Demonized Flesh
Art Nelson
Many of those who
attend my teaching classes or read the articles on my website ask the questions,
“Why don't we see more of the things that were a part of the Church in the book
of Acts in our churches today?” “Where are the miracles?” “Where are the real
men of God?” “Where is the voice of the Lord and the powerful moving of the
Spirit?” “Where is body life and care for one another?” These are all good
questions that I have asked of myself and of the Lord a number of times over the
years. In this teaching letter I want to share with you what I believe to be
some of the answers that the Lord has given me.
I believe that the
answer the Lord has given to our current problem of the lack of a true
functioning Church with all the attendant activity described in Acts is that “we
have too many man-made substitutes.” These have been created by well meaning
people who operate according to the natural man; who have strong intellects and
reasoning abilities but lack spiritual understanding and discernment. As a
result we have an intellectualized and conceptualized “church” that is ignorant
of the power of the Holy Spirit and of the provisions of the New Covenant. The
power of the Holy Spirit is only revealed in the New Covenant provision of the
Lord. Is that power available to us today? Absolutely! But first we must become
true New Covenant believers.
Many have
substituted the bible for the Holy Spirit saying that Holy Spirit and His gifts
are not for today because we have the bible; that the Holy Spirit only came to
get the “church” started but now we have the bible to guide us and teach us.
Once you replace the Holy Spirit with the bible, then, the natural man can read
and study the written word and create doctrines of reasoned intellectual
understanding. The natural man can go to seminary; he can teach and preach; he
can become a “pastor”; he can have a “ministry”. He can do all of these without
being born again—without the Holy Spirit.
So, what does it mean to partake of
the New Covenant. We toss the words around all of the time but do we actually
know what God means by them? The New Covenant had been promised to us long
before Jesus shed His blood as the sacrifice of the New Covenant. The writer of
Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34 and gives us some of the details of what is
included in the New Covenant.
For finding fault with them, He
says, "BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD, WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW
COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH; NOT LIKE
THE COVENANT WHICH I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS ON THE DAY WHEN I TOOK THEM BY
THE HAND TO LEAD THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT; FOR THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY
COVENANT, AND I DID NOT CARE FOR THEM, SAYS THE LORD. "FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT
THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I
WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS.
AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. "AND THEY SHALL
NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN, AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, 'KNOW
THE LORD,' FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM.
"FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES, AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS
NO MORE." When He said, "A new covenant,"
He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and
growing old is ready to disappear.
(Hebrews 8:8-13 NASB)
There are a number
of elements listed in these verses:
-
The new
covenant will not be like the old covenant;
-
The Lord
will put His law within us—into our minds;
-
The Lord
will write His law on our heart;
-
The Lord
will be our God and we will be His people;
-
We will not
teach each other to know the Lord;
-
We will
know the Lord directly;
-
He will be
merciful and forgive our sins and not remember them; and
-
He has made
the old covenant obsolete.
Ezekiel speaks of
the time when natural Israel who has been cut off from the olive tree will be
grafted in again (as spoken of by Paul in Romans 11):
"For I will take you from the
nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. "Then
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will
cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. "Moreover,
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove
the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. "I will put My
Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful
to observe My ordinances. "You will live in the land that I gave to your
forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.
(Ezekiel 36:24-28 NASB)
So, included in the
New Covenant is a new heart and a new spirit. This is what we refer to as being
“born again”--we receive the Spirit of Christ, without which we are not His
(Romans 8:9). He also says that He will put “My Spirit” in us. This is the Holy
Spirit—the promise of the Father by which we receive power (Acts 1:4-8).
Therefore, the New Covenant encompasses both Calvary and Pentecost. We cannot
receive the full benefits of the New Covenant if we are not experientially
participating in all of the requirements of the New Covenant.
We have emphasized Calvary and
rightly so; but, we have neglected the work of the Holy Spirit, who is an
integral part of the New Covenant.
"This Jesus God raised up again, to
which we are all witnesses. "Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of
God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He
has poured forth this which you both see and hear.
(Acts 2:32-33 NASB)
in order that in
Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that
we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
(Galatians 3:14 NASB)
Part of the
blessing of Abraham is that we would receive the promise of the Holy Spirit.
Part of the work of Jesus that occurred after Calvary was that He received from
the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit and poured it forth on us at
Pentecost. Any ministry or preaching that stops at Calvary is not presenting the
fullness of the New Covenant and is doing a dis-service to those to whom they
are preaching.
The results of not
preaching the full New Covenant is that we come to Jesus for forgiveness but
don't receive the Holy Spirit for power. Without Him we are unable to put off
the old man and walk in the Spirit. Therefore, we, through the natural man, the
flesh, put ourselves back under the old covenant and live and preach law—don't
do this, don't do that. And, because we are unable to keep the law, we preach an
easy grace—God just wants you to try; after all, He knows that you are human and
can't be perfect. [Even though Jesus commands us to be perfect as our
heavenly Father is perfect! (Matthew 5:48)]
We build churches,
ministries, doctrines, seminaries, and missions all based on a mixed covenant
that is part old and part new. Our man made substitute is worthless to the
purposes of God because we are operating in the flesh.
"It is the
Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken
to you are spirit and are life.
(John 6:63 NASB)
because the mind
set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the
law of God, for it is not even able to do so,
and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
(Romans 8:7-8 NASB)
Our man made
efforts and our man made substitutes have produced a people who are ignorant of
the provisions and promises of the New Covenant. A person who has “received
Jesus in his heart” has not met the New Covenant requirements of repentance, the
new birth, and the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Is it any wonder then that
none of our churches (at least those in America) have the look and feel of the
church in the book of Acts? A man made substitute can never function as the Body
of Christ.
The problem with
operating in the flesh is that we have made ourselves an enemy of God and opened
ourselves to demonic influence. James gives us the progression:
This wisdom is not
that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.
(James 3:15 NASB)
What starts out as
earthly and natural eventually becomes demonic. Anyone operating long term in
the flesh will come to be demonically influenced. The ultimate example of this
is the one the Scriptures call the man of lawlessness. He is the ultimate
earthly, natural man operating from the flesh. He becomes fully demonized and
functions as the one we call the Antichrist.
As a result of our
fleshly, man made substitutes and our operating the churches and the ministries
by the flesh, we are seeing more and more demonic activity in the ministry. We
end up with people like Todd Bentley, demonically empowered and making a circus
of the things of God. We have fleshly “apostles” endorsing the demonic and
proclaiming increase and then looking like fools when it falls apart. We have
“prophets” who were going to restore Bentley after his adultery but who never
address his flesh or demonic shenanigans.
The flesh leads to
the demonic. Mixed covenants result in mixed results. It is not revival that we
need—we need the New Covenant in our experience. We need the Lord to teach us to
know Him, not other men. We need to learn how to walk in the Spirit, not in the
flesh. We need to have rivers of living water flowing from our inner most parts
not intellectual doctrine from our minds. We need to be built together by the
Lord into the Temple that He is building not meeting as a man made church. We
need true five fold ministers given by the Lord not appointed by substitutes. We
need the life of the Spirit not the deadness of the letter.
We won't have these things until we
can preach, teach, and experience the fullness of the New Covenant which
includes both Calvary and Pentecost.
©
2003-2010 by Art Nelson and
Lifestream Teaching
Ministries
Previous issues of Present Truth are on the website: www.Lifestreamteaching.com
For comments or questions contact Art Nelson at this address:
artnelson@lifestreamteaching.com
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