What if I experience something that’s not in scripture? What if I experience something not in scripture, which we all will? And I know that there’s probably a variety of things around this room that you’re thinking, “Well, I’ve seen this. I’ve been a part of this. I’ve sensed this.” And yes, there are real spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. The key is how do we respond according to scripture? And my encouragement is to, number one, be open regarding the spiritual world. The last thing I ever want to do is to dull our sensitivity to that which is spiritual by pointing out some of these things. The spiritual world is real.

The Bible Tells Us Spiritual Warfare Is Real

At the same time, be discerning according to the written word. Look at your experiences through the lens of God’s word. This is where I would encourage you to be aware of highly charged expectations of demonic manifestations. The reality is, intense expectation can produce almost anything. A counselor can find what they’re looking for in a counseling situation. A counselee can produce what they want to produce in a counseling situation.

People who are looking for demons will find them just as people who are ignoring demons will pretend like they’re not there. One of the things that I’ve seen in context around the world is, sometimes there’s almost a program time where deliverance ministry happens. And someone could be sitting in a worship service singing praises to God, and then sitting quietly listening to the word, but then when it comes time for deliverance ministry, demons need to be cast out.

We’ve got to be very, very careful. Beware of expectations of demonic manifestations. Beware of satanic tactics that divert us from Christ, the gospel or God’s word. Oh, sorry, I missed one. Beware of minimizing personal responsibility for sin. We’ve talked about that. And then keep the focus on the gospel, and then be confident in the truth and power of Christ revealed in his word. Be confident in it. When I started studying for this night, it was about the time we started moving forward here with the radical experiment at Brook Hills.

And if I could be honest, a variety of weird things started happening. We found ourselves in the emergency room twice in one week due to some pretty unusual things. Heather got a pretty severe infection in her knee. I was sick, to be honest. I’ve been sick for the last month, and I don’t want to divulge information of others, but there were leaders around me who were facing a variety of different things as well that really seemed unexpected.

And I started, I’m diving into this literature and I’m thinking, “Man, I need to start binding and casting some things out. What’s going on here? What’s causing all this?” And I was wrestling, but this is where I landed in the middle of it all. Scripture doesn’t tell me that I need to discern where this is coming from or why this or that is happening. And I don’t know if Satan is behind this or that or not, but I do know this, not one of the details that has happened to me or anyone else around me over the last few months is outside of the purview of the sovereignty of God.

Trust In God

And my responsibility is not to cast things out, bind things from this or that place, or call down this or that spirit. My job is to get on my face, get in his word and walk humbly and obediently with God. Trust him when I go to the ER. Trust him when I’m sick. Trust him when the unexplainable happens, and let all these things draw me closer and closer to him, and this is where the battle of spiritual warfare is fought. I’ve come to a conclusion that determining whether or not it’s a demon in the toaster or simply a loose wire is far less important than how I deal with the toaster. Determining what’s going on is far less important than how I deal with it.