Part Two of Today’s Gospel vs. The Gospel in Acts casts a vision of Christianity that operates with dominion – one that’s based on and rooted in the resurrection of Christ. Many modern-day Christians experience fear as it relates to death and, separately, demons.
- How do we grasp a life where death has lost its sting?
- How did the early Christians demonstrate their victory over Satan?
- Did those in the New Testament age question the reality of the demonic like much of Western culture today?
Additional Resources
Resurrection Faith – Full Series Audio
Our Identification with Christ – Full Series Audio
Mentioned in this Episode
Full Transcript
Alright, moving right along Acts chapter four, verse two. And it’s talking about the priests and the captains of the temple, it says “They were being greatly disturbed, that they taught the people and preached in Jesus, the resurrection from the dead.” Now notice how that’s phrased, they preached in Jesus, the resurrection of the dead. In other words, there was resurrection available for humanity, because Jesus was the firstborn of many brethren. You see, they’re talking about the new order that’s established in the resurrection of Christ.
And then in in verse 10, “Let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him, this man stands here before you whole.” Again, preaching the resurrection. Verse 33, “And with great power, the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” Now, you know, I’m really underscoring the resurrection side of this. I don’t want to give you the impression I think they didn’t preach that Christ died for our sins. But they certainly didn’t emphasize that the way we do today. And they certainly emphasize the resurrection powerfully. And that’s really my point, I want us to see that Christianity is about the defeat of death.
You see, man was a slave to death in the fear of death, we’re gonna look at some scriptures that talk about that. And, you know, for us, as believers, we should be free from the fear of death, death should lose its sting. It’s fun to read some of the testimonies of the death of some of the great believers, as they went home to be with the Lord, how they were just bathed in the peace of heaven and the love of God, and they died with a glorious smile on their face. I mean, it’s really a testimony to death’s defeat. Death, where is your sting? You see. And so with great power they gave witness to the resurrection.
And then look in Acts, chapter five, verse 29, and 30. “And then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him, God has exalted to His right hand, to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.” So here we see them mentioning forgiveness of sins, in the context of his enthroning.
It’s an interesting thing to think about. I remember there was a debate some years ago, and one of the guys on the radio was really angry that some were suggesting that Jesus continued to suffer after his death on the cross. And their proof text for that was, on the cross, Jesus said, It is finished. And they say, so the atonement was accomplished when Jesus said, It is finished. The book of Hebrews says that Christ entered into heaven with His own blood and presented his blood in the heavenly Holy of Holies, cleansing the heavenly sanctuary. Well, he certainly didn’t go up to heaven before he went to the cross. You see, it was after his resurrection that he brought his blood into heaven, and sat down at his Father’s right hand. And if he wasn’t at the right hand of God, as our mediator and our High Priest, no one could be saved.
As important as his death on the cross was, his resurrection was The culmination of His atoning work whereby he took his shed blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies, Hebrews said, cleansed the heavenly sanctuary, and sat down at the Father’s right hand and became for us the mediator of the New Covenant. And so we need to shift our understanding of Christ’s finished work from the cross to the throne. And in no way are we making light of the importance and the powerful love demonstrated at the cross. But we’re just trying to bring the New Testament focus back into light. Because as you can see now, as we’ve just looked at from a few of these verses, that the resurrection and giving witness to the resurrection was the main theme of the early church.
And then in Acts chapter 10 verse 39, again, this is Peter, And he says, “And we are witnesses of all things, which he did, both in the land of the Jews in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree, him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly.” And it would appear that every time they were challenged about what they preached, they testified to the fact that the Jews crucified him, but God raised Him up from the dead. They seem to emphasize on a regular basis that he was enthroned as a prince, ruler, Lord and Christ. We think of Christ sometimes, like it was Jesus’ last name, but Christ is actually a title. It means God’s anointed deliver.
And it’s an interesting thing. We don’t realize this, but what Peter said on the day of Pentecost was by the resurrecting and enthroning of Jesus, He made him, catch the word now, he made him, both Lord, and Christ. In other words, he wasn’t in the fullness of his office as the Christ until he sat down at the Father’s right hand. That was when the fullness of anointing came upon him. Hebrews one says, that he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his brethren. And it certainly was above his brethren. But then he poured it out on the day of Pentecost on his brethren that were waiting in the upper room, and all the sistern to.
So God raised Him up on the third day. Well, as I’ve been saying, His resurrection was the defeat of Satan. And I, just as I’ve even been studying this again, today, it’s just gripping me how unclear this is to many in the church. We have authority over demonic forces, and they’re just fearful that we might find it out.
How many ever heard of Lester Sumrall? You ever heard of Lester? Lester was an old time Pentecostal man that traveled with oh, a British Pentecostal leader. I can’t think of his name right now. But anyway, he was a missionary in the Philippines for some years. And he had a major confrontation with a demonized young lady that she killed a number of people that tried to help her and I mean just, she was highly demon possessed. In fact, they figured out later that it was the ruling spirit in the territory had indwelt her well. Well, when Lester Sumrall was was successful in casting that spirit out of her, it broke revival out in the whole Philippines where he was ministering and there was a great revival, because the heavenly principalities were shaken by the fact that this spirit was overcome and cast out of her.
Well, he later went to China. And by that time, he’d become very established in his authority as a believer, and he was laying in the bed, and demonic forces moved his bed across the room. Now the average believer would go into terror at that thought that demonic spirits had just moved his bed across the room. Lester sat up and said, “Put it back.” And the bed came back across the room. I like that.
But here’s somebody who knows their authority. And there are many other great stories of that kind of dominion. I have a book by the Chinese Christian Watchman Nee, in which he tells about some of his female workers who really like to cast out demons, and they would command the demons to come out, and sometimes the demons would resist. And he said their tactic was quite simple. They would just start reminding the demons, when Jesus rose again from the dead and put to an open shame their head and their master, and how they were all humiliated in the realm of the spirit. And they would say, “Don’t you remember? Can’t you remember when Jesus did that to Satan?” And they would just torment these spirits and finally they’d come screaming out because they couldn’t stand to be humiliated by the fact of Jesus’s resurrection. Well, I say more of that, in the church. More of that kind of a revelation of our authority, and dominion, and fearlessness in the face of spiritual wickedness.
When John G. Lake went to Africa, he started interacting with the ministers there. And he heard about some of the witch doctors, and all of the ministers were afraid of the witch doctors. And they were warning him about them, and he said, “Well, I hope they come to my meetings.” And he would challenge them openly in the meetings and say, “Well, if you got some power, show me.” And of course, they couldn’t do anything because of the anointing that was present. And he would cast the demons out of them, and many of them became followers of Christ.
He told the story of one time he was ministering to a woman who she’d allowed herself to be hypnotized, to try to get some help for her physical problems. And Lake discerned that the man who had hypnotized her was in the audience, and he looked down at the man and said, “You’ll never hypnotize anybody again. In the name of Jesus come out of him.” And the man fell out, and the spirit left him and he never hypnotized anybody again, and as Lake put it, he had to go make an honest living from then on.
But you see, we’ve got to get in our hearts, the vision of Christianity with dominion, that’s based and rooted in the resurrection of Christ. because the early church demonstrated their victory over Satan. They cast out demons. they healed the sick. They were not intimidated by all of the practitioners of evil arts. And there were many of them, and they were rampant in the early days of the church. But the the evidence of the power of Christianity was that in those confrontations, like Peter confronting Simon the sorcerer, and and Paul confronting the sorcerer that was influencing the leader. I mean, he said, “You foul, son of unrighteousness, you will be blind for a season.” And they carried him away. He was blind. Temporarily struck blind because he challenged the gospel.
And I think we have to get, you know, Jesus, meek and mild is fine, if you’re dealing in compassion with people that ant help. But when you’re dealing with the forces of darkness and demonized people, that’s not the time to be Jesus, meek and mild. That’s a time to be Jesus, cast out demons and bind the strong man’s house and plunder his goods.
I was ministering one time in another country, and, you know, I had no intention of doing what I did, but I was operating in a word of knowledge, and I had called out a number of things, and people were responding and I was praying for them and they were getting healed. And all of a sudden, I knew by the spirit that there was somebody in the audience mocking what I was doing. And without even giving it, I did not premeditate this at all. But I said, “There’s somebody here mocking me. The hand of the Lord is on you. You will not be able to breathe until you repent.” And then I stopped and waited. And when I knew that he repented, I said, “All right, don’t do that, again.” I had no intention of doing anything like this. And, you know, I mean, it really scared people in that service. But it was the fear of God. You know, and we need that kind of fear, we need to realize who it is we’re walking with, and how much power and authority He has, and what Dominion He has over the enemy, and what Dominion we have over the enemy.
Well, His resurrection was the defeat of Satan. I have on the back of your outline from from the English Standard Version, Colossians 2:8-15. And I have bolded all the in Hims and with Hims in Christ speaks of our union with Christ, and with Him speaks of our identification. Our union as well, but our participation in his finished work here. But notice, it says “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ. Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”
Now, when I taught some months back on Identification with Christ, this was one of our key verses, buried with him in baptism, and raised with Him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. “And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him. having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands,” which is the law, “This he set aside nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities, and put them to an open shame, triumphing over them in him.”
Now, something that we need to understand is that the reason the laws’ legal demands gave place to the enemy is because we couldn’t keep the law. Therefore, Satan could torment us and condemn us for our every failure, and hold us in shame and fear and bondage and condemnation, because the law stood out there as this standard that said, “If you can’t keep me you’re condemned.” And so Christ nailed the law, to his cross, so that we could live by faith in His finished work and not try to live up to a standard outwardly for right standing, but rather be justified by faith.
Now, we do want to be conformed to His image and learn to walk in the Spirit, and not fulfill the desires of the flesh, but God has allowed us the grace that covers us, and provides for us as we’re growing up. He ever lives to intercede for us. He’s our High Priest. He’s the surety of the New Covenant. He’s our Advocate with the Father. All of these things are to enable us to stand free from condemnation and guilt while we grow up into the image of Christ. Because if every sin you ever committed after you were saved was still held against you, you’d still just be wrestling with condemnation all the time, and many believers still do.
But the reality is, the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin, and we can appropriate and walk in that blood day by day. I like one of the passages in Jeremiah. It says that the mercies of the Lord are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness. And the Bible says to come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy. Well, if His mercies are new every morning and I’m to come boldly to the throne of grace, all I’ve got to do is come boldly to the throne of grace every morning. And I’m gonna receive the mercy that I need and the grace, I need to help me.
So the reason I chose the ESV to put in the notes, was most of our translations say that the last line, they say triumphing over them in it, or in the cross. But the Greek there is just the same phrase translated in Him in all the passages above. And, the difficulty is, you know, he’s talking here about being made alive together with Him. Well, that’s talking about His resurrection, you see, but so many believers, or so many theologians want to tell us that He stripped off the principalities and powers while he was on the cross. Well, that doesn’t even make sense. He died on the cross, and went under the dominion of death, which was the realm of Satan’s authority, so how could it be a victory of Him on the cross? He can’t have victory till he’s paid for our sins and been raised from the dead. You see?
God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. That has to do with His resurrection. You see? That’s when he put off the principalities and the powers and made a show of them openly. You see, as long as he was separated from his body, he was still under the dominion of death. Sometimes, people don’t realize that. In Acts 2, it says that death could not hold him. It says he delivered him from the pains of death. Well, he wasn’t raised from the dead till the third day, right? Well, what kind of pains did he have, that he was raised from? I mean, his physical pains ended on the cross, three days earlier. But he was raised from the pains of death, where He bore our sins, and then he rose again from the dead. Romans 6:4 says, “We were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the Father, even so we also might walk in newness of life.”
So, Jesus soul was left in Hades until such a time as the price was fully paid for the total, total payment for our sins. And then the glory of the Father raised Him up out of death, and all of us in Him, paid the full price for all of humanity, but only those of us who receive Christ are participators in that victory, so far. But it’s available to whosoever will.
Alright, Hebrews 2:14. I have here from Rotherham’s translation, because it has a great little phrase in it, “Seeing therefore the children have received a fellowship of blood and flesh, he also in like manner, took partnership in the same in order that through death, he might paralyze him that held the dominion of death, that is the adversary, and might release these as many as by fear of death where all their lifetime liable to bondage.
The great fear of death is the tormentor of humanity. And believers with unrenewed minds are tormented for fear of death. But Father would have us come to a place where death is lost its intimidation. You read about these Chinese Christians who face death all the time. They learn to live free from the fear of death. And if we face that kind of persecution, we’d learn to live free of the fear of death as well. But as I was saying earlier, we should become free from the fear of death. Satan should not be able to intimidate us with the power of death.
We have a covenant with God, and God says that with long life he will satisfy us and show us his salvation. So we ought to be claiming the full years of our life and living to do the will of God, to fulfill our calling and destiny in life.
But the reason I chose Rotheram’s translation is because he says two things that are quite striking. He says “That he might paralyze him that held the dominion of death.” Paralyze. The Greek word means to render inoperative. And paralyzed is a great translation. And, notice that it says he might paralyze him that held the dominion of death. The Greek word there for dominion is a Greek word kratos, that’s never used of anybody but God, except this one time. He had the dominion of death. But here’s the good news, he doesn’t have the dominion of death anymore.
Satan can’t take a believer when he wants to. Because God has the final say in our life because the dominion of death has been broken. I think it’s sad and tragic, how many believers Satan is able to take out early, because the church has not preached the full gospel, and encouraged people to stand up against. You see what happens when you have an overemphasis on God’s sovereignty, is when tragedy comes, you’re exhorted then to passively accept God’s sovereign will for your life. And not to resist the evil. And so Satan steals, kills and destroys many because they don’t ever resist Him, because they don’t know they have the authority, nor do they understand that they have a responsibility to resist evil.
In Revelation 1:18, Jesus says, “I am he who was dead. But I’m now alive, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” So Jesus took away the keys. Satan no longer has the authority over death, nor the authority over Hades. He cannot kill and send people to Hades as he wills. Jesus now has the keys.
In closing, let’s look at First Peter chapter 3. Peter, later in life, you know, we looked at him preaching in the early part of the book of Acts, but some years later, he writes, in First Peter 3:21 he says, “There’s also antitype which now saves us, namely baptism, not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven, and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to him. Angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to him.
So this was such a common theme in the early church. And so often, it’s related to this whole concept of overcoming evil spirits and dark forces. It’s just not as fashionable to believe in those things today, as it was in the early church, and, of course, as those of us who have come into the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and, you know, for myself, it was an interesting thing. Before I was saved, I was involved in the drug culture, the hippie culture. And there was a lot of occultism in the drug culture, many witches, warlocks, weegee boards, all kinds of supernatural stuff went on and I was in gatherings where there were demonized people manifesting demons. And it gave me the shivers. Of course, I had no authority and no understanding of it at all. I was just terrified by it.
So when I got saved, I didn’t have to have somebody to convince me that demon forces were real, and these things were actual. I knew it. In fact, if you ever hear my testimony of how I came into deliverance ministry, demonized people used to seek me out and try to torment me after I was saved, until I discovered my authority. And then they wanted to go the other way. But, the reality of it did not have, I did not have to be persuaded of the reality of demonic things because I’d experienced them as an unbeliever and knew their reality. And so my worldview was more like the New Testament worldview than the average middle class American who never encounters any kind of demonic thing. But as I say, as we come into the charismatic experience, we begin to realize these things are real, and we encounter them and it becomes just an accepted fact of reality.
We can see how the early church fought about these. This was part of their cultural understanding. This was not some strange thing that they got, they learned about at church. These were things that were part of everyday life that they now had an answer for. And they could offer that answer to the multitudes of people around them who were bound in fear of demonic forces. You see, nobody questioned the reality of the demonic. They just had various methods of trying to appease these spirits. In fact, you know, we read about the putting to death of martyrs in the arena. In many cases, those martyrs were offerings to demonic forces to appease them. That was part of the mentality behind that.
You know, there were obviously those who didn’t really go along with all of the religious aspects of it. But almost everybody in those cultures believed in the demonic, and was trying in some way or another, to stay out of trouble with that realm of spirits. So when the gospel broke in and said, our Savior, and our Lord is Lord of all of those forces, and if they’re tormenting you, let me pray for you, you will be delivered because my Lord is Savior and king. And he rules in the spirit realm, and we use his name and demonstrate his authority. Well, you can understand how the early church turned upside down the culture they were in by demonstration of the power of the resurrection. So it’s exciting, good news. Amen.
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