Melissa, like saying yours wasn't biblical.

We had to get some degreement disagreement early on.

No, but I'm going to introduce each of the folks who are here.

We, we like to do this so that not only teaching different theological positions, but also displaying how we can disagree with one another, you know, without tearing each other's heads off.

And so we'll see if Melissa tears my head off.

But Melissa, I will start with you if you want to introduce yourself so people hear your voice and know the voice and then explain your podcast and give a little bit of what your podcast is about.

Sure.

Thank you.

First off, I strongly disagree.

My podcast hopefully is very biblical because it is actually a focus on Sola Scriptura.

What I do in my podcast is take popular teachings in women's ministry.

Sometimes we look at popular teachers, especially female teachers, those that call themselves pastors, or now we're going to look at apostles, female apostles, and we compare what they teach to what scripture teaches to show that scripture is just sufficient and so much better.

Yeah, but that's me.

I, I called Malvatoast.

So all my friends call me Malvatoast.

And if you're interested in learning more about the false teachers within women's ministry and, and Sola Scriptora, you could check Thoroughly Equipped is the name of the podcast.

Yeah, I was going to say that she's so big on self promotion, you almost didn't men mention your podcast name?

I had to sneak it in there a little at the end.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

And I must not be your friend.

I just call her Melba.

Toast is too long.

You've called Melbourne several times, so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Next up is a voice for those who listen to this podcast regularly will be a little bit new.

We have tried when we record this to do Monday nights and Tuesday nights and Thursday.

We've tried because we've been trying to get one guy in and he's here, and I'm going to let him introduce his podcast because his co host has been doing it for years.

So, Tim, welcome to Theology Throwdown.

Finally.

I think you might have made one of them.

Maybe, but I have.

Yeah.

So introduce yourself and then your podcast.

Greetings, everyone.

My name is Tim Martin.

I am the Ed McMahon to Eve Franklin's Johnny Carson on Are you Just watching?

Which is a critical thinking podcast that evaluates secular media for both hidden themes and looking at it and how we can use it to glorify God.

And it's.

It's a great job.

I get paid.

Eve gave me a.

She doubled my salary.

I thought.

I thought she tripled.

Was still the same.

The other part going.

Well, it was all the same, wasn't it?

Well, yeah.

Yeah.

If she triples zero five times, it's, you know, anything times zero is still.

And you are.

You are sporting.

I said before we got started.

You are sporting a wonderful beer there.

And so.

Thank you.

What did.

What did you say to me when I.

When I mentioned that your beard has.

Has gotten a little bit longer?

Well, this isn't my beard.

It's my granddaughter's beard.

I just look better with it than she does.

Yeah, she.

She can't wait to breed it next time I go to England.

I just think that's great.

That's a grandfather, you know.

Okay.

I'm growing a beard just for the granddaughter.

She likes it.

It's happening.

Eve, the Johnny Carson of the show, as we now know.

Yes, I'm Eve Franklin, and as Tim has already told you, we both host the podcast Are youe Just Watching?

Which he's already explained.

So I don't need to explain anything about it.

Instead, I will tell you that I also have a companion book called Are you just Watching that You can get on Amazon, which is a workbook that allows you to apply some of the principles that we use in our reviewing of secular media to your own viewing

and recommend it, which is really good for.

I'm going to say for Homeschoolers that do watch movies to just get that companion book.

Sit down.

When you are watching movie, your kids may like it better than watching a movie with me because my kids hated watching a movie because I actually stopped the movie to get into discussing the theology or what they're.

Did you notice this subtle thing here?

You notice how they do?

And yeah, my kids hated watching a movie with me because, well, I didn't care about watching the movies.

But.

But I will say, are you just watching this?

Help me.

Because when I do long flights and there's nothing else to do, you know, I usually will turn the, the movie on, on the back of the screen there on the back of the seat.

And I know what movies to avoid or which ones I'll scream loudly during the flight if I were to watch.

So I just avoid that or ones that might be good.

And so, yeah, I've watched a lot of kids movies.

All right, but so have we.

Well, you guys have watched a lot of Marvel movies, which I've watched one.

Is that correct, Eve?

I've watched one Marvel movie.

Right?

Yeah.

I think you saw the end of the first era of Marvel.

That was the first Marvel movie I saw was End Game, where.

Okay, so just picture the scene, Tim.

I don't know if you've ever heard this story.

And then we're gonna get from, we're gonna go from end game to demons.

But, but I was at my, my nephew's bar mitzvah, we had three hours to kill.

And so my son in law goes, well, why don't we go see Endgame?

You know, the Marvel endgame.

Okay, we are all dressed.

My son in law and I are in suits.

My wife and daughter are in our long gowns, right?

Because we're at a bar mitzvah.

And, and so we walk in the theater, the manager actually calls to the front desk, goes, are they in the right place?

Like what?

You know, this theater has two theaters are really small, and I'm, my wife falls asleep and I'm asking my son in law, I don't get this.

What's this?

Well, he had to explain every line of the movie to me because I hadn't seen any of them.

And he's like, dad, you really needed to see the first like 21 movies to understand any of this one.

Okay, I think he went and rewatched it without me.

So let's talk about Deliverance Ministries.

This is something that is becoming a little bit more popular.

I'm hoping that one of our other podcasters, Jim Osmond will join us.

Pastor Jim Osmond from Kootenay Community Church.

You we have the podcast he has is really the sermons from Monday from Sunday mornings, and it's called Kootenay Community Church.

Crazy idea.

Or I think it's Kootenay Community.

Kootenay Community Church Worship Service, I think is what it's called technically.

But we were talking topics and I had had Jim on my podcast and Mel was saying, hey, let's do this topic.

And I said, sure, that's a nice, easy topic.

No one's going to disagree with us.

No.

So let's start with, you know, and I don't, I actually, I open this up to, you know, teach of you, just any, any background or understanding you have of what is now being called deliverance ministries or these demon hunters or an understanding what spiritual warfare in Christian circles is often thought of.

So I'll start and I'll start with in the same order we we went first.

So go with you, Mel.

First

you're asking me like, what's my experience with it?

What's your understanding of it?

Yeah, yeah.

My, my understanding is deliverance ministry is it's a system of practices like you could have such practices as inner healing practices, exorcisms, certain things like that, practices that are well practiced to sanctify.

They won't call it sanctification, I don't think, because I think that's the main issue when we hit it in, in the head, that it's a denial of sanctification, as the Bible talks about sanctification.

But so there are practices that are put into place to remove are traumas, sins, stuff like this, things that we struggle with.

And they're those things are usually attributed to demons.

So it's basically exorcism practices that they put in place to exercise demons from Christians.

Okay.

That's, I think a main key too is that deliverance is for Christians.

In fact, Greg Locke says his words are redemption and salvation is for the lost, but deliverance is to set the captives free and that it's specifically for Christians to be set free from sins and things like that.

Tim, how about you?

What's your understanding of this topic?

So my entire understanding of deliverance ministry started at 2:52pm today when Eve messaged me he expanded talking points.

And I want to thank Melissa for bringing this up because this has been nothing short of eye opening.

I, I was, I was caught by a, the original invite that went out that just talked about Ephesians 6:12.

And I work for the Christian Broadcasting Network and there's a lot of, there's a wide range of theologies with the Christian Broadcast employees.

And I don't agree with a lot of the things that we send out.

But earlier in the day that I had received the invite for this theology throwdown, they had sent out a, in a dvd, you know, a sign up and donate to get a DVD series investigating the supernatural.

And I had actually looked up Ephesians 6:12 before the invite came up and started dwelling on it because I wanted.

It's.

I didn't really have a wonderful position.

I'm actually a middle of the road cessationist when it comes to miracles.

And I didn't realize I hadn't given a lot of thought to where I stood with that.

So in preparation for this discussion, I, I did an hour and a half interview with a very good friend of mine, Professor Jim Henderson from Professor Emeritus Jim Henderson from Regent University, who is

a

charismatic Pentecostal preacher.

And we talked a lot about the supernatural and how people see it.

So I'm looking forward to trying to apply inexpertly some of that knowledge.

And let me just read the verse that you referenced is Ephesians 6:12 says, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil, against, in the heavenly places.

Just so those of you who are driving in your car, don't try to take your Bible out to see what verse he was referencing and then drive off the road.

And you know, Melbatos and I are in New Jersey.

That's just a regular experience.

And, and they're not reading a Bible.

They're just driving off the road.

Because they think they can no longer.

No, because they want to go.

They want to get ahead of you and think if you're going only 50 miles over the speed limit, you're obviously going way too slow for them.

Eve, how about you?

Yeah, I would have to say that I am as ignorant on this topic as Tim is.

So we're along for the ride on this.

I would have to agree that anybody who is believing that, that anything that is wrong in our lives is a demon that has to be cast out.

I don't see where they would get that from Scripture, but.

Well, I'm interested to hear more and

I'm going to give a book recommendation.

It's an older book.

It's called the Enemy within by Chris Longarner.

It is a, as he says, a Cliff Notes version of John Owens two volume work on the indwelling sin and the mortification of sin.

Although I think it's really the Cliff Notes version of indwelling sin with a cup with like one or two chapters on the mortification of sin.

But if you ever tried to read John Owens, I mean, I, I love John Owens, but it, it's some deep thinking and, and so Chris Longarter made it easy, but here's the thing that he points out is it's so easy to blame the devil for everything that goes wrong in our life and sins we have.

So I, I, I'm, I'm not a drunkard.

I have the demon of drunkardness, I'm not an adulterer.

I have the demon of adultery.

Right.

So it's easy to blame someone outside herself.

And the whole thing is, no, the enemy is within us.

It's our own flesh.

It's not the world though, that influences, it's not the devil though, that influences.

Most of our problem is when we look in the mirror, that's where it is right there.

Go look in the mirror, you know, where the problem is.

And, and I think like, to Mobatos's point, the fact that so many want to blame others, to not blame self, I think does have an effect on our sanctification because how are we gonna, how are we going to be sanctified if we're, if we're never going to admit what we need to work on?

And so I think a lot of the spiritual warfare, I've seen it morph over the years.

So early on, spiritual warfare was about, you know, praying to bind Satan, to, you know, tie him up, you know, to, to keep him trapped.

Which I just want to know one thing.

I mean, you got so many Christians all around the world that are tying up Satan and binding them.

Who's the guy that's letting him loose?

I just want to know.

I mean, let's, let's just pray that person would stop, you know, because obviously someone keeps letting him go.

No, I mean, but it really started that way, but it then morphed into what we, you know, it started being, well, people have a Jezebel spirit and then they have a spirit of drunkenness and this and that, and, and it's the blaming of, of other things.

And so that went into this, this demonology type of view.

And then now you have the deliverance ministry that's starting up.

And Melbatos mentioned Greg Locke.

I was really shocked when I had Jim Osmond on my show and I was like, but isn't Jim Locke solid.

Greg Lock solid.

I said, Jim, Greg Lock solid.

He's like he was, but he's not anymore.

And now he's gone fully to another side.

And when I was hearing what Jim was saying, this is why I was kind of interested in this topic.

I, you know, I had talked to Jim when he and I were in the Philippines and he was talking about that he's writing this book on these demon hunters.

And I'm like, demon hunters?

Like, so now there's these people who are training people how to spot a demon.

As Mobile Toe said in Christians this they don't have a ministry to unbelievers.

They have a ministry to believers, if we're going to call it ministry, but they have ministry to believers to get the demons out of us.

And I like was okay, so you know, it's is with that I, I want to just ask a basic theological question up front first because I don't know your positions.

So we'll just go around quickly and I'll go in the same order is fine.

So you know, the question is this, do you believe that if that, do you believe that Christians could be demon possessed?

So really quick Melbatos.

No, not the way the demon slayers describe possession.

They, they make a difference between possession and demonized.

They say that you, that Christ possesses you, but you can have an indwelling spirit that is an unclean spirit or a demon spirit that can oppress you or even take control.

I'm doing more research into this, but scripture doesn't seem to make that distinction.

It's only either you have indwelling demons or you, you don't.

And then not only that, then the fact that this idea that you can have the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit takes residence in you and yet then also have demons get that, that control you.

They claim again that you're not possessed, meaning ownership is what I think they're using that term for that Christ owns you, the Holy Spirit owns you.

But, but Satan can enter in and take control and do what he wants with your body, basically.

So yeah, I don't think that it's biblical and I don't, yeah, Christians cannot be possessed and owned in that way.

They can be oppressed.

Satan can attack them, attack us physically and you know, tempt us mentally and spiritually.

But we have, that's why we are given the Holy Spirit to combat that.

That is part of sanctification in, in with what I believe to be spiritual warfare for the individual.

That the whole.

It's us Making, putting to use our faith practically through life's instances, trials and tribulations that come our way, and putting our faith into practice and trusting more and more in Christ through it all is.

Is our sanctification.

So, yeah.

Okay, so you're a no.

Tim, what are your thoughts?

This is actually one of the things that I had discussed with Dr. Henderson and before going into the discussion, I was of the exact same position that Christ is indwelling and therefore there's no room for anything else.

But Dr. Henderson pointed out a couple of good points.

First and foremost among them is the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5, where Ananias comes up and essentially lies about everything that they are, that they are giving everything to the early church.

And I think it's Peter.

Yes.

In verse three it says Ananias, Peter asked, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the proceeds of the land.

So when you take that and look at.

Seems to me that there's no question that Ananias is a Christian.

But Peter says that Satan has filled his heart.

And that ties back, in my opinion to the difference between possession and demonized.

Possession is a total control.

And the term does not show up in the Bible.

The, the t. The demonized term that that is coming up appears to be more accurate to the Greek translations for the New Testament.

And if I spoke Greek well enough, I would say what that term is, but I don't, I don't want them, you know, butcher it.

So,

so let me ask just for clarification, so would you.

I mean, it almost sounds like you're making the distinction that Mel made over.

You know, I forget the Melatos, the, the words you used between possession and oppression.

Was that it?

Okay, so Tim, is that, does that sound like similar thinking that.

That you're having?

It's pretty close, but I would say that Christians are still in.

Can still be influenced at different levels.

Even a, A Christian who falls quite a bit can be influenced quite a bit more than, you know, a Bible believing daily praying, daily meditating Christian.

But the difference is really in real estate.

It's how much real estate you make available to demonic influence.

And

you know, I, I honestly keep going back to screwtape letters C.S.

lewis here and, and I know he wasn't being literal.

It was, it was all metaphorical.

But he makes some good points and it, I, I think that Christians are vulnerable to the influence of evil, but I don't think that the total possession that we see in.

Oh, where was it the pigs?

Oh, yeah, it's.

It's actually in.

In all four.

No, two of the.

Two of the three synoptic gospels.

But I don't think Christians can be possessed to that, to that level.

If you look at Acts, chapter 16 with the girl with the spirit of Divination, the.

The Python spirit, I suspect that that level could have been a Christian, but I don't know.

And I want to point out I have never witnessed any of this and I fall to.

And I'll have to lean on Eve for this one because she's the philosophy major.

I understand that there's a Kant, a Kantian movement that helps me to think that the supernatural world doesn't enter.

Intersect with the natural world, aside from spiritual beliefs.

And I am learning that that is not actually the case.

Yeah.

Now, I mean, we always want to be careful not to base our theology upon books from men of.

Unless, of course, it's my books.

If it's my books, it's.

Oh,

thanks for those of you who got the joke.

But no, I'll contact the Library of Congress.

But yeah, so I, I think I'm.

I'm.

I'm not sure that I know where the distinction between what you and Mel said.

Maybe I'm just not picking up on it because it sounds like that you guys are kind of agreeing, but.

Eve.

What?

Oh, go ahead.

No, I was just gonna say I think my distinction would be this, that I tend to think the way demons and Satan evolves and, and influences and can oppress is through false teaching and people believing and submitting themselves to that belief.

That is in essence how I think you can be oppressed and deceived.

As you know, Scripture says, you know, who is.

Can be bewitched.

That Christians can be bewitched in that.

In that regard.

And that's where I would say Ananias and Sapphire, that's how they were.

They were bewitched by believing whatever they believed and choosing to act on that belief and hold back the full, you know, to lie to the Holy Spirit.

And, and that's how I see demons playing a role in that.

But.

Or saying.

Playing a role.

But it's not where the Satan enters the.

The body controls the body and makes you lust or makes you commit adultery or makes you do anything like that.

That's, I think, where the distinction would be.

And I believe a lot of sin stems from lack of faith and knowledge.

And so.

And just, I mean, okay, I wouldn't say stems from, but our desires are the root of it.

And we have a lack of faith and therefore choose to rely on our own sinful desires to satisfy ourselves.

Anyway, so.

Okay, Melboto, so let me just ask clarifying question there.

So is it more than just false teaching?

Because what I'm thinking, right, people who start getting into the Ouija boards and different healing things like the, the, the crystals and the Reiki and all this stuff that's grounded in new age.

Well, I guess maybe that fits under your false teaching.

So maybe that does.

But.

But people there start doing a Ouija board and start believing in stuff like

that or tarot card or like maybe something can manifest.

Like there can be a deception.

I think definitely spirits would take advantage of our false beliefs and manipulate our experiences or give us an experience to continue us on that path.

A false belief in heading down the wide road.

Yeah.

So to speak.

All right, Eve, your last up.

Well, I definitely don't believe the devil made me do it.

So that.

That's like the, the cop out that we were all raised with.

You know, as little kids, it's like you do something wrong.

Well, the devil made me do it.

It's the passing the blame that dates all the way back to Genesis 3.

So you don't pass the blame for your own sins.

And James.

And Tim's going to giggle because James is my favorite book of the Bible.

But just hearing you guys talk, it says in James 1:13, no one undergoing a trial should say, I'm being tempted by God, since God is not tempted by evil and he himself doesn't tempt anyone.

But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own own evil desires.

Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin.

And when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.

And so I think the scripture is pretty clear that when we sin, we're sinning because we are tempted through our own desire to sin.

And if there is spiritual warfare, we also know that from scripture that the spirit realm does exist and that there is spiritual welfare.

That's why we're supposed to put on the armor of Christ is so that we can stand against the wiles of the devil and be able to turn away the flaming darts of doubt and unbelief.

And so there is spiritual warfare.

But I think as Christians, we are indeed armored against it through the indwelling of the spirit.

And we have to be conscious of the fact that if there is any spiritual influences in our lives, it's because we allow them to be there.

It's not something that is creeping in and taking advantage of us.

It's something that we have put aside our spiritual armor and set aside the spirit and allowed or invited in the something that is not of God to influence us.

So a place where they might sink their hook.

Yeah.

So that would be my distinction is that as Christians we have this, the armor of God.

We are indwelled by the Spirit and we cannot be.

We have been bought already and so Satan no longer has that power over us.

But we can, as we indeed still struggle with sin and sinful desires.

We can open the door to allow those spirits to tempt us into more sin.

But we can't ever say that the spirits made us do anything because Scripture is clear that we sin from our own evil desires.

Yeah.

And I mean the verse that comes to mind for me on this topic is, you know, first John four, four little children, you are not, you are not from God.

You have overcome them.

For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

So one of the things, you know, and maybe you know, my Jewish background, but the, you know, for if you look in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit did not indwell every believer.

That was the difference.

The, the promise of the new covenant would be that the Holy Spirit would indwell every believer.

And in the Old Testament it seems more for leadership or something that where the Holy Spirit would come upon someone and some would argue even come upon, you know, indwell an unbeliever if you believe King Saul was an unbeliever.

But, but the Holy Spirit acted differently.

So the promise of the new covenant was that the Spirit would indwell us.

And so when I look at, you know, first John four, four, greater is he that is in you referring to the Holy Spirit indwelling you than is in the world.

I would say that only one can, can indwell the person.

And so I, I would say that no, the, the demons cannot indwell.

Now whether that is controller like I think we've all kind of come about it different ways, but it sounds like we have a lot of agreement in the sense of we recognize that demons can influence in some way what, what we do in the sense especially as Melboto said, the more we give over to that the, and I think even Tim, you said, you know, if we're not in their Bible and, and we're, we're start, you know, we're, we're not praying, we're not reading and we're living like the world, we're going to be Moving more influenced by the world and demons.

But ultimately, and I think like you said, Mel, it's us, right?

I think even you even referred to it, right?

Can't blame someone else.

It's, it's us who, who's doing it, but we want to blame someone else because it just makes it sound better than saying we did it.

So, you know, when we, we talk about these modern day deliverance folks that are out there where they're casting out demons out of believers and, and everyone else, they've created a whole ministry of this.

They have teaching schools to teach people how to do this.

How does that compare in your minds to that of Jesus and the apostles?

Right.

That's the example we have of people who casted out demons the most.

It's not that others didn't, but, but it's really during the time of Christ we see a lot of demonic activity.

Maybe it's because there's just more written about it, or maybe it's because in my opinion, when you have God become a man, this is the pinnacle of history.

So, yeah, this is it.

I mean, this is like for the demons, this is their shot.

Because if they could, if they could defeat God, you know, by bringing Christ to the cross, they win.

They failed.

I think they, they knew they were going to fail, but they had to throw everything at it.

Right.

So that's, that's why I think there was more demonic activity and there was more deliverance that was going on.

So, you know, I'll switch up the order this time.

I'll start with Tim and, and then go to Melissa and Eve.

But yeah, so the, the question is, you know, when we look at Christ and the apostles compared to what we're seeing, the modern day ministry, you know, what's, what's the comparison?

Is it the same thing?

Does it look to be different?

So, Tim, we'll start with you.

So I can't really speak to it, having just heard of the deliverance ministry today, but I can speak to what I have seen in many denominations, particularly around here, the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.

And for me it actually comes back to apostolic secession.

The question of whether or not there are real successors to the apostles of Christ and whether or not they are still capable of performing works.

So like I said, I'm a borderline cessationist, which means I'm open, I, I'm open to be convinced otherwise, but I have not seen the evidence of it.

So I, I am of the position where if they are earnestly practicing what they believe and they can support it with scripture.

Even though I think they're wrong, I don't have a problem with it.

God can use it.

God can use.

God used Hitler.

I mean, but you know, my heckles go up when they start turning it into a profit opportunity.

Profit P R O F I T not.

Yeah, good point.

An opportunity for revenue.

Yeah.

When they start using it for self aggrandizement or non.

God honoring things and that, that's where we should be standing up against, against them now.

Incorrect teachings, this kind of thing, this theology throwdown.

Wonderful.

Exactly what we should be doing.

But it.

When it comes to targeting false teachers, we should be targeting the people who are the Joel Osteens of the world.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean I'd say God can use anything.

Right.

But that doesn't justify.

I mean God used selling, you know, Joseph's brother, selling him as a slave.

That doesn't mean we should sell people as a slave.

Right.

Oh, I'll be right back.

You got a brother you don't like?

I'd be in trouble.

I'd probably be the one that.

I'm the, I'm the only Christian in the family.

So they'd be like, okay, you off the island and yes, Eve, I, I did make a movie reference or I guess it's a TV show reference, but I never watched the show.

I just know the reference.

All right, Mel,

so remind me of

the question comparison to the.

To.

Right.

And, and folks, just, you know, the, the, the, the first question was written by Melbatos.

Just saying it's question number one on the list you gave.

I don't even remember my questions.

So.

Okay,

yeah.

So from the research that I have done, and I'm still currently deep diving into women who were involved in deliverance ministry, they do call themselves apostles.

And I am still trying to determine whether that's big a apostle or little a apostle.

Okay, define that for folks who may not be.

Understand what you're.

Okay, so big a apostle as seen through the lens of the nar, the new apostolic reformation would be they are chosen ones of God to have an exercise authority given to them to set up ways to worship, what to teach.

Most of them are to receive some sort of vision for even the.

The nation's visions for communities in expanding the kingdom of God.

Not just the gospel and bringing people into the kingdom, but also in other ways.

Bringing heaven to earth is kind of the full view of their idea of the kingdom.

And that is on then through signs and wonders.

So they are raised up by or identified and called by other apostles big A apostles and, and things like that and little A apostles is what we would kind of see as missionaries.

Those who go out to spread the gospel and start churches and you know, find elders and then you know, they'll probably move on.

I mean it's pretty much like evangelists but church planting evangelists.

So I don't, I mean I don't really see these women in the deliverance ministry.

Focus more on church planting.

Their goal is very, for what I would say, profit oriented.

P R O F I T though they call themselves prophetesses sometimes they have prophets underneath them and stuff like that.

But what they'll do is they'll create like these kind of conferences that do what is called these intensives.

Basically this training of other women or other people in general to not just training but put into the, the system, in the system that they would, that they have determined is the way to draw out demons.

So basically practices of exorcisms and so they do this for profit.

But it's again they wouldn't say like it's like oh I'll exercise the demon if you give me money.

It's always guised under we need this ministry, support this ministry it and so that we can build more or have more intensives.

They buy buildings and they will do like over weekend retreats and things like this.

So it is a prophet, there's a profit to it.

But the, I think the main problem with it is just that I don't see in scripture when comparing it to Jesus and the apostles when they exercised a demon they just, they said come out in Jesus name or whatever and the demon came out.

There was no let's look into your past trauma or let's determine what spirit.

There was no conversation.

I mean I only know of one instance in scripture where Jesus had a slight conversation with Legion and that was it.

And then you know, he cast them out and they were gone.

So there's not this battle or wrestling going on and there was no teaching.

It was a gift given to the apostles and a couple Stephen and Philip the evangelist to have these signs and wonders.

And like I said, there's no learning how to do it.

There's no conversing with demons to find out and determine things and just vast difference and completely free God.

Jesus gave it to them completely free, set them free completely.

Well, I mean maybe you didn't read the book.

It does teach about the teaching, ministry of teaching others to cast out demons in the book of Moronicles, you know,

and oh sorry Alex Pagani, he's written a book that's the book that changed that totally convinced Greg Locke the secrets to deliverance.

And that's what got him started.

You mentioned something which I wanted to ask of Tim.

And so Tim, you mentioned the apostolic succession.

And so I wanted to dig into that because that is an important thing to kind of what Melbatos was saying is this, this idea that they claim to be prophets as she was saying.

A big A. Prof.

Sorry, not prophet.

Apostle.

Right.

We're all, everyone that's a Christian.

The word apostle means sent out, right.

So every Christian is a.

Which she's saying small a apostle.

We're all sent out to share the gospel.

But the apostles, right.

Big A.

We, we all agree there were 12 in the FIR in the first century.

Some, well, some churches, like the Catholic Church, believes in apostolic succession with the, you know, from, from Peter as the first pope all the way to the current one.

I, I've always find it amazing what they do when there were three popes all ex, you know, communicating each other.

So were you tying the idea of the demon exorcism to there being either living prophets at the time or only prophets doing it?

I wasn't sure.

Because you brought up the apostolic succession.

I, I want to draw out that connection.

You were making it

Melba.

Is that right?

Melbatose or male Melbatos.

Melbatos indicated the.

One of the features of the big A apostle is this authority.

And that's where I draw the line because no one has authority over scripture and there are far, far too many churches out there where the apostle in charge supersedes that authority.

And that authority, I think is the authority that allowed the apostles of Jesus to cast out the demons.

And he told them to do it.

He sent them out to heal and instructed, you know, if they don't listen to you, shake the dust off your feet.

So I don't think that authority is that speaking authority is out there today.

I would like to think that any one of us, if we encountered a person who has been taken over by a demon, a non believer person, because I think we all agree that a Christian could not be that we could cast the demon out in the name of Jesus Christ.

I don't know, you know, I don't know how that would work.

It's.

I certainly hope it doesn't depend on my strength because if it does, the guy's host.

Yeah, Eve, what are your thoughts on the comparison between first century and modern day?

I think it's too much of a Platforming issue, I think nowadays with the nr.

Na.

Was it nr?

Nar.

The NRA is a different organization.

Yeah, the NAR and a lot of these other spin offs.

And I'm assuming this deliverance thing is probably a spin off from that.

They're all aggrandizing themselves.

They're putting themselves forward as healers or as apostles or as, you know, I have a word, my word for the year is, or whatever it is, you know, these really weird things they do.

It's all platforming.

It's all to get money, it's all to get fame, to get followers, clicks on the social media.

And we have too much of that, even in what I would consider the real Christian church.

And it's hard when we're all podcasters to not, you know, follow after that is, you know, to chase the, the platform.

But I really do think that the culture that we have today is encouraging this kind of platforming.

And because it, I mean, dating all the way back to televangelists who would have their shows on, forgive me Tim, on, on Christian networks that are all about raising money and living a lavish lifestyle.

And that I think that's where what it all centers around.

And none of those people are truly saved and none of them are truly followers of Christ because we're told as Christians to take up the cross and follow Christ.

It's not about putting ourselves forward or putting ourselves on platforms or pedestals or any other thing that lifts us above our fellow Christian.

And so no, I don't believe that there are apostles in this age, I think, or big A apostles, since, you know, had to define the two.

I think that that ended with the apostles that followed Christ who knew him in life, and Paul as one out of time.

Isn't that how he referred to himself?

And then after that, we are all Christians.

We are all following through faith because we were not eyewitnesses.

We are all following through faith, the cross, and encouraged as Christians to self sacrifice, not to aggrandize ourselves.

And so everything that we should, if, as Tim says, we were to find a unbeliever who is possessed by a demon, it's not us that's going to cast that demon out.

It is going to be Christ.

Just as the disciples who went off on their own and came back and told Jesus that they had come across a demon they could not cast out and Christ had to come and do it for them.

It's not because it's not something in us, it's not something that God gifts us in doing.

It is something that God does through us.

We are just the vessel, his is the power.

And anytime that we are would to a miracle, it would be in the name of Jesus, because Jesus is the one doing the miracle, not us.

And it's not to give, give us a platform or to have anybody looking at us so that we ourselves might decrease so that Christ can increase.

That's a very, very, very important point is it's, it's Christ doing it through us.

You know, one of the things that Eve, I don't know if you ever heard me say it, but when, when I talked to you different pastors, I will refer to God's ministry in your life or through your life.

I won't call it their ministry because guess what?

It's not right.

And I'll say with the platforming, I'll recommend a resource at the sake of sounding like self promotion, but not really because it is my article, but not on my website.

If you go to truscript.org I I wrote an article on true ministry versus platform building.

So if you go to truscript.org and just search for platform building, you'll get the article.

If you go, oh, I don't know where it is that I preached.

It was at Jeffrey Rice's church.

But I forget the name of the conference where I, I talked about that.

I think it was the roadmap to revival.

If you search that, you'll find those, those talks where I went into more detail than the, the blog article.

But it is a, it is a big thing.

Platforming is, I think, a major problem we have within Christianity today.

And when I look at this, I'm comparing it to first century to now.

The focus is, is really all different.

I think in the first century, the focus of casting out demons was on the person's salvation and vindicating the, the apostles to be writing the word of God.

Okay.

And so this is one of the things, you know, people say, well, why, why am I cessationist?

Go, go to strivingfraternity.org Miracles.

You'll see both a sermon I did at the cessationist conference and, and all I put that out there, striving fortunately.org miracles so you get all the data I have.

But I went through all, all the miracles done in the Bible by men.

There's not that many people, you know, like people expect miracles to be happening every day today.

And yet if, if you remove all the miracles that were done outside of the writing of scripture, I make the case that you See, three main periods of history where we see miracles and they are all tied to the miracles.

And then following it was the writing of scripture.

Moses and Aaron, Elijah and Elisha and Christ.

Outside of that, there's not many.

There's a handful.

There's like seven miracles done by human beings outside of those three time periods.

So right off the bat, you know, out of the hundreds of miracles that were done by humans, we should quickly recognize, hey, there's these three periods of time.

I think those miracles, miraculous gifts, were for the purpose of really vindicating the, the writers of scripture.

And outside of the new writing of scripture, I wouldn't expect to see people casting out demons.

Now I will say I was on the streets doing street evangelism, as I do, and I remember I'm talking to this guy who's just yelling out, I mean, my buddy Ken thought he was demon possessed.

And I kind of agreed with him after we, after we talked about.

But he just, the guy just was like, he'd be like really calm then all erratic and, and my, my friend Ken just like, like walked up to him and just said, you know, because we were sharing the gospel with him and he just walks up and says, be gone, Satan.

And the guy just like very calmly picked up, said goodbye, turned around and left.

And I looked at Ken like, what was that?

He goes, I didn't know what else to say, you know, but we, we basically were like, yeah, I think he's demon possessed.

Tim, were you gonna, you raise your finger, Were you gonna say something there

now?

I was just agreeing that it should be pointing that all the, all the miracles pointed towards Christ.

Okay.

That's the pointing up thing.

Oh, okay.

I didn't know if you, you're raising a fear saying, hey, I have a question or.

I mean, it's just so odd that Tim agrees with me that, you know, I'm just shocked.

I will, I will say something to that too, because yeah, Eve is, is right.

Her assessment that it, it's self aggrandizing.

And that's one of the things I think that causes deception is it doesn't point to Christ.

It does point to the ministers of deliverance and the, the system that they use or the process and practices they use to exercise these demons.

And so therefore it's like another mediator.

Christ is not the mediator that we go to for redemption and salvation.

And I take a different stance than Greg Locke does that deliverance, the result of redemption and salvation, it's the being set free is the result of that.

So many times then you, they.

They convince their people who practice this that you need to do it regularly, that even they themselves, the deliverance ministers, have to exercise the demons within them.

And so they rely on the ministers and the practices instead of Christ and his finished work and the gospel.

So it's.

Yeah, it takes your eyes off of.

Off of Christ.

You know, it's one of the funny things.

I, I went with Justin Peters to the.

One of these crusades they had, if it was Kenneth Copeland's Believers Conference, Southwest Believers Conference.

And it was interesting because every speaker that I heard, seven or eight speakers, they're gonna do a healing session late.

Like, that's the big thing, is these healing things.

And every one of them talked about going to a doctor when they were sick.

Creflo Dollar was the only one that kind of got it.

He's like talking about his one year dealing with cancer and going to the doctor and praying doctors would have wisdom.

And he goes, we're going to have a healing session coming up.

Because I think he realized, wait, I'm saying how the doctors were the ones that healed me.

And I'm going to tell these people they need faith to be healed, right?

Like, hey, hey, physician, heal thyself.

Like, like, you don't believe in these, In.

In your faith healing you.

So why do you tell these others?

Right?

But I think that a big part of the verse that these people will go to is.

Is in John 14:12, which says, Truly, truly.

I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he.

He will do also.

And greater works than these he will do because I go to the Father.

This is the.

I think the big thing that they focus on is that we today should be doing greater works than Jesus.

If Jesus did healings, if Jesus cast out demons, if Jesus raised the dead.

Oh, wait, I don't see them doing that one.

Every time they've tried that, that.

That failed.

But we should be doing greater now.

Think about this.

We should be doing greater things than God incarnate.

Let.

Let that sink in.

All right, but this is the thing that they focus on, performing greater works than what Jesus did.

I think I've given away my position on this, but what is the, the, you know, and this kind of goes to what Eve was saying.

What is the believer's authority in.

In warfare?

You know, what.

What authority do we have according to scripture, to, to exercise in.

In the spiritual realm?

So, Eva, start with you, since you kind of.

This is where you left off just to continue it.

What Authority we have, we don't have any authority.

We, the only authority that we can use when addressing the demonic is the, to speak the name of Christ because it is only his power that has any control over them.

And they, they will flee in fear of it.

Because if, if we are a true child of God.

I think it was what was there, wasn't there a magician that tried to cast out demons and in, in, in Jesus's name, But they didn't, they were like, we know these people, but we don't know who you.

And we know who Christ is, we know who Paul is, but we don't know who you are.

And that, that's pretty much what it is.

It's like they, they aren't going to know who we are.

They only know who we represent and who works through us.

And that is the power through which we can.

That's the only authority we have on the demonic.

I will say that it is a great, it is a great comfort to know that we are the vessels of an immortal, omniscient, omnipotent God.

And the demons are none of those things.

It's a really good point.

Yeah, because, because one of the things that frustrates me with some in the charismatic movement, I'm going to just say I said some, not all, because not, not all would do this.

But there's a number of folks, you know, that when I was in the charismatic movement and afterwards that I just noticed were, seem to be more focused on Satan and demons than God.

I noticed that a lot of the prayers would be about binding Satan and talking to Satan and stomping on his head and tying him up.

And, and, and, and I, I remember once thinking, why don't we pray to Jesus?

It just, it, it seemed like the focus was, was off.

And you know, I think that some of this, it's, it's almost in my opinion.

And, and it's interesting that, you know, this is one of the, the questions that Melbatose even had in here.

I'll read the question which she had put.

But she said the pagan practices that are adopted by deliverance ministry.

And, and I do sense in my opinion that a lot of what we see in the modern day deliverance movement and all that go back into the Old Testament and so much of it seems similar.

Even if you want, you know, you were referencing Eve.

You know, I think about when Paul, when it was like, you know, here you have, you know, I forget his name.

The, the guy that wanted to, to get paid for casting out demons.

You Know, and doing the miracles that the apostles did.

And it was like, you know, it was Simon.

Simon.

Simon the sorcerer.

Yes.

And it's like he wanted, he wanted that profit as revenue, you know, so, so yeah, I mean, do you, do you.

Mel, I'll start with you in this one just because you, you put the question, but what are the pagan practices you were thinking of?

And, and how do you see them being adopted by this, the deliverance ministry?

Well, one of the main practices that I've been seeing frequently is this kind of idea that you, that demons can enter.

Well, okay, you can allow a demon to enter your home through certain physical objects.

This.

So there are some pagan practices.

Hold on, hold on.

I got, look at, look at this.

I got one of those objects.

Oh, it's called, it's an apple.

It's a, it's a, it's a smartphone.

Yeah, that's.

Yes, that does deliver a lot of demonic teachings, that's for sure.

But that's not what they mean by that.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Like the, the object can be infused with the spirit and the spirit can somehow cause animosity in the home.

Your children can become angry or things like that, you know, to which case you then have to evict or exercise.

Exercise your home.

Not.

Yeah, is that the right word?

Exercise your home?

Yeah.

And so there are certain pagan practices that they may adopt to sanctify or cleanse your home of evil spirits.

And that could involve having certain.

Saying certain prayers, chanting certain things, anointing with oil.

There's a lot about the oil.

The oil just everywhere.

And this is where I see a lot of these kind of pagan practices involved with having to drench people with oil.

You have to wash the items with oil.

It's just ridiculous to me.

And.

Yeah, so when it comes to.

That's kind of what I've seen right now with pagan practices.

But then there's also certain type of visualizations that are not necessarily pagan.

They're more philosophical and of psychological and man centered in a way that I see they use.

Especially when it comes to, I think they call it, if I'm pronouncing it right, theosophic prayer.

That's.

I won't get into it here, but it's just a way of healing trauma through certain type of prayer systems and practices.

Yeah.

What else was the question?

Yeah, well, it, it was basically you answered it with the, the adopting of practices, but you brought up something with the trauma that I have been noticing since I started looking into.

This is to me.

And you, you brought this up when you.

In your previous series that you did about.

Well, I think it's now called the Bridge, but the, you know, be the bridge.

Be the bridge.

And yeah, all of the social justice and language that's coming through of oppressed and oppressors.

I, I see a lot of overlap here with the demon ministries or demonic ministries and that language of the trauma and overcoming trauma and the oppression.

And so it's, it's, it's bringing into Christianity that victim mentality of I'm oppressed, I just need to get rid of this, the oppressor.

But in this case, the oppressor is, Is demons.

And it, but it's that same language that then they hear in other circles and venues of culture that is talking about oppressed and oppressors when we talk of social justice.

And it's like, oh, I'm just starting to see, as I've been researching it, this connection between that language of oppressed oppressors.

Or you were mentioning the trauma.

Because that's how they work.

They work it in.

Right.

And, and that's like typical psychology.

Typical therapy is finding out what happened in your past that traumatized you, that kind of caused you to act and behave, what brought you to your, to your behaviors now and treating those and going back to them.

But that's just like, basically it's the fall.

And our excuse of, you know, Adam's excuse was the woman that God gave him.

Well, it's always the woman's fault.

Excuse me.

I knew you'd go there.

Oh, my wife didn't hear that.

Yeah.

And for Eve, it was, it was tempting of Satan.

Not the Eve that's here, a different Eve she's referring to.

No.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

If I could interject real quick, I, I do want to point out, Andrew, that I think what you're suggesting is a logical fallacy, though.

The, the causation correlation fallacy.

Just because we're seeing the same language in there doesn't mean there's an actual relationship between liberal theology or liberal sociology and this deliverance ministry.

I'm not saying there isn't.

I'm just saying that we shouldn't imply there is without evidence.

Yeah, well, I didn't, I wasn't implying there is.

I just saying that I see a similarity there.

And.

Okay, I think that it comes.

I think it's so, so here'd be the question 300 years ago, would this type of language, of focusing on trauma work?

Probably not, because they didn't talk in that.

So I think that it's, it is a cart and horse.

Which one, if there is a connection there, which one's influencing which is it the social justice influencing the language of the demon demonic warriors here or hunters, whatever they call themselves, I think hunters and you know, or is it is, is the, the reverse cause and I, I there.

It may be.

My, my thinking is that what it, I think it is is that you have people that.

I'm just going to say for most of these demon hunters, I don't think them to be Christian.

I have a harder time with a Greg Locke, but I, I, you know, but I haven't read enough of him to go like, I, I, I just, I, I, but I'm going to some of those others that are clearly believing things that are not biblical about Christ.

Right.

And then I look at that and go, okay, so is it that they've, they don't have the, the Holy Spirit in the first place, so they're just integrating whatever works.

It could be even.

I have talked about this particular part before and I, I would ask you, what difference does it make to your behavior as to whether or not you think they are Christians?

Oh, to my behavior or their behavior?

Your behavior, Mine.

It wouldn't, it wouldn't affect it because I'm, I'm going to be, my behavior should be according to the word of God.

Right?

Okay.

So, yeah, to that end, I would argue that anyone who professes Christ, regardless of all their other actions and statements, if they profess Christ, it is up to us as fellow Christians to accept that profession.

The church, however, has the very specific avenue of Matthew 18 through which that profession can be disputed.

And for me, that ties back to bearing false witness.

When we say, I don't think somebody's a Christian, we are not the authority for it, but we plant the seed.

And there are going to be real Christians among these deliverance people.

And by real Christians, I mean saved, elect.

Yeah, but we don't want the mistake of casting them all in the same light without the authority to do so.

Well, I think, I think that I made the distinction where I was.

I'm struggling with a Greg Locke.

Right.

But I, there are those, I mean, I, I think that when someone says they, they are a follower of Christ and deny the deity of Christ, we can say they're not a believer.

We don't need the church involved.

When you have, when you have with some of these people that claim that they don't sin, they're sinlessly perfect, and that they have the same authority that Jesus has.

I think we could safely say they don't know Christ.

Right, but it's not our, it's not our authority to say that.

Well, but we, we can't know.

No, you're right.

We can't know of their soul.

Yeah, we, well, we can't know.

We're, we're saying what we think based on their fruit for their teaching.

I mean, I think, I think we, there's certain doctrines that are explicit.

Right.

That Jesus is God.

If someone denies that Jesus is God, they can't be saved.

Right.

And so you have can't.

Well, yeah, I would say camp.

Because what you know, in John, in Romans 10, 9 and 10, you have to confess Jesus as Lord as God.

Oh, you mean can't as in, in that very moment.

Oh yeah, in that moment.

Yeah, yeah, they could get saved later on.

Got you.

Now I understand what you're saying now.

Yeah, yeah, they could get saved later.

But someone that at that moment is denying Jesus as God and professing Christ.

I go, no sir, you're not right.

I mean, and that's what the whole book of James is about.

Oh, now we got Eve's attention, right?

The whole book is, I think I counted 13 or 14 tests of what genuine faith is and that's what he's going through.

How do you know what genuine faith is?

And he gives all those tests.

But you can't sit there and take those tests and go, oh, you showed preference to, to someone with money over someone without.

Right, but, but those tests, Andrew, are for the church.

Well, see, I would say those for individual believers.

No, I think I, I actually think

those tests, except for the purpose of discernment.

I'm sorry, I needed to throw that in there.

Yeah, I, I think, I actually think James is, those tests are for the individual.

I think it's a self examination in that case.

So I don't think James is for the church.

It's for me to look at that and say, do I have genuine faith and, and examine my own heart with

that and for yourself, but not for others.

Yeah, for James.

I think so.

I, I Now if this really want

to get attention, tie it into Ecclesiastes.

Yeah, I mean this, this, No, I think because this is a healthy, a healthy thing to discuss because.

Are you, are you Tim, familiar with Doug Wilson at all?

Oh, I wrote.

Oh yeah, that's right.

You were on the seven.

That's right, that's right, that's right.

So, okay, so this is, this is

so I, and I, sorry, I was so sorry I missed that discussion.

I was sick in bed.

The, so this is the thing that really puzzled me when, when Doug Wilson was arguing that Roman Catholics are our brothers.

Now we're really off topic, but this is part of, I mean this is, look, we said we disagree with love and charity.

This is how we disagree, right?

We try to understand one another.

And I, so I was at a conference speaking with a guy who is a deacon in Doug's church and knows that theology well.

And, and so I said I gotta ask you a question, you know, because I've, I've had dinner with Doug Wilson but it wasn't, you know, like at dinner with a bunch of other people that you don't bring up the, everything you disagree with.

But I, I picked up one too, right?

But, but no, the, so I, I sat and I said, how do you say that Roman Catholics are brothers in Christ?

And, and their argument is that it's similar to yours, which is why it's going to be funny that you're, you're, you may be agreeing with, with their theology this, but they believe it's only the church that has the authority to declare someone a non believer.

And therefore since there was no church council that declared the Catholic Church anathema, they are brothers in Christ.

And, and I guess I, you know, I, I saw some consistency in his argument.

I just disagree with the argument.

I think that we, we are called to examine fruit and the fruit is, is looking at their life according to scripture and a lot of time and, and this is the one thing I would say different is there's plenty of people that they, they go, oh, you're doing this, that's it, you're not a believer.

Give the guy some, some time.

Like if he just got saved and he was saved in his 50s, he's got a life pattern of sin that's not going to go away easily.

I mean, when I got saved, foul language disappeared.

I didn't even notice it.

I, I, I got saved in the summer and friends in school picked up that my language changed.

I didn't even notice it.

Gluttony, well, that's a little different.

I, I, I, I just love food and you kind of can't go without eating food.

So gluttony has been a long term thing.

So if you were to, so if you were to look at the fruit of my life based just on one sin of gluttony, you're going to say I'm not saved.

But if you look at where I was 40 years ago when I got saved.

To today, you're going to go, dude, God's done some working on you, right?

You need that life, you need that time to see.

And that's why MacArthur always.

You say time and truth go hand in hand.

Give enough time, you see the truth.

Right?

So, so men, who we.

We would have thought, oh, they're saved.

And then you see them denying Christ and you go, I guess they weren't.

If I could ask you real quick, in Matthew 18, what is the final step before a believer is cast to the wolves?

Well, I'm going to back up a moment with it.

It, because I actually think a lot of people miss what Matthew 18 is about because they look at Matthew 18 just at the part where he's talking about what we call church discipline, and we rip it out of its whole context.

It actually starts in verse one where the disciples.

It says, at that time, the disciples came to Jesus and said, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

And I'm actually teaching children's church on this one.

Yeah.

On Sunday.

So this is.

I mean, the whole thing of Matthew 18 is about pride and humility.

Right.

And what we think of as church discipline, which I do think gives us a pattern, but we miss the emphasis.

The emphasis of verses 15 to 20 is on a person who refuses to repent.

In other words, someone who is so prideful that we can recognize they're not willing to repent.

And so it's okay.

Here's some steps to do to expose the unrepentants.

Now, yes, to your point, the final step is the church putting them out, but it's the church putting them out to treat them like an unbeliever and share the gospel with them.

Right, right.

It's not, you're.

It's not like that what Jehovah Witnesses do or Mormons do.

Oh, we put you out, we can't talk to you anymore.

What my family was going to do to me, put me out, bury a casket, and, you know, tell everyone I was dead.

Right.

That's a little bit more of an extreme of, you know.

Right.

But.

But that's what Jewish people do.

So I, I think a lot of people miss the point of it and they, they think that this is because, remember at the time he's saying that what is the ecclesia he's talking about?

It's not the ecclesia that they thought about 30 years after his death.

Right.

The church, the.

The Catholic Church, as referred to in

the Nicene Creed, Catholic Just being unified, not Roman Catholic.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, but I see the, the

word lowercase instead of uppercase C and

it's one of the things I did in my book what do we Believe on the Church?

I actually go through the history of that word ecclesia and show how it has changed over time to be more and more precise.

Originally the word meant to, to gather for voting in, in Ephesian, in Ephesus, it was the call every man, every man was required to vote.

Vote that picture that in today's day and age, I guess that would get rid of, you know, you know, some voting issues.

You know, hey look, we have X number of men.

We got X plus 10 votes.

Wait, that can't work.

Wouldn't stop people from complaining about it though.

No, so, but, but the thing is that it was, it was originally a, a gathering for the purpose of voting.

And so I, I do think we have to be careful not, and I know this, to some that sounds like heresy.

I think we have to be careful not to read in to pre death of Christ before Pentecost.

Pre Pentecost, a post Pentecost understanding of Ecclesia.

And so I would argue that, and I think I can make this case that in Christ's day, when he's saying ecclesia gathering or congregation, they would be thinking the synagogue.

I respectfully disagree.

I said you might, I said I, I.

Now I can't be, I can't be absolute on it.

But I, I don't, I, I just, this is before Pentecost and I think at Pentecost the thinking changed.

Right?

Because if even.

Look, we were way off topic.

But the thing, the thinking changed for us but not for Christ.

Oh yeah, true.

Well, yeah, Christ would know.

But he, but, but the, and so the argument we have, we have one or two arguments with it.

Either Christ knowing what he was going to do in the future is speaking in a future tense in his day, that's a possibility.

Or he was speaking because I think part of the thing is the focus of this was not about the steps of church discipline as much as it was to expose the sin that the, the disciples had of pride and what to do with someone that's that prideful.

We have taken over this conversation.

Melissa's or excuse me, toast has gone off mute several times.

Let me just say, and this will be the last thing I say on the topic that when you take math, the steps of Matthew 18, the instructions of Matthew 18 in conjunction with Paul's instructions on stronger brothers and lesser Brothers, then I think it is clear that any.

To me, it is clear to me that anyone who professes Christ should be treated as a lesser brother for any non salvation issue.

And, and before Mel ends up going, I'll just, I'll emphasize that if this was an absolute standard of steps we must take, we see and I'm trying to look it up in, in Corinthians, I want to say five, I think it's five where he, he doesn't, Paul doesn't give any of those.

He just says, you got someone sleeping with his father's wife, you put him out.

There was no go to witnesses.

It was just boom, it was a public sin and you put him out.

So there wasn't a church.

You know, it's just boom, gone.

Right.

I also think it was different because there wasn't like the First Baptist Church, Second Baptist Church, the Tenth Baptist Church.

It was just the church of the town.

So.

Go ahead, Mel.

Fascinating discussion stuff I'm learning, I'm, I'm glad to learn all of that, actually.

I, I just wanted to say, like, I think I agree with most of what was said by Tim regarding the believers.

But, but when it comes to people like Greg Locke and Alexander Pagani and Jenny Weaver and people in this deliverance ministry who are calling themselves prophets and big P pastors, if you're like a woman and apostles, I'd look at them as false teachers.

So I do think scripture is very clear that we can call out and identify false teachings.

And if they're persistent in false teaching, we can then say, you're a false teacher.

You know, you've been rebuked and saying, don't teach this.

This is not unbiblical.

And then they're false teachers.

And yeah, I mean, God can change their heart.

We don't know what will happen 10 years, five years even, you know, three months from today that God can work even in the false teachers.

I know some who have repented and turned away from false teachings.

So.

But we can at least identify them and call them and say mark and avoid those people.

Right.

We wouldn't act that way with believers.

We would want to give them time to be sanctified and grow in truth.

Absolutely.

So I wouldn't be like, even if some believer sinned, you want to restore them.

So I wouldn't be like, you're a non believer just because of that.

Right.

So anyway, so bringing it back to Jews and deliverance ministry.

So.

Well, it's interesting because what you just mentioned, the thing that popped into My head was Costi Hinn and Benny Hinn, that a young man raised under a very prominent faith healer.

And wasn't that what Benny Hinn was, Was a faith healer?

I don't even know what he.

And then Kasti is faced with, you know, all of the things that was wrong with that and took a different road.

And God is using him immensely to undo a lot of the harm that his father did.

So there, there's always redemption there.

And it may not be the man, the false prophet, the false teacher himself that is redeemed.

It might be people close to him.

And, and it's his uncle.

So his Costi's dad is Henry, who is Benny Hinn's brother.

Okay, sorry.

My, my, Sorry about that relationship.

But, yeah, I mean, I would say if, if you go the, the episode I did with Jim Osmond on Apologetics Live, if you go to ChristianPodcastCommittee.org you can see our different shows.

It was done on January 16 called Unmasking the Modern Deliverance Ministry, a critical examination.

It will blow your mind to see what some of these Deliverance Ministries guys are.

Are saying.

Jim just, Jim just has all these books.

He's just reading quotes, and you're like, that is so far from what scripture says.

It, it, you know, but it, but it is, it is an important thing Tim's bringing out because it's, it's the cautious.

And this is why I appreciate what, what Tim's doing with it is.

We have to be cautious not to think we could play God.

We.

We do not.

I've seen, I've seen cults that what they do is they come in and go, oh, I, I have the gift of, you know, of identifying who's saved.

Basically, you know, they.

No one's ever saved to them unless they lead them to, to Christ.

And they, you know, claim they can see with a special gifting of discernment of who's saved and who's not.

And so we, we do have to be careful.

I think that I, I tend to, you know, unless they're saying something about the nature of God that's completely important to scripture, where they're denying what scripture says, you must understand to, to be a Christian, we do have to be careful.

That's why, like with a, with Greg Locke, I'm going, well, I know he had a solid profession of faith, and I just, I can't see how he's following after this stuff for years.

But I also didn't follow him enough to know what he's Teaching these days.

So, you know, I think that's different from some of these people who never really had a solid profession.

And like, you know, well, like Eve, you were saying earlier, the people that are just looking to platform build, they're just trying to.

Or well, as Tim said, profit, meaning revenue.

With all the talks of profits, we gotta be clear which profit, Capital B profit or lower key profit.

Now we gotta say which one's the capital P?

You go for musk, it's the bunny, right?

Because he's got plenty of it, right.

He doesn't believe in the other prophets.

But let's, let's talk about, you know, there is some danger, and this is something Melbatos, you kind of said in the beginning of the idea of how this affects sanctification, right.

Instead of repenting from sin, a big issue that I have with this Deliverance Ministries type of mentality is instead of saying I sinned, right?

So it's not me that's the glutton.

It.

It is the demon of gluttony.

And if I could just be exercised of that, I won't overeat and just love to eat just because it tastes good.

Right.

I see a danger here.

So let's go around.

We'll go Mel, Tim, and then Eve.

I'm already giving my point.

I see a danger in the fact that it's not practicing what the scripture says.

In, in First John I want to make sure I get it right to read.

But first John 1:9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us of all sins.

If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

And this is where I see the danger.

Because if I say I haven't sinned, it's not me sinning.

I.

And this gets back to your question you had about paganism, because at the time this is being written, First John is being written to address Gnosticism.

And a big thing in Gnosticism was to say they, they actually believe they can sleep with a prostitute.

And as long as their body was given over to it and not their spirit, they didn't sin.

And I mean, like we'll say what?

Right?

But that's the idea.

They separated body and spirit.

The body was evil, but the spirit wasn't.

It was good.

And therefore whatever they did in the spirit was okay.

They just did that.

That was just done in the body.

That's kind of what I see going on here.

It's like, well, it's not me, it's the demon.

So instead of spirit and body, I see it as demon in me.

All right, so I'm the spirit and the demon is the, is the flesh or is the body?

I don't know if that's where you were thinking when you, when you asked the question about paganism, but that's what I see as a danger.

So let's go around and see.

Do you guys agree with that?

What are your thoughts on, on the dangers of this deliverance type ministry?

Did you say I was starting?

Yep.

Yeah.

Okay.

So yeah, in fact, I've heard Pagani and even Greg Locke talk about how demons reside and certain portions of your body.

And so that's very similar to what you just said.

It can get a little crass when they talk about these things.

Yeah.

I was really surprised when Jim was reading some of the quotes how crass they can get.

Oh that's right.

I do remember he mentioned body parts.

Yeah.

Anyway, yeah, so that is because they make that they're tripartists.

So they believe that there's a.

Your spirit, soul and body and as opposed to.

Because you're making, you're making the distinction.

Oh, some may not know.

So it's trichotomy and dichotomy.

So trichotomy believes in a body, spirit, soul.

A dichotomy believes in, in a body spirit.

So it's material immaterial.

And what you have is.

And just.

I'll give away my position.

I, I, I've looked it up.

Every, every instance of the word body or flesh means physical.

Every instance of spirit is immaterial.

Soul has been used for both.

So I think soul is the encompassing of the two.

It could be one or the other or both.

And, and so I would end up being a dichotomous because I just accept material immaterial.

But yeah, that was a point that Jim made too about the trichonomy.

Me.

Yeah.

So that belief is a foundation for or the excuse that where the spirit, the Holy Spirit lives in your spirit, it takes resident in your spirit and demon can come into your soul and possess the body and make the body do two things and crave things.

And so your flesh, it would be part of that too, but.

Oh, I was gonna say so.

Oh.

So yeah, repentance.

What I have seen they use the word repentance a lot and but it's more like you repented in the background.

And what replaces repentance more often it's part of their practices is what they call Renouncing, it's part of their decreeing and declaring.

And it comes from the word of faith belief that of course your words have power.

So if you make the active choice to renounce.

And I want to do more research on the differences between repentance and renouncing according to their belief system.

But it's also, I think it's partly where your work, because your words have meaning, that you have to renounce it, that the renouncing is what helps you turn from it.

So it's in a.

In essence, a faith in the words that you say to turn from sin instead of repenting, acknowledging, and then walking by faith, putting your faith and trust in Christ, because again, Christ and his salvific work is in the background.

And now you have to sanctify yourself by exercising these demons, renouncing the sin that these demons caused you to do, and things like that.

Tim, what are your thoughts?

What are the dangers you see with the deliverance ministry?

There is just so much wrong in everything Melissa just said, but she was absolutely right in what she said.

It's so, you know, it's.

I'm learning about the deliverance ministry as much through this discussion as I am anywhere else.

And it's.

I use chat GPT a lot and, And I just asked it, what are the.

The paganistic practices associated with the delivered service ministry?

This whole thing about interrogating demons and spirit mapping and legal rights and grounds for possession.

Are these guys playing Dungeons and Dragons or are they.

Are they Christians here?

You're not, you're not questioning their faith though, are you?

Do they profess Christ?

Honestly, it.

I don't see how any of that could be scriptural.

I don't see how any of that stands a test of the Spirit.

So I think it's all dangerous.

And for me, the dangerous part comes down to responsibility.

You can renounce all you want, but I don't think you can repent without accepting responsibility for your actions.

And if, like we said at the very start of this podcast, if you're shoving the responsibility off onto the spirit of pornography in me, then you on a psychological level are not accepting responsibility for your choices and you're not actually repenting.

So that's the danger.

You cannot get right with God.

That's probably a bad way to put it, but it re.

It requires confession of your sins, saying, hail me.

No, just kidding.

It requires confession and faith in God to do it.

And it.

You can't do that unless you believe that you are responsible for your actions.

All Right.

Eve will give you the last word.

It was interesting.

When I was in college, I went to a secular.

I graduated from secular college.

So this would have been my sophomore year.

I was in a.

Taking Spanish.

No, it was actually my freshman year I was taking Spanish and the gentleman that was teaching the class, his specialty was Caribbean literature.

And there's a reason I'm going off on this tangent but, but we got him off topic one day instead of teaching us Spanish, he started talking about the Santa Maria faith in the Caribbean culture.

And it was very eye opening to me.

It was what happens when Catholic conquistadors come into a culture of extreme paganism and tell people they're going to become Catholic or die.

And so they wrap their pagan beliefs in Catholicism skin.

And, and they are good Catholics that go to Mass on Saturday night or Sunday morning or whenever it is masses and on the evenings they're out playing with, with demons and, and pagan possession and, and dancing to the dead and all of the other practices that they've been doing culturally since long before the conquistadors came into the Caribbean and brought the strong arm of Catholicism down on their heads.

And when you wrap paganism in a Christian skin, it's not Christian and it never will be.

Unless you have that kind of commitment to the Lord and that kind of indwelling of the Spirit, then you are not saved.

And all you're doing is wrapping a disbelief in God, a true unbelief in God in Christian trappings, you don't have it.

So talking about all of these paganistic practices of all of these non Christian Christian sounding sex and, and I, I'm, I, you know, there are lots of people who profess Christ who are not Christians and I think it's, you know them by their fruit.

We were told in the Bible that we can know them by their fruit.

And this is not fruitful.

What they're doing is not fruitful.

I don't know much about this, as Tim says.

I'm.

My eyes are being opened by this discussion because I wasn't really aware of this deliverance stuff, but to me it just sounds like a bunch of, of neopagans who are wrapping their neopaganism in Christian trappings and calling it Christian just, just to trap the, the easily gullible into giving them money.

Well, that's what it seems to all be about, giving them money.

So, you know, I think I'll encourage you again to, if you check out Unmasking the Modern Deliverance Ministry, a critical examination that we did On Apologetics Live you can find that at the Christian podcast community.

You can type that in.

I will try to link this into the show notes that, that order that episode into the show notes of this podcast.

I'll try to remember to do it on the YouTube version.

But the.

We were hoping Jim could make it in but you know I go, if you go through that he, he goes in great detail.

I'm really looking forward to the book that he's putting out because any, if any of you know, Jim Osmond, he really researches this the stuff he, he puts out.

And so it's really hopefully gonna explain a lot of what well, we just tipped the iceberg on.

But you know, one thing before we go, I do want to, I want to encourage you to go and listen to Thoroughly Equipped with Melissa Lex or are you just watching with Eve Franklin and, and Tim and it, you know I'm just going to say that you know and I never even mentioned my podcast.

My.

Yeah, I didn't.

Andrew Rap Reports Rap Report is my weekly one hour pre recorded where we deal with biblical interpretations applications.

But Apologex Live, you can go to apologexlive.com it's an apologetic show that is a live stream Thursday nights, 8 to 10 Eastern.

Anyone can come in, ask any questions.

So but and that's where we had Jim on was that was the Apologetics Live podcast.

So I want to point out for folks because this is why we do this here.

We had a discussion and you got to see where there was some disagreement on.

On some areas.

Did you see Tim attack me personally?

Nope.

Did you see Tim call me any names?

Nobody was thinking fat and ugly.

I.

It's only because I represent.

I resemble that remark but right.

This is how we conduct Christian disagreement.

Try to understand each other's position, ask clarifying questions, go through, find where we can find unity and where we disagree.

We do not have to beat each other up, fight each other, kill each other over where we disagree.

If we're unified around the gospel message, who is Christ?

He, you know, his nature, why he came.

We might disagree.

I mean there's people that believe in baptizing babies.

I don't get it, but they do it.

Right?

Tim does it.

He's raising his head.

But I want to encourage us.

This is how we should be disagreeing.

We should be disagreeing with love and charity.

We should be disagreeing where we recognize that there are those disagreements.

Those where we're going to differ this side of heaven.

Heaven because we're all going to agree on the other side of heaven.

Think about that.

Whatever we disagree with here, we won't be disagreeing when we're with Christ.

And that's why we do this.

We not only want to educate you in the, in this case of today, we want to educate you on the topic of these demon possessions.

But, you know, maybe there's something else that you could really learn, which is how to disagree.

So this has been another theology throwdown, and we look forward to joining you next month.

On the next one, have a good one.