5. THE NEED TO DEFINE THE RELATIONSHIP
The next thing that happens is that there is a sense of a “Need To Define The Relationship.” A need to describe it! And maybe you will begin to articulate it, maybe to that person, but maybe not. But in any case, the question will be asked:“WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO MEAN TO EACH OTHER?”
Maybe you haven’t spoken those words to that person yet. But you are starting to ask it in your mind. You know, one of the great defenses that this disaster never happened is that the check of the Holy Spirit at this point forbids you from ever, ever, ever speaking those words – what are we supposed to mean to each other? NEVER SPEAK THOSE WORDS. Why? Because:
“WORDS BECOME BINDING VOWS.”
And at the very least, words are the first expression of a commitment. Wasn’t it Guinevere that said to Sir Lancelot:
“NOW THAT THE WORDS HAVE BEEN SPOKEN, IT’S NOT EASIER
LIKE WE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE, BUT IT IS TWICE AS HARD.”
It’s worse, the words having been spoken.
[Listen now, sin’s seduction is growing stronger through all of the former stages of the
seducing spirit’s strategies, what with the disguised trysts at lunchtime and the water cooler at work etc. Not always easy to pull off, as it is becoming apparent that some fellow workers are starting to look. It becomes at times like a NASA space mission – ever shifting atmospheric conditions must line up just right to afford those fleeting windows of opportunity.
And then the “Seducees” start defining their totally illegitimate relationship in terms of marriage etc. At that point it is as if they become possessed with a legion of demons. I too have seen it more than once, that then the seduced and adulterous spouses cannot be restrained by a team of horses, and they become Hell bent for leather. I have seen that unmistakable, damnable zoned look on their faces.
They now must keep their implied promises to the third party, even though it means breaking their marriage vows to their marriage partners. Plus, on top of that they often have already had intercourse with the third party by this time, and as a result they have become “one” – in the sense of the principle contained in I Corinthians 6:16,
“Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot
is one body with her? For He says, “The two will
become one flesh.”
Woe and whoa! We are allowing Satan to wrap us up in his bonds and ties by our own sinful definition and sexual intercourse. The devil in either case is already officiating at an adulterous marriage complete with vows. Incredibly strong stuff!Banks are robbed by armed badmen. Marriages are robbed by evil secuding spirits.And then on top of it, defining words become the strong, supporting actors in Satan’s drama, as he massages those defining words into our heads.]
You see, if defining words are spoken, that’s your spirit in sound form. And, they will be LITTLE WORDS, or maybe seemingly innocuous words. And again, not with a deliberate attempt toward evil that lurks behind it. But words like:
“YOU SEEM LIKE MORE THAN A CHRISTIAN BROTHER TO ME. I
JUST CAN’T DESCRIBE TO YOU THE WAY I FEEL, THE
RESPECT I HAVE FOR YOU.”
Or again:
“
YOU SEEM SO MUCH MORE THAN JUST, YOU KNOW, MY
FELLOWSHIP GROUP LEADER, OR MY DEACON, OR
MY ELDER, OR MY PASTOR, OR MY SECRETARY,
OR MY BOSS
.”
And with these words we reach out. [Coupled with the whining criticisms of the wife or husband which lend to the disavowing of the true marriage vows. Both the words of defining the adulterous relationship and the words of critcism of the true spouses strengthen the deception as we slurp off the deceptive cream from the top of the ongoing affair.]
And when we say those defining words, they are bonding words to evil. They give place literally to demon spirits of division and disunity in the marriage that will worm their way deeper and deeper. And the only way you can expel their influence is by disannulling their power by the spiritual force of confession to God, and disavowing their power.
Do you see the subtlety here? And, given the idea that either or both of them have some tension in their marriage, and then it’s all the more ensnaring. And, by the way, the tension in marriages is so common today that it’s almost a predictable thing, better than half the odds. But, don’t be fooled, because you may have a very strong marriage, I’ve seen it happen a number of times, when the marriage was strong for all intents and purposes. Deception doesn’t bother to discriminate. It will prey on anyone.
6.THE DOUBLE LOVE DECEPTION
More than once I’ve been asked the question:
“PASTOR, I DON’T UNDERSTAND MYSELF. IS IT POSSIBLE FOR
ME TO ACTUALLY BE IN LOVE WITH 2 DIFFERENT PEOPLE?”
And the justification behind it is, “Well, you know, really, we’re called to live a life of love, so it must be.” But the answer is NO, IT ISN’T POSSIBLE, not the kind of love you’re talking about. We weren’t constructed that way. But part of the strategy of deception is to create this prideful illusion that somehow there might come some special point of refined development in your life, where this special enlargement of love happens to you, where you have this special capacity [to love two men or women]. And you have this unique potential. Not true! It doesn’t exist!
[Listen now. When it comes to true love, a husband cannot love his wife and his mistress any more than the Bride of Christ can love God and mammon. Jesus put it this way in Luke 16:13,
“No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the
one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and
despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Allow me to quote from my newest book Modern Christianity Corrupted on pages 138-139, “Come now! Are His words of exclusivity really that much of a shock to us? If they are, it is most likely the case that we are trying to love and serve both God and mammon at the same time. I love my wife Ruthie with all that is in me. She has captured my heart, and there is nothing left in me to be able to love another woman at the same time. That is an impossible state of affairs! It is no different with God, but even more so. He wants no competition in our lives from other lovers (gods), and He is very jealous over us.
But more than that, He knows that a divided heart is an impure heart, and that the river of love that flows between God and ourselves will be contaminated with raw sewage and unprocessed garbage if we allow other affairs to be dumped into the flow. No species of fish can live long in a polluted stream. They will eventually die. So to a poisoned river of competing loves will infect and kill the relationship we have with Jesus. It will kill true Christianity in our lives. It is inevitable!
More pointedly, when we attempt this dualism, it will result in LOVING ONE and HATING THE OTHER. That shouldn’t shock us either. How often I have seen that very thing, when the husband supposedly falls in love outside of the marriage covenant, he leaves his wife for another woman, and ends up divorcing and hating his wife in the end. Especially when it gets into the courts! Hell on earth!”]
7. THE SPIRIT OF MURDER
Finally and conclusively, when the axe has fallen, and not even to the point of consummating some immorality with adultery or fornication. I’m talking about the things that lure the soul now. I’m not even preaching about the immoral act itself. Chances are I don’t need to convince anybody in this room that the act of fornication or adultery is SIN. I doubt that there is a single person in this whole room that needs to be convinced of that.
But what you need to be convinced of is the deception that works its way in that will rip your home to shreds – the household of your marriage, the household of your life, the household of your faith. We are talking about the things that eat their way in and deceive. The house has been broken through.
And there comes finally this thought:
“I WONDER IF….NO, I DON’T WANT TO THINK THAT. THIS REALLY
ISN’T A RIGHT THOUGHT FOR ME TO THINK.”
But resist as you might, it forces its way in:
“I WONDER IF MAYBE, REALLY, GOD IS IN THIS!? IT’S JUST SO
REMARKABLE, I MEAN, THE AFFINITY THAT WE HAVE AND
ALL THE REST OF IT.”
And:
“I WONDER IF REALLY, IF SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO
MY SPOUSE, AND GOD IS REALLY PREPARING THE PERSON
THAT’S GOING TO BE FOR ME AFTERWARDS (AFTER
THE SPOUSE’S DEATH).
That isn’t FAR FETECHED, church. I cannot tell you how many times those very words have been spoken in justification for what has happened when a person has come to this level. When finally they are deceived! And it may not be this way, but it will be some other expression of deception like that.
And by the way, I want to unveil, uncloak that particular deception. The idea that, “Well, perhaps God is really preparing this individual for me, because:
‘MY SPOUSE IS GOING TO DIE.’”
Do you know what the spirit is behind that lurking though really is?-
“IT IS THE SPIRIT OF MURDER.”
And immediately somebody says, “Well, that’s so ridiculous. I mean, you know, I’ve thought something like that, but I’d never think of murder.” No, you wouldn’t. And you wouldn’t fornicate either, would you? But the thought ultimately behind that elimination of the spouse, and the projection to another, is a more hideous and devastating spirit whose ends and devices are beyond even your imagination. The heart is so deceitfully wicked. The Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9,
“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick;
who can understand it?”
You cannot know the end of a deceived heart.
And while you may be confident that you would never think of taking their life, you would be willing to think:
“PERHAPS GOD WILL, IN FACT, MAYBE IF I PRAY REAL HARD.”
What’s the difference in praying to God to be your hit man, and praying someone else to be your hit man? Fact:
“THE SAME SPIRIT IS BEHIND BOTH.”
[Tying this in with all that has been said before about hatred, divorce and the courts in the light of loving the one and hating the other, we would be remiss if we didn’t remind ourselves of the words of God in I John 3:15,
“Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer….”
Why are hate and murder so closely linked? Simply because hatred is so vile and intense that its nature is to pursue its object of hatred to death, if not in the act of murder, then for certain in the hateful thoughts, imagination and wishes. God calls that hateful-thought pattern murder, even as lusting after a woman in the heart is adultery.]
8. RENUNCIATION AND REENTANGLEMENT
And some of you in this room, the only reason you have not fallen is because you so detest what you have been feeling in yourself. And maybe you just lay prone on your face before God and groan in anguish and pain.
And yet you go back to your place of work or wherever, have that association with that other person, and find yourself right back in the same deception. And you say, “WHY, when I go back to the office the next day, or in contact with that other person the next time, WHY is it that IT DOESN’T JUST STOP?” I’ve been trying to tell you:
“IT IS A DECEPTION.”
And all those things were working inside you:
-The need for AFFIRMATION.
-The INSECURITY.
-The RELIGIOUS OVERTONES that there must be something of God in this.
-Trying to FIGURE IT OUT.
-Not to mention THE ENJOYING PART OF IT.
All of those things at work:
“A WOVEN TAPESTRY OF DECEPTION.”
Do you know what there needs to be in your life? If you’ve been living in this track of deception, ANYWHERE along the way, there must be:
“A TOTAL RENUNCIATION OF THAT PATTERN,”
And when I say a total renunciation, I mean that it must be broken once and for all. There is no recourse.
You see, there may be some of you here this morning that know everything that I have said. You know the pattern. It’s been revealed to you. And in fact, you have renounced it. And yet you are struggling again and in the same problem, and here is the reason why.
You see, many times I’ve ministered to people and there was a clear exposure of it. There was a repentance and a renunciation of it. Then they did exactly what I told them not to do:
“THEY WENT BACK TO THAT PERSON.”
In fact, I’ve seen it happen within AN HOUR after I’d ministered to them, and after there was a complete deliverance and breakthrough, I’ve seen them go later that day back to that person:
“TO COMFORT THEM.”
In trying the:
“BREAK THINGS OFF IN A HEALTHY WAY,”
and they come clean to the other person and say:
“I’VE JUST GOT TO TELL YOU THAT, YOU KNOW, WE’RE GOING TO
BREAK THIS THING OFF. IT HAS BEEN A ROTTEN THING
AND THE LORD HAS SHOWN ME THAT I HAVE
TO RENOUNCE IT AND REPENT.”
And then the other person becomes concerned or upset. And then the repentant person begins to try to comfort and explain. And within minutes become re-entangled in the same soul tie that had been broken. And I have said, “Why in heaven’s name haven’t you listened to me?” And in the last few years, I’ve been praying for people that not only the deception of the relationship itself would be broken, but the deception about how the relationship is re-entangled would be exposed and broken.
I’m not talking being brutal and unkind. But it has to be brutal in the sense that something was conceived in disobedience must die. Something conceived by the spirits of darkness cannot just sort of taper off. It has to be put to death on the cross. That’s where it’s got to go. Do you hear me?
[What we are talking about here is the returning to and the repetitious commission of the same sin. Perhaps an analogy is in order here. Some people in their commission of sin remind me of FLIES. Yes, you got it, FLIES. Flies are desperate and bold little buggers, and it shows over and over and over again. I mean, drive them off from a place of garbage or even food that is not theirs, dad blame it, they will for sure be back again. The pesky rascals also have, like humans, pleasure and satisfaction from all of the delights of sensuality over someone else’s piece of meat.
With the quick brush of our arms and hands, we may discourage them for a second or two, but we have learned that all of them are AGRIPPAS – almost thou persuadest me, but not quite. If they do seem to leave the seen of the crime, they always apostatize. Like so many sinners, they have no God but their belly, and no religion but their sensuality.
You know what really has to be done, don’t you. That fly, the unwelcome intruder in your house, will continue to buzz the scene unless you either hide the food or kill him. Of course, if you hide the food you cannot eat it, and the only way to finally solve the problem is extermination. And admit it, by the time you do that, you’re anger has taken over and enough is enough. Bam!
This brings up a critically important point! We read about God in Psalm 104:9,
“He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep
His anger forever.”
Even God Who is infinite love and patience has His breaking point. The seduced spouse for a moment came out of deception into reality, repented of gross sin and promised never to return to the scene of the crime. But like the fly, he ventures the loss of God’s favor, and risks God’s pardoning mercy will hold out as he abuses it again. God will not always strive, nor will he hold back His anger interminably. Lesson over! Time is up! Bam!]
9. SHAMELESSNESS AND DISSOLUTION
Now it comes to the place where finally it is just out in the open. And the relational compromise has now taken place. This is where now it doesn’t matter that people know that I am going with this other person, or that I am living with this other woman. Or, it doesn’t matter that my spouse now knows about it.
I could talk about this in relationship to other things too, but the marriage relationship is such a clear illustration. I could tell you how this happens in terms of people losing out with God, and beginning to drift from the church. And now they don’t really care that people realize that they are no longer committed to the body, or that they are back in the world, with old friends from the world, doing the things of the world.
The point is that there were steps along the way. The house didn’t just collapse one day. There was a gradual eating through. And there comes the point of no return, the point of shamelessness and final dissolution of the marriage. The heart of deception finally grows cold toward God, spouse and family.
[We now close with the Word of God found in the book of Hebrews. First of all, Hebrews 6:4-8,
“For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have
tasted of the heavenly gift and have been make partakers of
the Holy Spirit,”
“and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of
the age to come,”
“and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them to
repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son
of God, and put Him to open shame.”
“For ground that drinks the rain which often falls upon it and brings
forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled,
receives a blessing from God;”
“but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being
cursed, and it ends up being burned.”
Then Hebrews 10:26,27-
“For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the
truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,”
“but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire
which will consume the adversaries.”
Finally Hebrews 13:4,
“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed
be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”]
Amen!
