ISRAEL IN BIBLE PROPHECY | home
Demons in the Church | Publisher's Note | Dedication | Contents | Proverbs 24:11-12 | Introduction | The Battleground | First Encounter | Old Testament Typology | Battle Doctrine | Who Says It's Legalistic? | Hazardous Theology | Spirits In My House | Lying Spirits | Magic Show | Witchcraft | Mediums & Psychics | Deceiving Spirits | Satanic Visions | Facing Reality | Epilogue
Demons in the Church
Magic Show
CHAPTER NINE
Magic Show
There is an error floating around the church today which in
effect states that we should not judge behavior and doctrines
within the church. That view is directly opposed to Scripture
1CO 5:12 Do you not judge those who are within the church?
1TI 5:20 Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all...
2TI 4:2 ...reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.
TIT 1:9 ...exhort in sound doctrine and... refute those who
contradict. (NASB)
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Satan's "Who are you to judge?" gimmick is just another lie
to keep anyone from speaking out against heresy. But if no
one is willing to stand against the wicked works of the devil,
his evil doctrines will remain. So what is the scriptural way
to judge false teaching without being judgmental? Jesus said:
JOH 12:48 "He who rejects Me, and does not receive My sayings,
has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him
at the last day. (NASB)
So individual Christians are not supposed to judge anyone,
anymore than Jesus did in JOH 12:18. However, if Scripture
is quoted, the Word of God itself will judge the error perfectly.
And saints are supposed to speak out, EZE 3:18. If we don't,
we end up with all the wrong people holding positions of
authority in the church:
TIT 1:10-11 For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and
deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced
because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they
should not teach, for the sake of sordid gain. (NASB)
Those are not just theoretical human beings we're reading
about in Titus. They are real flesh and blood people; and here
is what some of those people look like. Around the country
today roam self-styled "Christian faith healers." They come
steaming into town with flags waving, banners flying, and
radios blaring the news of their arrival:
"HEALING...
FROM THE HEARTS OF
BENIE AND MARYLIN"
(to coin fictitious names)
These "healers" sound so loving, so concerned, and oh so
blessedly "anointed;" but the arrogance of that statement is
enough to make your blood run cold. When God heals, He does
so to bring glory to His Son Jesus, and not to Benie and
Marylin. If the display of their mediumistic power was all
these bogus healers did, it would be bad enough, but they also
get up there and preach. Their messages contain such false
doctrines as "I am in the god class... I have the anointing...
Jesus died spiritually, and was subject to demons... He de-
Magic Show 95
scended into Hell and was scourged by Satan..." All are
outrageous blasphemies and contrary to many Scriptures.
Jesus never was, and never will be subject to any demon!68
He is the Creator, the Alpha and Omega, the I AM, and He is
indivisible from God the Father.
These so-called faith "healers" are in direct opposition to the
Bible, and are like those reckless "wandering stars, for whom
the black darkness is reserved," JUD 13. Though some of
them claim to love Jesus, (they use his Holy Name often
enough) if they were to perform any healings, these healings
would be mediumistic and not of the Holy Spirit. I fear for
their souls, and for the spiritual well-being of those they claim
to heal.
So how can we know for sure, when we speak out against
some doctrine or work, that we are standing against the devil,
and not some true servant of the Lord? That's easy enough.
The Lord does not want His sheep to be led astray, so He made
discernment simple, even for very young believers.
MAT 7:22-23 Many will say to Me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we
not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and
in Your name perform many miracles?" And then I will declare to
them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness." (NASB)
The Bible itself exposes those who are not standing in the
truth. It goes like this, if a teacher or so-called Word-Faith
"healer" is not in obedience to God's Word, he is "practicing
lawlessness;" and those who practice lawlessness are NOT
God's servants, even if they spout "In Jesus' name" all the way
to the second corning. If we read the Bible, and put what it
states above the declarations of men, Satan will have a very
difficult time selling us false doctrine.69
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68 LUK 4:36, LUK 23:43, EPH 1:19-23, to cite a few which come
readily to mind. Jesus totally defeated the devil through the cross:
HEB 2:14 "Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He
Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He
might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the
devil." (NASB)
69 1JO 3:9-10, 2:4, JER 23:25-32, MAT 5:18-19, 7:15-22, ACT 20:29-30
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Scriptural Healing
When we look at scriptural examples of healing, they all had
one thing in common. Healings were secondary to the preach-
ing ministry of the prophet or evangelist. The healing gift, and
other miracles, were given as validation for a prophetic or
preaching ministry. Even for the Lord Jesus, physical healings
were not central; but the miracles He performed showed God
the Father's approval of the witness of His Son.70 We see no
scriptural example of a healing ministry by itself, nor is there
any textual support for one. Then, as now, healing is a verifying
adjunct to preaching and teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now look at the contrast: In Scripture there is sound doc-
trine, and real miracles. Today we have "healers" who teach
provably demonic doctrines. Would God validate these heresies
and blasphemies with genuine miracles? If He did, God would
be putting His stamp of approval on the errors they teach.
Throughout church history, there have been many stunning
examples of miraculous healings, and God through His Holy
Spirit still performs many miraculous healings today; but the
Bible is explicit about who gets that gift, so that no one person
gets the glory. Note the plurals in the following quotation:
JAM 5:14-15 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders
of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in
the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the
one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has
committed sins, they will be forgiven him. (NASB)
Those are our Scriptural guidelines to miraculous healings.
They are so very simple that even a child can understand
them. If we are sick we are to "call the elders!" If we go
somewhere else for supernatural healing, we are in direct
disobedience to those verses! It doesn't matter in the least, if
this traveling "healer" walks on air, breathes fire, or has
sparks coming out of his ears, we are still commanded to
"CALL THE ELDERS!" Any way you want to look at it, these
traveling medicine shows do not represent the elders of a given
church; and we find no Scripture which leads us to believe that
the Lord would either add to, or circumvent, the authority He
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70 EXO 19:9, LUK 8:50, JOH 10:38, ACT 8:6, 16:16-34
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has granted to His elders to heal the sick. After all, if the Lord
wills to heal us supernaturally, how many ways do we need to
have available? Here is how obeying those Scriptures changed
the life of Bob Hughes of Fort Myers, FL:
My mother heard that a high percentage of 1930s blue
babies (who had radiation treatment to shrink the thymus
gland) later developed thyroid cancer. So in 1979, she
encouraged me to have a check-up.
I went to our family physician, Dr. Jack O'Brian, who
ordered a thyroid scan. They found a cold nodule on my
thyroid gland, and I was referred to M. D. Anderson Cancer
Research Clinic in Houston, TX. At M. D. Anderson, they X-
rayed my chest. From those pictures, Dr. Copeland saw that
the many tumors in my lungs were inoperable.
During the operation on my throat, he found mixed thyroid
cancer covering my larynx, which had spread to my parotid
gland and lymph glands. He took what he could, but decided
to leave my voice box, because my condition was terminal;
and at best, I would live 6 months. Then I was sent home to
get my affairs in order. I had completely given up, and was
ready to meet my maker.
However, there is a God in heaven! I met with some
church elders and Christian friends at a prayer breakfast.
They laid hands on me, and prayed for my healing. I turned
everything over to God, and closed the prayer by saying,
"God, may Thy will be done." A few days later, I was
anointed with oil.
Soon after that, Dr. Bill Kyle heard me coughing, and
thought that I had also developed pneumonia. He called me
into his office for new X-rays. These showed that I had a
healthy set of lungs. The tumors were gone!
I went to see Dr. Samaan, my endocrinologist at M. D.
Anderson. He didn't believe the results of the Fort Myers X-
rays, and said, "Impossible, get up to radiology. We'll shoot
a new set of pictures." They too, showed that the cancer had
gone. I said, "Dr. Samaan, Christ has healed me. I'll give
M. D. Anderson 5% of the credit, and Jesus Christ 95%." To
which Dr. Samaan replied, "Bob, in this case, you are giving
us too much credit."
That is not a story which we heard from someone in East
Egypt, about some nameless guy who lived in Terra del Fuego.
That is a real account, about a real person, with a real address
98 Demons in the Church
and telephone number; and Bob Hughes is alive and well in
Fort Myers, FL to this very day. To the Lord Jesus, the Great
Physician, goes the glory.
The Lord heals just the way he said He would, through the
elders. God would never send some spectacular "anointed"
healer around to lead you to disobey His command to "call the
elders," any more that He would lead you into any other sin,
JAM 1:13. Church history bears this out. Study the multitudes
of healings that took place through the elders of Charles
Haddon Spurgeon's church, in London, in the late 19th
century. Those elders later stopped healing, because they
feared that they were beginning to get the credit, rather than
the Lord Jesus. It's not some big NAME up in lights, but the
many little elders of the local churches who have been granted
the authority to heal. Even the smallest church has elders,
and in that way God gets the glory, because it is not some
"anointed" man, but the Lord Himself who is the great
physician.
There are other examples of the Lord's healing power that
we should note. In the 19th Century, circuit pastors routinely
laid hands on, and prayed for the sick. Many were healed.
Just this month, a woman in Mississippi was healed of cancer
after the elders of a little Baptist church laid hands on her. At
the direction of the Lord, missionaries on foreign fields have
laid hands on the sick, anointing them with oil, and they have
been healed. One missionary, whom the author personally
knows, laid hands on a deaf man who then started to hear.
Then a withered little Macedonian boy was healed. There was
no church in the area, so this missionary was acting as an
apostle, as "one sent" into a foreign land. He was an elder of
THE church of Jesus Christ, and God's ambassador to a needy
people.
Snake Oil Salesmen
There is an immense separation between the genuine work
of the Holy Spirit and the healing cults. Despite the com-
mands of Scripture, people don't go to their elders anymore.
They go instead to someone with a special "anointing."
Hundreds in their wheelchairs waited in line before Kathryn
Kuhlman. Hundreds more with terminal cancer, gallstones,
and advanced heart disease, or the like, stood before Hinn,
Roberts, Ainsley, Hickey and the rest. But to date, qualified
witnesses state that not one of these wizards has provided
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solid evidence of a single bona fide healing of a serious physio-
logical disease, to any trained investigator. Not one! Never-
theless, advertising works; and critically ill people, desperately
hoping for a cure, go to these performers anyway. In the
euphoria of the moment, some sufferers, thinking they were
cured, have even thrown their whole life's savings into the
offering plate. But after returning home, they find that the
root cause of their affliction remains. Case histories bear this
out. In his book about the charismatic healers, Dr. William
Nolen, M.D. writes:
...you will fmd no documented cures by healers of gallstones,
heart disease, cancer or any other serious organic disease...
when you track the patient down to find out what hap-
pened later, you always find the "cure" to be purely
symptomatic and transient. The underlying disease
remains.71
This is just one example of the mountain of evidence that
contradicts the claims of these false "faith healers." Where are
those dead who were raised, and those desperate people who
were cured of some terminal illness? Despite all the glowing
press releases and other hype, they are nowhere to be found.
Consequently, we are looking straight into the face of a
monumental deception of the enemy. Even the unsaved can
see through this fraud:
James Randi, a professional magician, wrote a book in which
he examines the faith healers. Randi is openly antagonistic
to Christianity. Nevertheless, he seems to have done his
investigation thoroughly and fairly. He asked scores of faith
healers to supply him with "direct, examinable evidence" of
true healings. "I would have been willing to accept just one
case of a cure, so that I might say in this book that at least
on one occasion a miracle occurred," he wrote. But not one
faith healer anywhere gave him a single case of medically
confirmed healing that could not be explained as natural
convalescence, psychosomatic improvement, or outright
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71 William Nolen, Healing: A Doctor in Search of a Miracle as quoted
by John McArthur, Charismatic Chaos, (Grand Rapids, Zondervan
1992) pp206-207. The bold face is ours for emphasis.
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100 Demons in the Church
fakery. Bandi's conclusion? Reduced to its basics, faith
healing today - as it has always been - is simply magic.72
Brrrrr, that's scary. Half the church is following after these
so-called prophets. Scripturally, only the elders of the church
are granted the authority to heal.73 Seeking supernatural
healing through an "anointed" human is not only unbiblical; it
is downright dangerous. King Saul sought a prophetic
message from Samuel, through a method condemned by the
Lord. The outcome was disastrous. Carefully read 1SA 28:7-
20, paying special attention to vs.15-l6. God has not changed.
If the Lord does not will to heal us through the elders, seeking
supernatural healing through another channel could also be
disastrous! It would not be of God, and there is only one other
source... a demon.
About Authority
These alleged "Christian healers," even using the name of
Jesus, are presumptuously grasping for more glory, and more
spiritual authority than the Bible grants. They are like the
sons of Sceva, and are in the sin of Korah. King Uzziah
exceeded his authority and recklessly went into the temple to
offer incense and to worship God. He got leprosy for his ef-
forts.74 What God's judgment will be on these modem-day
mediumistic spiritists, only He knows. But when it comes, it
will surely be terrible and violent, just as the Black Plague
was, on the eve of the reformation, when all Europe was in
dark idolatry.
You see where all this is leading, don't you? Satan is training
the churches to accept their final leaders on the basis of
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72 ibid, pp208-209. This account by an unbeliever is cited to show how
exceeding the Scripture can give grounds for the world to ridicule the
faith, and to question the reality of any Christian experience.
73 There is a colossal difference between a mother who implores the
Lord to heal her sick child and someone who claims to have a special
"anointing" which empowers him to heal the sick, or raise the dead.
One is asking the Lord Himself to heal, the other is stating that he
has been given supernatural power to heal. The first is biblical; the
latter is not.
74 ACT 19:13-15, NUM 16:1-35, 2CH 26:16-21
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Magic Show 101
the supposed works they perform, rather than on what the
Word of God tells us about the doctrines they teach. The
enemy is educating the church to put feelings, personal expe-
riences, and even counterfeit miracles, above the Bible. That
is very important. Think on it awhile. Scripture tells us to
test those who claim to be something special:
REV 2:2 I know your deeds... that you cannot endure evil men, and
you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are
not, and you found them to be false. (NASB)
Do we do that? It doesn't seem so. In childlike simplicity,
Jesus' little wandering sheep say, "Amen, Amen," to these false
healer-prophets. The shepherds (their pastors) have not
grounded them in the Word, and Satan leads them astray. In
writing these things, I perceive that the Lord's hand will soon
be very heavy upon the careless pastors, and my heart grieves
for them. My soul longs for them to return to God, but they
will not:
MAT 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets,
and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would 1 have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not! (KJV)
Woe to you shepherds, if you annul even the least of God's
commands unto these little ones, and by so doing, you cause
Jesus' precious sheep to stumble. I would rather be flayed
alive, than be in your shoes when Jesus returns...as He will
shortly:
ZEC 11:16 "For behold... a shepherd in the land who...
will devour the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their
hoofs..."
(As hirelings, many pastors sell their services to the
highest bidder. They feed themselves on Jesus' sheep, and
do not teach the Bible. Without the pure water of the Word,
the hoofs of Jesus' sheep are torn off, so they cannot walk the
Christian walk.)
ZEC 11:17 "...A sword will be on his arm... and his arm
will be totally withered..."
(The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is no
longer wielded with power; for the zeal for the Word of the
Lord has withered, being displaced by the doctrines of men.)
102 Demons in the Church
"And his right eye will be blind..."
(Spiritual insight has been lost, and the eye of the heart has become
dimmed. We have been separated from the truth by the black
sackcloth of our iniquity.)75
And if you say that you didn't know that you were doing
wrong... that you were just following orders... your denomina-
tional view: That is what the murderers of the martyrs said
when they burned our brethren at the stake. That is what the
Nazis said as they gassed and machine-gunned 6,000,000 Jews.
You sound just like Goering, and Himmler, and Albert
Eichmann, and all they did was kill the body. You are
responsible to God for the immortal souls of the sheep He has
placed in your care:
If you say,
"See, we did not know this,"
Does He not consider it
who weighs the hearts?
And does He not know it
who keeps your soul?
And will He not render to man
according to his work?
PRO 24:12
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76 The author is indebted to Randy N., a younger brother in the Lord,
for an understanding of this puzzling passage in Zechariah. Usually
considered to refer to a coming antichrist, it appears that this passage
is now being fulfilled right before our eyes. If we in the ministry are
bound by our doctrinal traditions, we will be unable to hear the Holy
Spirit as he speaks through the brethren.
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