Published May 24, 2025 – Download PDF:  05.24.25.Walking Away From the Demonic Elephant in the Sanctuary.Final

Biblical discernment must be acquired if we are to survive now, and in the days to come.

The first warning Jesus gave to His disciples when they inquired as to the signs of His coming, He replied, “See to it that no one misleads you” (Mt 24:4; Mk 13:5-6; Lk 21:8 – NASB95).  Paul warned Timothy, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (I Tim 4:1), repeating his warning to the church in Thessalonica, “Let no one deceive you in any way…” (2 Thess 2:3 NASB95).   If that wasn’t enough to get our attention the Apostle Peter penned, “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves” (2 Pt 2:1).

Paul warned the Philippians, “Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision” (Phil 3:2) and he warned the Galatians, “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their actions” (2 Cor 11:13-15).  The elephant of the spirit of antichrist has been allowed to take up residence in many churches across America, working through pastors, elders and other ministers who refuse to allow the Spirit of Christ to rule them nor the congregations they were entrusted with (I Jn 4:3; 2 Jn 7).

The warnings above are grave warnings to all of us, and we dare not take them lightly.  The Holy Spirit declares that we are in dangerous and perilous times, which means that we must, as the Lord Himself said, “See to it that no one misleads you.”  His other admonition to me was to “Stay in My Glory.”  If we get out from under His glory, which happens with disobedience, we end up unprotected from all of Satan’s devices.

Our only hope is to make Jesus Christ our guiding light in a dark and deceptive world.  He is the way, the truth and the life, while also being the Light of the world.  When His light shines, the darkness of Satan, and the deceptive work of his servants, masquerading as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers is exposed for what it is – a lie.  We must be followers of Jesus; we must carefully study the Scriptures and we must hear the voice of the Holy Spirit who Jesus said, “But when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you those things to come” (Jn 16:13).  Therefore, without the indwelling AND ongoing counsel of the Holy Spirit, we will surely be deceived by the wicked one, Satan, and his servants.  Which is to say, reading and studying the Bible will not be enough.  We must allow the coupling of the Scriptures with the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

We must also grasp the truth that false apostles, false prophets, false evangelists, false pastors and false teachers are at work in our day.  Satan is the father of lies and there is no truth in him (Jn 8:44), so his servants do not and cannot have a handle on the truth; he hasn’t stopped working in our generation.  His work will continue until he is judged and thrown into the lake of fire (Rev 20:10).

Jesus came to reveal the truth of who the Father is, saying, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (Jn 14:9).  We can take great comfort in the fact that how Jesus lived, what He said and what He did, is the standard for truth and is a perfect representation of who the Father is, and wants to be in our lives.  This, in and of itself, is a great revelation.  However, Jesus isn’t only the truth, whereby He reveals and demonstrates the truth, but He came to expose the sin in men’s hearts and to destroy the works of the devil (I Jn 3:8b).

Jesus revealed that part of the mission of the Holy Spirit is to speak what He hears because He never speaks on His own initiative (Jn 16:13).  Therefore, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who is the Spirit of Jesus, will speak what He receives from the Father and the Son.  This is identical to how Jesus operated during His ministry on earth, where He stated that He did not speak on His own initiative (Jn 12:49, 7:16, 8:26).  Furthermore, Jesus did nothing on His own initiative (Jn 5:19, 30, 8:28, 42).  He was in close communion with the Father by the Holy Spirit, hearing His voice and receiving revelation wisdom, knowledge and understanding.  If this was the life of Jesus, how much more should we desire to hear and receive from the Holy Spirit; we must hunger for Him; we must be thirsty to hear and see what He is doing in real time, every day.

If we say we love Jesus and claim to be His disciples, then we must walk in step with His Spirit.  At many times it will be impossible for us to discern wickedness, even when it is right in front of us, without the Holy Spirit revealing the deceptiveness of wickedness and evil when it is operating.  We must have eyes to see and ears to hear to receive counsel from the Holy Spirit.  If we judge what we see or perceive in the natural, we will fall into the same trap that Joshua and His leaders did when they were deceived by the Gibeonites who “acted craftily”; by their worn-out sacks, wineskins and sandals they deceived Joshua and his leaders into believing that they had come from a far country that was not within the boundary of the land the Lord had promised to the Hebrews.  The goal of the Gibeonite deception was to establish a covenant of peace (Jos 9:1-21), which was exactly what the Lord commanded them not to do with anyone in the land He had promised (Ex 23:32-33, 34:12-16; Deut 7:1-4; Josh 23:12-13; Judg 2:1-3).  The Bible makes it clear that the folly of Joshua and his leaders was the direct result of their not asking for the counsel of the Lord (Jos 9:14) before establishing a covenant of peace with the Gibeonites.  Again, it is very clear, we must not only seek the Lord for counsel, but we must hear His voice and obey.

And yet, we are exhorted to test the spirits whether they are of God, this coming from the Apostle John who goes on to say, “because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (I Jn 4:1; emphasis mine).  Therefore, we dare not think otherwise.  This is why it is important to study the Scriptures.  The Holy Spirit will operate and speak within the framework that He has set forth in His word.  As we have already learned, the devil knows the Scripture, so we would do well to keep our sword, the word of God, sharp and ready to defend against the attacks of our enemy.  We must be good and faithful stewards of the word He has entrusted to us, either by the Scriptures or through revelation, i.e., prophecies (including hearing His voice through visions or dreams), the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom and messages that come by angelic visitation.  Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4 cf. Deut 8:3).

Satan’s Elephant of the Antichrist Came Through the Front Door of the Church

“But they are preaching from the Bible!”  This quote came from the wife of a couple that visited our home meeting.  They had shared how they were searching for a church, but in reality, they were searching for the Person of the Holy Spirit and His power, as set forth in the Bible.  The standard the Church should be upholding is that the Holy Spirit speaks and moves in power today, but they couldn’t find it in the “churches” they had visited.

When the Spirit of God isn’t moving in power, defined as one of the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit outlined by Paul in I Cor 12, there is always a reason and normally there is more than one.  Almost always the problems lie with the pastor and leaders who have made the decision to erect bars to prevent the Spirit of Christ from entering His own house.  The woman just couldn’t shake the fact that the pastors they had listened to were, “preaching out of the Bible,” as if that were the only criteria the Bible sets forth as the measure of a healthy church, or a true pastor, which it doesn’t.

Meditating on the topic of deception, the Holy Spirit released a vision to me of a pastor preaching out of the Bible from the pulpit.  He was preaching fervently; some might even say, “He was on fire.”  But it was nothing but lathered-up emotionalism.  However, just because a preacher is emotional, doesn’t mean that he/she is false or is operating deceptively.  What we can say is that we must hear and be in tune with the Holy Spirit within our hearts.  The Holy Spirit sees what is behind the words, the appearance and wisdom of man.  This is illustrated by an interaction between Jesus and Peter (Mt 16:21-23, NASB95):

From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.  Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.”  But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, discerned the wicked spirit behind Peter’s rebuke.  This is how the Holy Spirit can help us to see, if we humble ourselves and cry out to the Lord to give us eyes that see and ears that hear His voice.  Yet, there is a better example.

In the last temptation of Jesus, recorded in the Gospel of Luke prior to the beginning of His ministry, He is confronted by Satan quoting the Bible:

“And he [the devil] led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here; for it is written, ‘He will command His angels concerning you to guard you,’ and, ‘on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone’”  And Jesus answered and said to him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test’” (Lk 4:9-12, emphasis mine).

What is Satan doing?  He is preaching the Scripture, because he realized that it was the only resource he had left!  He is doing exactly what many pastors are doing today; they are preaching and quoting from the Bible but from false motives, either pressed by a spirit of deception or simply preaching the wisdom of man; either way, it won’t feed the flock of Jesus Christ.  Preaching the Scripture from an evil, untruthful angle, is still preaching a lie, which is precisely Satan’s goal.  In order to defeat Satan’s deception, we must have the Lord’s discernment that reveals what is behind the words we are hearing or reading.  The deception of the wicked one is no match for the light of the Holy Spirit who knows the hearts of men.

How would evil, deceitful workers masquerade or disguise themselves as servants or even apostles of righteousness as Paul and Peter warned us?  How would they introduce doctrines of demons while secretly introducing destructive heresies?  It is simple.  They come with a title conveyed by some governing body, namely a church or denomination, with a degree from some seminary or Bible school.  As long as the evil worker is allowed to fly “under the radar” and all the boxes are checked in their application for ordination or they have the proper “credentials,” these wolves will be approved by man and be allowed to “care” for the sheep.  In some cases, they will be installed as professors of theology who know nothing of the Scriptures or the power of God (Mk 12:24), making their children twice the devil that they are (Mt 23:15).  The critical issue is that from a Biblical standpoint they do not intimately know (an important word linked to the word yada in the Hebrew) nor have they experienced the truth and power the Bible is filled with.  They hold to a form of godliness, but in many cases, especially in Evangelical churches, “they have denied its power; avoid such men as these” (2 Tim 3:5).  The question we must answer is whether we are avoiding such men, or if we are actively supporting and enabling them.  If we are, then we are walking in and supporting darkness, living in direct opposition to Biblical truth.  If we do not repent, we will be judged because we are supporting Hell, not the kingdom of God.

As long as a person “performs” their course work, writes their papers and does what is required of a seminary, they will receive the advanced degree they seek.  They will not be required to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit nor walk in obedience to Him.  They will not be required to move in the supernatural power illustrated by Jesus, His disciples, and the Apostle Paul.  Seminaries across the United States and around the world to not require ministers to preach/teach and demonstrate the power of the Gospel as Jesus set forth:

“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.  “He who hates Me hates My Father also.  “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.  “But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.’  “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me,  and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning” (Jn 15:22-27 NASB95, emphasis mine).

Jesus set forth the standard of preaching and demonstrating supernatural power (which is not the standard of seminaries), because without this basic and necessary coupling, the conviction of sin, the work of the Holy Spirit, is greatly hindered.  The supernatural power flowing through the believer is the testimony of the Spirit of Christ.  Paul testified to the Corinthians that he had not come to them in the eloquence of man’s wisdom, but he came in the demonstration of the Spirit and power, that their faith would rest on the power of God, not the wisdom of man (I Cor 2:4-5).  He emphasizes this point later in 4:20 saying, “For the kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in power.” This is a basic tenant of Christianity that has been lost because of elephant-sized secret and destructive heresies that the enemy has introduced to the Church it has swallowed whole without a question.  This is why the Spirit is grieved, and revival hasn’t come to many churches across America.

This demonic doctrine has been preached, and believed, from generation to generation until it is no longer a discussion point; it has taken deep root in the hearts and minds of believers all across the American Church.  This is how Satanic darkness, the spirit of antichrist, maneuvers the size of an elephant that has gone unchecked through the front door into the Church.  Seminary professors, leaders of denominations, pastors and elders, who should have known better, have been negligent in their duty to expose the wolves who were attempting to be legitimized with sheep’s clothing.  These gatekeepers who have long depended on what they saw in the natural, never learned to be dependent upon the Holy Spirit and therefore became spiritually blind to the evil workers that sat in their classrooms or applied for ordination.  Let’s be clear – there is no protection without depending upon the Spirit of Christ, hearing His voice and receiving His counsel.

If that wasn’t bad enough, many unsuspecting seminary and Bible school students are rarely if ever taught to depend and abide in the Holy Spirit, the crucial doctrine set forth by Christ during the Last Supper (Jn 15).  Instead, they are taught to depend upon their ability to study and craft sermons and as one minister jokingly stated, “They lift up their eyes to their personal library, from whence their help comes from.”  This is a subtle but dangerous twist on Psalm 121:1-2 that was spoken in jest but is absolutely true from my experience.  In many cases they do not hear from the Lord, to say nothing of the lack of revelation they experience that is required to feed the flock of Jesus Christ.  As one professor friend of mine, lamenting what he witnessed in his work at the seminary where he taught, wrote the following:

“The devil himself could graduate, with a high degree, with excellence, even summa cum laude (with highest praise) from a seminary, simply because he knows more theology, Greek, Hebrew, and what have you, than anyone else!”  But the devil’s knowledge is a detached intellectualism, not the knowledge of faith:  revelation, persistence, and intimacy with God.[1] 

This is the core of the problem that has been reinforced for more than a millennium within the structures of what many call “higher Christian education” required for church and denominational leaders.  Thank God for the Holy Spirit revealing that He will tear up the plans, strategies and systems of man!  As the Lord has revealed, the time of the breaking up of the Church is at hand.

Once they graduate, they are set loose upon unsuspecting congregations, most of whom know so little of the Bible they are unable to discern for themselves the garbage that is served by the false and/or spiritually ignorant workers that have been installed.  Once installed, they now have man’s power, and if they are in fact one of Satan’s evil workers, they will wreak a tremendous amount of damage.  Even if their hearts are in the right place, they have entered the battlefield with only their books, disconnected in a wide variety of forms from the Holy Spirit who first called them.  It is equivalent of training a tank commander and sending them to the front line with his tank operating manual but without his tank, ammunition or a crew!  Unprotected by the shield of the Spirit, having been taught to habitually move in the sin of presumption, they know nothing of the ways of the Spirit and are doomed before they begin.

I learned firsthand from a United Methodist Church (UMC) pastor who, before being installed to the position of pastor of a church, met with the regional leader and other leaders who had also been “approved” and given titles.  The regional leader asked the group of 10-15 people if any planned to openly challenge of what is commonly known in Methodist circles as the Book of the Disciplines of the Methodist denomination which, at that time, stood against ordaining homosexual “ministers”.  The majority in attendance said that they would actively undermine those tenants, which is to say they would fight to see that homosexual behavior among laymen and clergy alike, would be approved, which is direct contradiction to the Scriptures.  For decades, United Methodist leaders have not taken responsibility to protect the flock, placing the unity of the denomination above adherence to the truth and obedience to Christ.  Finally, the split came resulting in 6,180 congregations disaffiliating themselves from the UMC from 2019 to 2023, leading to the formation of the Global Methodist Church (GMC), which stands for Biblical truth.  But those who left the UMC had to make the decision to leave, stand for the truth and walk in obedience.  They recognized the elephant in the room, the spirit of antichrist, they had allowed to come in.  Those adhering to the Scripture realized that the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with temples of idols; that they could no longer walk with those who were walking willingly in spiritual darkness and still expect the blessing of God (2 Cor 6:16).

The pastor went on to share that the attendees were dismissed and welcomed to their leadership positions.  I thank God that many Bible-adhering United Methodist pastors chose to leave the denomination in order to stand for the truth, rather than remain with the company of the apostate that include the wolves, the evil workers, the false leaders under every label that have fought, and now fight, against the kingdom of God.  As Paul said, “[they will bring] swift destruction upon themselves” and “their end will correspond to their actions” (2 Pt 2:1; 2 Cor 11:15b).  I pray that the GMC will work to reclaim their heritage related to the move of the Spirit of God in power.  The Lord revealed to me that the GMC will grow stronger in Him.

However, the problem is not limited to the United Methodist Church.  Entire denominations such as the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, United Church of Christ, and Congregationalists have accommodated the same elephant, allowing it to deceive, and then ridden this same elephant into the abyss of apostasy.  Other denominations, including many who call themselves Evangelicals, have abandoned their obedience to the Holy Spirit, refusing to allow Him to move in and through His people by the gifts of power given to the Church, refusing to allow their operation.  These are those who have locked the door, deafened their ears and closed their eyes against the Holy Spirit.  They are those who refuse to “allow this man to rule over us,” as Jesus described the wicked vine-growers who would be brought to a wretched end (Mt 21:33-41).  To them the Spirit says, “Woe unto those who stand against Me in the day of My wrath.”  One cannot be part of these assemblies and not be a participant in their rebellion against Christ.

Then there are the Pentecostal denominations, the largest being the Assembly of God.  They too have slidden away from honoring the Holy Spirit in their services and have long been sipping the poison of the wisdom of man to ensure that visitors never feel uncomfortable in their services.  I have observed this myself having attended one of their largest gatherings in Virginia and then revisiting some 15 years later.  The contrast between the two services made it clear that the same elephant spirit of antichrist had been allowed in the door and was very much operational, where there was no altar call, no prayer for the sick – no one was saved or set free from the devil.  It was clear that the leaders of the Assembly of God had achieved their goal to make people feel “comfortable.”  When that type of course is choice is taken, and it is a decision at the heart level, one can be assured that few will be convicted of sin because the instant the decision is made the Holy Spirit leaves.

One of the greatest heresies embraced by the modern church, irrespective of denominational label, has been the concept of “coaching” that was developed from the branch of science called behavioral analysis that spread to corporate America.  The concept of coaching in corporate and church circles depends upon the systems developed by the wisdom of man that depends upon proper, open-ended questions to guide the church pastor/leader to their own conclusions and answers.  These so-called “coaches” have no answers for those they coach and yet they command $100+ per hour.  The coach is not led by the Holy Spirit because the coach cannot hear Him, yet pastors are willing to do anything other than submit to the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, who was sent to guide and lead them into all truth.  Instead, they refuse to listen to Him, grieving Him every day, refusing to yield to His leadership.  Following their coaches, both coach and pastor have both fallen in the ditch, yet they are deluded in thinking they are successful.  Everyday they walk further and further away from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, deceived in thinking they are doing His will, when nothing could be further from the truth.

The Solution is Straightforward, Requiring Difficult Choices

The solution to extracting the Church from the muddy ditch she has put herself in is not a simple one.  However, our great hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ who is the answer.  He has said that He will take back what belongs to Him, that includes His Church and the nations of the earth.  As Simeon prayed, and by revelation realized that the infant he was holding, belonging to Joseph and Mary in the temple, was the Messiah, the “A light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel” (Lk 2:32), we know that Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords.  The entirety of the Bible proclaims that Jesus is the Son of God.  He leads a massive angelic army and He will bring about an outpouring of His Spirit that will be far greater in magnitude than what we see in the Day of Pentecost account in Acts 2.

To continue to walk with the Holy Spirit today, you and I have very difficult decisions to make.  We must choose to remove ourselves from those who have chosen to continually grieve the Holy Spirit.  Paul stated the following in 2 Corinthians 6:14–18 (NASB95, emphasis mine):

¹⁴ Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? ¹⁵ Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? ¹⁶ Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. ¹⁷ “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean; And I will welcome you. ¹⁸ “And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” Says the Lord Almighty.

Those who have chosen to habitually refuse to follow the Holy Spirit, grieving and standing against Him, are walking in rebellion; they have become lawless, and they walk in lawlessness.  If we don’t stop from associating with those who walk in a lie, we will suffer the judgment that the Holy Spirit explicitly says will be sent against those who say they follow Christ, but do not.  To be a follower of Christ is to be a follower of His Spirit.  Pastors who have set their heart to prevent the Holy Spirit from entering their meetings will be swept away.  The warning the Holy Spirit proclaims to them is simple:  Change or perish!  The Lord has already marked buildings that are only the facades of churches for closure.  He will not tolerate them to remain for they are overrun by Satan and his elephant of lies.  They have become the first line of the enemy’s defense against revival and the moving of the Holy Spirit.

The deception of the enemy that has been embraced by many in the Church is that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not for today, a heresy and doctrine of demons labeled as Cessationist theology.  Those who have embraced and teach this doctrine are liars.  Are you sitting under the teaching of someone that has embraced heresy?  Are you supporting them in their deception by attending their services and Bible studies?  If so, you are not only walking in darkness, i.e., deception, you are in league with Hell, supporting the demonic elephant in the sanctuary!  You must repent and do what Paul said, “avoid such men!”  TOUCH NOT THE UNCLEAN THING!  As Paul stated, “…what agreement has the temple of God with idols” (2 Cor 6:16)?

You are the temple of the living God, therefore what does the Holy Spirit have in agreement with heresy and rebellion?  And there you sit, week in and week out, supporting the deception that flows like a river of mud, saying the same stupidity that I have heard from others who are likewise deceived that, “Well, the Lord has never told me to leave,” or worse, “I am an influencer here.”  What utter foolishness!  You are surrounded by the truth of the Bible and yet you have the audacity to say, “God hasn’t told me to leave my church,” yet you sit in a temple of idols.  What about His word?!  Where does the Bible say to be an “influencer” in the camp of the wicked, where the demonic elephant is tolerated.  We are called to be ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ and if those around us won’t tolerate the truth, we are called upon to shake the dust from our feet in a testimony against them and the elephant of demonic doctrine they believe in (Mt 10:14).  What about the Scriptures I have referenced in this article?  If you choose to stand against the truth of the word of God, you are a worker of evil and you deserve all of the judgment the Lord has said He will pour out of those who “believe a lie” like you do.  You are a perfect example of one who walks in Satanic deception.  You stand for a lie, but you will not, because you cannot, stand for the truth.  Not only do you stand for a lie, you loudly preach sermons of lies by your actions as you show up one more day at your local temple of idols.  You say one thing, but you do another, therefore, you are a hypocrite.  There is no prescription for your sin other than repentance; you must come out from among them!  You cannot support their sin by your presence.

We must be willing to walk away from family and friends, who may never understand our decision to pick up the cross that lays before us and follow Him.  We must be willing to pay the price of isolation, persecution and the loss of friends.  Although it is costly, it will be the most rewarding, for it is in making the required decisions that the Holy Spirit will reward our obedience.  As we turn toward Christ, He turns toward us.  Seeing us from afar, He will run to us and embrace us as the father ran and embraced the prodigal son.  We must leave the dark path that many local “churches” have chosen to walk in.  One cannot sit in darkness, living a lie saying that sitting in the company of those who refuse obedience to the Holy Spirit doesn’t affect them?  This is the conclusion of many that have embraced the deception of the Hell, for it does affect everyone who has chosen to walk with those that scoff against the Holy Spirit!  We must not sit in the seat of the scoffer as the Psalmist warns:

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!  But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.  He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,  Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.  The wicked are not so, But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.  Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.  For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the wicked will perish. (Ps 1:1-6, NASB95)

The cost will be high because you will no longer be invited to their gatherings because they dare not allow your Scriptural thinking to spread, lest others have the courage to follow your example of faithful obedience to Jesus, leave and take their money with them.  You will be like the non-drinker at the party, where those who indulge begin to feel uncomfortable with your decision asking you, “Why aren’t you drinking?”  They will be convicted of their own behavior, and in order to pacify their own uneasiness, they will encourage you to drift in the current along with the other dead fish.  We must reconsecrate ourselves, make the decision at the heart level to follow Him; we must hearken to His counsel to “let the dead bury the dead” (Mt 8:22, cf. Lk 9:60).

Many that gather in “church” buildings will be the chaff that the Lord blows away if they do not repent, turning from the demonic elephant, and follow the Spirit of Christ.  He will purge the sinners and hypocrites from His hallowed halls, along with the leaders who are nothing more than whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones by sweeping them out.  Then, He will clean His hallowed halls and restore the green pastures where His sheep will be well feed, and they will drink abundantly from the still waters He provides; this is His delight.  The Lord Himself will bring His sheep back to His hallowed halls where He will install His leaders who are proven and faithful servants, who know His voice and follow His Spirit.  These leaders will be promoted from among the rear ranks of His army, unrecognized by men, they are called of God, and anointed by Him, to take their place in the precise position that He has prepared them for at the front line of His army.

What I have shared with you up to this point is the discernment that is given to every believer.  Moreover, the strength of discernment in your life and my life, is determined by how strong our relationship with the Lord, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit.  Are we abiding in the Vine, Christ Jesus, by His Spirit?  If not, we lose all spiritual discernment because we have stepped out of His protection, His Glory and Presence, into darkness – there is no in between, which is to say there are no shades of gray in the Spirit.

The Gift the Church Dare Not Operate Without

We now turn to a specific gift that Paul speaks of:  The gift of distinguishings of spirits (I Cor 12:10).  Having turned from the following the Holy Spirit, many “churches” whom the Lord has labeled as temples of idols, are flying without supernatural radar and are headed for judgment and destruction.

But for those churches that have set their hearts to follow the Shepherd, the gift of distinguishing (lit. distinguishings) of spirits operating in the believer is a powerful weapon of our warfare. Given freely by the Lord, it is one weapon of the arsenal that the Holy Spirit will activate when darkness is present, however, it can also be used to detect the working of the Holy Spirit and the presence of ministering spirits, i.e., angels of the Lord.

This is a gift given, as the Lord wills, to various believers with His Church.  It is a supernatural gift or enablement; it is not a natural ability.  As a gift, it operates with greater power and precision to alert the Church to the workings of the devil as well as the Spirit of Christ.  As with any gift, it is a pillar of power that is founded upon, and operates within, the framework of the Scriptures.  Which is to say that as it is with all of the supernatural gifts, the greater maturity the believer has, the greater their understanding of the Bible and of the Lord, the greater this gift can operate for the protection and overall encouragement of the Body of Christ.  It is reasonable to assume that Paul does not abdicate taking responsibility for growing in the Lord for reliance on this gift.

In the Greek, “distinguishings is in the plural, [where] more than one discerning in a given situation is implied.”[2]  I would submit the example of Jesus, once seeing Nathanael coming to Him, said, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” (Jn 17:47).  Nathaniel was stunned by this asking Jesus, “How do you know me?”  Jesus replies, “Before Phillip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you” (Jn 17:48).

In yet another example where Jesus sees the faith of those who brought the paralytic to Jesus, letting him down through the roof said, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2:5).  The scribes were silently accusing Jesus, reasoning in their hearts, for taking His place with the Father to forgive sins.  Moving in the gift of distinguishings of spirits, Jesus exposed their hearts and their lack of understanding so that they might know that He had the “authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mk 2:10).

I cannot say it any clearer than Rodman when he says, “Through this gift the Holy Spirit provides depth perception of a spiritual problem that lies at the root of a human ailment”, and, “…on the deepest level where many problems have their rootage, there can be no perception of what lies there except through the illumination of the Holy Spirit…the illumination itself does not solve the problem but the spiritual situation is properly discerned.”¹  Rodman goes on to liken this powerful gift to a spiritual X-ray, which I can do nothing but heartily agree.

We can find other examples of Jesus operating in the distinguishings of spirits in Luke 6:6-11, where He knew what the scribes and Pharisees were thinking concerning healing a man on the Sabbath.  In Acts 8:9-24 we see the use of the gift in the Apostle Peter calling out Simon, who had practiced magic and thereby gathered a huge following in Samaria prior to being saved through the ministry of Phillip.  Simon saw that the Spirit of the Lord was poured out on those that believed and wanted to buy the power Peter was moving in.  But Peter said, “For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity” (Acts 8:23).  We should take heed that “nothing in all creation is hidden from God.  Everything is naked and exposed before His eyes, and He is the one to whom we are accountable” (Heb 4:13 NLT).

Paul also confronted a magician, a Jewish false prophet, named of Elymus, that was opposing his ministry.  Paul “filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze upon him and said, “You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord” (Acts 5:9-10)?  It was this revelation and the judgment of blindness that immediately fell upon Elymus, that caused the proconsul to believe and receive Jesus (vs 12).  Later in the city of Thyatira, Paul operating in this same gift, rebuked a spirit of divination that was operating in a slave-girl (Acts 16:16-18).  How did he know that the spirit was demonic, hearing her cry out, “These men are bondservants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation”?  It was the Holy Spirit, operating through the distinguishings of spirits, who revealed to Paul the demonic influence that was speaking through the slave girl.  It was attempting to deceive everyone who was listening to the Gospel of Christ.

What she said was correct and sounded good, but wickedness was behind it and it had to be exposed.  No doubt many pastors would have allowed her to preach in their church prior to her being set free from the demonic influence.

Aiding and Abetting Wickedness

To sit in a “church” realizing that the leadership never allows the Holy Spirit to move in power, consistently grieving Him, is to empower darkness, which is the demonic elephant of doctrine in the room.  We are enabling rebellion.  There are many there who are in desperate need of the life-giving Bread and Living Water that only the Holy Spirit can give, to say nothing of the tens of thousands in your area who need salvation.  However, they are being deprived of what Jesus died for because you are complicit with the wickedness.  You sit there, Sunday after Sunday, aiding and abetting the illegal activity of the enemy operating in and through what you call “church” but the Lord calls it a temple of idols.  If you decided to make the decision to move in obedience toward Jesus, who is not allowed in the front door, others would take note and finally have the courage to do what the Holy Spirit has been speaking them to do for years which is to stop tolerating wickedness!

You speak of following Jesus, but you hate His Spirit because you are empowering others who have locked the door against Him.  You are complicit in the sin of those who enable wickedness and darkness to stunt the growth of the babes in Christ that don’t know any better.  You are guilty of the deaths of many because the River of healing is not allowed to flow in the services, while you have the gall to invite others to these same gatherings!  Make no mistake, if you continue in this lack of obedience, you will suffer gravely, for the Lord has announced His intention to pour out judgment upon those who say they follow Him, but do not.  You will be swept away with the wicked and rebellious because you support them financially.  If you are wondering why revival hasn’t come, look in the mirror!

Having deferred to the pastor who has habitually walked in darkness, you have stood back, waiting for the Lord to make His move to bring revival that will never come because of your disobedience.  Your prayers may ultimately bring deliverance to the pastor, but you are operating in the sin of presumption, enabling him while he is in the darkness.  You can be compared to one that has deceived themselves into thinking that you are a positive influence in a meth lab, working together with the chemists to make poison for the group that comes to purchase the white pills you work with others to form.  You enabled payments for the equipment, the raw materials and for others to receive their wages for what is nothing other than a distribution hub for that which kills and destroys.  If that isn’t bad enough, you are proud of it and invite others.

Moreover, you are proud of the fact that children never experience the presence of the Lord.  Proud that many are hungry and thirsty for more, but you enable the prison warden to pacify the inmates by sedating them with another bowl of sawdust and another glass of dirty water.  Taken captive by the deception of darkness, you’ve chosen to sit back and relax, enjoy the music and the soothing message filled with the hisses of the antichrist, only to be yet another casualty of the enemy.  Those around you have become spiritually comatose, swimming in lukewarm waters, that the enemy of your soul loves, for far too long.  As a result, both you and the complicit around you have become candidates for being spewed out of His mouth; the Lord has no taste for temples of idols.  You have no idea what the Lord will send against you and the gatherings of false light.

Repent!  Repent, before you receive the just and impending judgment of your sins.  Repent and return to the protective wings of the Almighty!  Return to Him and He will return to you.  Turn from your supporting heresy.  Turn from your supporting rebellion, lawlessness, wickedness, and doctrines of demons heresy and start walking in obedience!  You have run out of time!  You do not have tomorrow.  If you do not turn from your sins, you will be swept away in the river of judgment that the Holy Spirit will bring against you.

When the Judgment Comes There Will be No Recourse

Immediately upon finishing writing the above words, I realized that a grievous mistake had been made that resulted in my mother’s medical insurance being cancelled.  Recently I had worked to set up automatic payments to be made because of the poor mail service in our area that had resulted in our normal payments by mail arriving after the due date.  This was no small problem.

I immediately called the insurance company to determine what had happened.  What was the bottom-line?  They had received the form they needed from me to authorize the automatic deductions from the bank account, but it had not arrived before their system began processing payments.  To complicate matters, they had sent two notices (which I did not receive) to inform me that they had not received their payment.  The result was that they had cancelled the policy.

To say that this was a catastrophe is an understatement.  Talking with the customer service representative she informed me that nothing could be done.  I pressed the point knowing that all of a meager $17 was at issue.  Can you imagine?!  I was getting nowhere with the representative and compelled them to understand that the cancellation was completely unacceptable and that I would use any means possible to see that their decision was reversed.

I have dealt with fear all of my life and only in my thirties did I begin to have victory standing upon the word against the spirit of fear.  It is a spirit and it must be dealt with as such.  I began to take authority over the chaos and cried out to the Lord asking that He intervene to give us favor and for rational thinking to prevail.  I have learned that any place irrational thinking is present, the demonic is active.  Fear was attempting to choke the spiritual life of the Lord out of me, but I would not submit to His lies.  I stood and resisted the spirit of fear.

Ultimately, after my mother and I began to intercede, crying to the Lord for help, I was transferred to a supervisor.  Now on the phone with her, the first comment she made was that the information she had in front of her didn’t support the policy being deactivated.  She shared with me the details from her records that I had long since forgotten but vaguely remembered concerning my making calls to ensure that the forms they needed for automatic payment had in fact been received.  She was rational and pleasant, with an attention to detail that I couldn’t help but appreciate and told her so.  Admitting that the situation had not yet been resolved to my satisfaction, I told her how much I appreciated her abilities.

She added that the type of situation we were discussing happens all the time.  She realized that I was advocating for my mother and that so many people didn’t have an advocate to fight for those in this type of situation.  She went on to assure me that she would expedite the review of additional information she needed to gather and told me how to reach her if I had additional questions or hadn’t heard from her in a few days.

Getting off the phone with the supervisor, I sat down with my mother to share with her what had happened and the results of the conversation with the insurance company.  We prayed together praising the Lord for His goodness to help us reach the right person to assist us in this potentially grave matter.

Within a few minutes, the Holy Spirit revealed to me that the experience I had had with the first representative who repeated, “I’m sorry Mr. Biteler, there is nothing we can do.  Your policy remains cancelled,” was exactly what we have been talking about concerning the decision that must be made.  This is what is coming to those who say they are members of the Church yet refuse to listen to the Holy Spirit.  Suddenly, you and others like you will be cut off if there is no repentance.  The grace period will run out and judgment will come.  This is the grave reality of what the Holy Spirit is saying to you and every so-called Christian who believes they are going to heaven without listening, honoring or obeying the voice of the Spirit of Christ.

As this realization hit me, I was overwhelmed by the revelation of what the Holy Spirit was saying.  It was horrific to see with the clarity I had not had up that point.  Cut off!  Being cut off with no recourse is clearly what Jesus preached concerning the unfaithful stewards and slaves (Mt 25:12-30; Lk 19:12-27), like Esau who despised his birthright only to seek it with tears of repentance after it was too late (Heb 12:17).  And further, “But these enemies of mine, who did not what me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence” (Lk 19:27).  This is a parallel to story to what Jesus taught concerning the foolish virgins, to whom the Lord said, “Truly I say to you, I do not know you” (Mt 25:12) and shut the door to everlasting life to them.  They were not permitted to enter.  Why?  Because they were unconnected to His Oil, His Holy Spirit; they had run dry and had long been disconnected to Him, The Vine, through His Holy Spirit (Jn 15; cf. Zec 4:1-14).  All that was left for them was to be gathered and burned (Jn 15:5-6)!

This is the horrific reality of what the Lord will do to those who refuse to listen.  This is your notice and quite possibly it is the last you will receive!  Are you looking for a sign that you must comply with the Holy Spirit, stand for Him, and walk in the truth?  This is it!  This may be the last one you ever receive before your policy for eternal life, bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus is revoked eternally, without recourse.  One who has accepted Jesus as Lord and received His Spirit, can lose everything by not following and obeying the Spirit of Christ.  To say that we are surrendered to Him, without following Him is nonsense.  We must hear and obey, for there is no other way, to quote the beloved hymn, “Trust and Obey.”  Jesus said that His sheep know His voice (Jn 10:3-5, 14-16, 27).  Hearing and obeying His voice were never options for you or me.

We must be like Samuel who even as a child, heard his heavenly Father speaking to him saying, “Samuel!  Samuel!”  To which Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant is listening (I Sam 3:10).  The Lord is knocking and “if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he will Me” (Rev 3:20).  Those words were spoken to the Christians at the Church in Laodicea who were warned that if they did not repent, they would be cut off, spewed out of His mouth, and that without recourse (Rev 3:16).

Again, this is the day; this is the hour to repent and come back to the Living God who is speaking to you.  Take action now and cry out to Him, and He will answer.  His hand has been outstretched to you, you must respond (Isa 65:2) and repent, as the Lord spoke in the Book of Proverbs:

Proverbs 2 (NASB95, emphasis mine)

¹ My son, if you will receive my words And treasure my commandments within you, ² Make your ear attentive to wisdom, Incline your heart to understanding; ³ For if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for understanding; ⁴ If you seek her as silver And search for her as for hidden treasures; ⁵ Then you will discern the fear of the Lord And discover the knowledge of God. ⁶ For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding. ⁷ He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, ⁸ Guarding the paths of justice, And He preserves the way of His godly ones. ⁹ Then you will discern righteousness and justice And equity and every good course. ¹⁰ For wisdom will enter your heart And knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; ¹¹ Discretion will guard you, Understanding will watch over you, ¹² To deliver you from the way of evil, From the man who speaks perverse things; ¹³ From those who leave the paths of uprightness To walk in the ways of darkness; ¹⁴ Who delight in doing evil And rejoice in the perversity of evil; ¹⁵ Whose paths are crooked, And who are devious in their ways; ¹⁶ To deliver you from the strange woman, From the adulteress who flatters with her words; ¹⁷ That leaves the companion of her youth And forgets the covenant of her God; ¹⁸ For her house sinks down to death And her tracks lead to the dead; ¹⁹ None who go to her return again, Nor do they reach the paths of life. ²⁰ So you will walk in the way of good men And keep to the paths of the righteous. ²¹ For the upright will live in the land And the blameless will remain in it; ²² But the wicked will be cut off from the land And the treacherous will be uprooted from it.

Again, I say, you must turn back to the Lord, shunning the evil that you are actively participating in and empowering by attending the services that those around you call “church.”  He will abundantly pardon and lead you in the life He always desired for you, but you must listen to Him now and move in obedience.  His offer to you is good for now.  He is the God of the now.  Now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2).  As the Spirit has said, “These are the days of war.”  We would do well to obey His commands as He advances.

Mark C. Biteler

[1] Ruthven, Jon Mark, What is Wrong with Protestant Theology? Tradition vs. Biblical Emphasis, Word & Spirit Press, 2013, p. 8.

[2] Williams, John Rodman. Renewal Theology: Systematic Theology from a Charismatic Perspective ; Three Volumes in One. Vol. 2, Zondervan Publishing House, 1996, pp.  388-389.