Saturday, June 30, 2007

Satan is Sovereign

When you think of the Charismatic movement, you may think of speaking in tongues, or healings, or Benny Hinn knocking people down, or Oral Roberts begging for money and other strange things like that. But there are some underlying things in the Charismatic worldview that are really very, very terrifying. For instance in this movement there is one thing that really dominates their worldview, and it is that Satan is sovereign. If you get sick, it was the devil. If your child gets sick, it was the devil. And even if your child dies Satan somehow got the victory. If your spouse, your husband or your wife gets cancer, the devil must have done that. If you had an accident, the devil did it. If you lost your job, the devil caused that to happen. If things don't go the way you want them to go in your company or your family or you loose your job or get a divorce then the devil is to blame for all that is wrong in your life.

The devil dominates everything, and he is assisted by this massive force of demons who also have to be dealt with, and you have got to do everything you can to try and overcome these spiritual powers, and they are powerful, and they are really impossible for you to deal with on any permanent basis, so it is a never ending ongoing struggle with the devil and his demons. So now you are force to deal with the devil and so you have got to learn all these little formulas on how to bind the devil in Jesus name, because if you don't bind the devil then he is really going to get control of everything in your life.

Christians who buy into this false biblical teaching are really being held captive to a spirit of fear and terror, they think that everything that has gone wrong in the entire universe was basically because of the devil. They hold to the belief that the devil is really sovereign in everything and even God is struggling like crazy to overcome him. The fact is, God is in control of everything! This is the total opposite of the worldview presented under Charismatic teachings. God is in control of everything. When you get sick, or when somebody gets cancer, or when something goes wrong in the world, or when you lose your job. This is not outside the purposes of God, in fact, 'God works all things together for good' (Romans 8:28). This teaching is absolutely earth shaking to the uneducated Charismatic. Satan is not in charge of history; God is in charge of everything and at all times, God is the one who is Sovereignty not Satan.

Excerpt modeled after a message delivered at The Master's College, by John MacArthur, titled "Laying the Foundations of Eschatology, Part 3".

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