Good day Saints in Christ Jesus. It’s another brand new day.
We give glory to God for the privilege of life and for His unending mercy and grace upon us always. Praise God!
Happy Sunday to you all.
STUDYING AND UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE – PART 464
Isaiah Chapter 61 continued…
Isaiah 61:1-2
[1]The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
[2]To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.
Yesterday, we learnt about how Jesus Christ reiterated Isaiah’s words and put them in the right perspectives.
Let’s read…
Luke 4:18-21
[18]The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.
[19]To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
[20]And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
[21]And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
Let’s pick some key points about the Messiah in the above verses:
👉He was anointed for His assignment. Apostle Peter confirms this to us in Acts 10:38
[38]How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.
This same anointing was passed on to us too, when we believed.
1 John 2:20-21 TPT
But the Holy One has anointed you and you all know the truth.
[21] So I’m writing you not because you don’t know the truth, but because you do know it, and no lie belongs to the truth.
So, as a believer, the Holy Spirit is the anointing of God upon you. Let’s always be conscious of that fact please.
👉To preach the gospel to the poor. The anointing was not meant to be dormant. It was meant to carry out so many things, one of which is to preach the Gospel to the poor. This is not talking about physical poverty. Otherwise, rich people will not need the Gospel.
The poor in this context according to original Greek interpretation are the meek, humble, gentle or those who are depressed in mind. So, before Christ came, sin brought everyone to their knees, whether you are physically rich or poor. This is why the Gospel is for everyone.
👉He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted. This is damage done by sin to man’s heart (the subconscious). Jesus came to offer total healing to man’s central processing unit.
👉To preach deliverance to the captives. This is a very controversial statement. This is where many churches derived deliverance ministry from.
In the past, we were made to believe that even believers need to undergo deliverance session until later we found the real meaning of deliverance, which I am going to shed more light on this morning. This is going to be a long read. Please, read patiently and with an open mind.
First of all, I want to clarify that there is a difference between deliverance and casting out of devils/demons. Anybody can cast out demons either with magic or with the power of God. There is the fake and original version.
However, only Christ handles deliverance (Salvation). Our job is to preach it.
Let’s read some Bible verses…
Matthew 8:16
[16]When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick.
Mark 1:34
[34]And he healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him.
There are still many more verses that talked about casting out of devils or demons, but to avoid long post, we will limit it to those verses mentioned above. You will notice that deliverance was not mentioned in any of the above verses.
The Greek transliteration for “cast out” is “ekballo” which means to eject, drive out, expel, thrust out, or send away.
Driving out or expelling demons from the life of a person or from an environment.
Now, let’s look at what deliverance is:
Hebrews 11:35
[35]Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection.
Not accepting deliverance means, they didn’t accept Salvation that was preached to them and so they perished.
The Greek transliteration for deliverance is in two major forms:
Aphesis (mentioned by Jesus Christ). It means pardon, forgiveness, remission, freedom and liberty.
Apolutrosis (mentioned in the Epistle to Hebrews). It means ransom that is paid in full to deliver people from sin problem, from the curse of the Law. It means Redemption, Salvation for mankind.
That’s exactly what Jesus came to do and He did a very good job, once and for all with His blood. You don’t get saved twice. Salvation is once.
By running to the altar to answer altar calls every Sunday or in crusades, you are simply making mockery of yourself.
What someone needs after demons might have been cast out of him and received the Gospel of Christ, is mind renewal through the accurate knowledge of the Word of God and prayers to keep such person going in his new life in Christ Jesus.
Not everybody is possessed. You can only cast out demons from only those who are possessed. Any believer claiming he is possessed was never a believer in the first place.
Here is what happens once you have received Christ – you are completely delivered:
Colossians 1:13-14
[13]Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
[14]In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.
Pay close attention to some key words there and I will also include their Greek transliterations:
Delivered = rhuomai = rescued.
Redemption= apolutrosis= Salvation, deliverance.
Forgiveness = aphesis= pardon, remission, deliverance.
Salvation= soteria = rescue, safety.
You will notice all of them are the same with deliverance but you will not find anywhere in the Scripture where Deliverance is conducted.
Rather, deliverance was preached/offered and taught because it’s a message – The Gospel of Salvation, which is received by faith. It’s a thing of the mind – the subconscious. Whatever controls your subconscious controls your entire life.
That’s why the Bible advises us to renew our minds.
Romans 12:2
[2]And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
The reason is because, if we fail to renew our mind, the devil can easily throw some dirty suggestions into our mind. This is particularly too dangerous for new converts. Read Luke 11:24-26
Nevertheless, bear this in mind that when you are born again truly, you are no longer in satanic domain. He no longer has authority over you because he has been subjugated by a higher authority – Christ.
Colossians 1:13-14 NLT
For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, [14] who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
The moment you are saved, your domain has changed, because you have relocated. There is no way you can be possessed again let alone needing casting out of demons (which many people misinterpret to be deliverance).
Kindly note that when you are casting out devils, you are not conducting deliverance, you are simply expelling demons.
Biblically speaking, a person is only delivered if he/she receives Christ Jesus. Deliverance is preached for people to receive pardon, forgiveness of sin, total freedom, through Christ.
From the above exegesis, you will all notice that it is biblically wrong to tell a believer (someone who has received Christ/born again) to go for casting out of devils session or to receive Salvation (deliverance) again. So ridiculous right?
It’s ridiculous because demons and Holy Spirit cannot dwell in the same place.
Nevertheless, we must not shy away from the fact that believers do have problems/challenges.
That a believer is having some challenges does not mean he is demon-possessed…and would be told to go for casting out of devils prayer session. This is a wrong teaching born out of ignorance.
What such believers need is prayers using the authority given to them in the name of Jesus Christ.
Let’s continue with other assignments the Messiah was anointed to do according to Luke 4:16-18 which are:
👉Recovering of sight to the blind. This is talking about spiritual blindness. Does this mean those who are physically blind cannot recover their sight? I didn’t say so. After all, Jesus healed blind people in the Bible. But contextually, the Bible is talking about spiritual blindness.
👉To set at liberty them that are bruised. Spiritually speaking, sin bruises man. Moses wrote about this in Genesis 3:
👉To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Please, let’s declare this together:
I am born of God and I have known the truth because Christ dwells in me. No demonic operation is allowed in my life and family because we have been relocated into the domain of Christ Jesus. Amen!!!
To be continued…Praise God.
Bible readings for today: Luke Chapters 22, 23 & 24 with Ecclesiastes 5
I call you blessed now and always.
Sunday July 5, 2020 (DDMI)
