A Demonic Force

God revealed to me the calling to the ministry the moment I was converted. Before that time I had admired the work of preachers, but never imagined that I would become one, because I did not think that I would be worthy or good enough. But God is worthy, and God is good enough. He is the one who anoints us with his Spirit and makes us competent to speak for him. From the moment I was born again and became totally transformed in my spirit, I never doubted that God created me to be a preacher for the gospel of Jesus Christ. The calling of God became my identity. I experienced success immediately when I first started in the ministry of preaching and healing. My performance was strong and improving. Almost all the listeners had been Christians longer than I had been alive, but God gave me favor with them, and I gained their respect. Moreover, although I had never seen miracles of healing until that time, God honored his promises and performed his wonders by my words and my hands. All the regular attendees were healed within a short time and we had to launch out beyond the group to visit the sick.

No one in the group opposed me. After I made my case from the Scriptures for a ministry of faith and miracles, and after witnessing some startling demonstrations, the people were willing to listen with interest. However, Satan attacked me. For the first several weeks, each time I returned home I would be shrouded with a heavy oppression. I was familiar with spiritual attacks. At this time I had not attained the level of peace that I possessed since then. I was gaining strength day by day, but I was a new believer, and I was still battling the depression and other spiritual and mental infirmities that carried over from before I was born again. I was well on my way out, but at that time I was not completely free. Then this immense sense of oppression was added on top of other things that I was confronting in my life.

A distinct feature of this spiritual attack was a pressure — like a cloud surrounding me and pressing in — that attempted to make me lose a sense of reality regarding those hours of preaching and healing. This did not come in the form of an argument. There were no thoughts and no words. It was a forceful attempt to wipe out those hours and those events from my sense of reality. The memory would not feel real. Of course I was there in those services. I was the preacher. I saw the people and heard their responses. I was the one laying hands on the sick. I stretched out my hands and touched the people. I spoke to the diseases, and commanded them to depart. Miracles happened before our very eyes. I interviewed the people so that they could offer detailed and reliable testimonies about what happened to them. Some of them described what they felt was happening in their bodies as the power of God was healing them. I had the sermons, the miracles, and the testimonies on recording. All of this did not matter. Empirical evidence is powerless against a spiritual attack.

I had never believed in the reliability of sensations or empirical evidences. People think that I learned this from some Christian philosopher, but perhaps they consider this so unusual that they can only attach it to someone they know in their small circle of thinkers that takes a position they consider similar. I more or less thought this way many years before I was born again. When I first read the Bible as a child, I saw that God would exploit what people can see and hear to deceive his enemies in battle. I also saw that when God spoke from heaven to endorse Jesus, some people thought that it merely thundered. My earliest memory of this was when I was about seven years old. This kind of thinking was reinforced when I learned about biblical healing, also around that age. This is the viewpoint that we must take the word of God as the truth, and interpret or even change our reality by faith. For example, the Bible says that even though Abraham was aware that he was too old to have a son, he did not become weak in faith, but he believed the promise of God so that he might become the father of nations. This kind of thinking became a positive foundation for my system of thought, because I did not only reject sensation and induction as reliable methods of discovery, but I also understood that the word of God is the truth by which I understand and interpret all other things.

Admittedly, at that time I did not have the vocabulary to put all of this in philosophical terms. I would learn that later. I also learned that when talking to Christians who consider themselves educated in religious matters, they cannot process information unless you use words that they invented to discuss those issues as academic topics. Using the accepted terms and phrases and categories would reduce the friction in conveying ideas. Nevertheless, I still do not speak in terms of theology and philosophy unless addressing a wider public audience that might include those who find it difficult to function without an abundance of man-made terms. I would arrive at knowledge from the word of God and certainty from the promise of Christ, but I did not call the process deduction or rational, and I did not call anything a first principle, an axiom, or the system of belief a worldview, and a whole dictionary of much more technical terms and phrases. It was just faith in the word of God. And when you believe and obey the word of God, miracles happen. It is still just faith in the word of God. And when you believe and obey the word of God, miracles still happen.

So as soon as I started being aware of these issues, and almost as soon as I started thinking at all, I had believed in a similar way as I do now. Naturally, my thinking as an infant was not nearly as complete and precise, but in generalities they were the same, because I saw what the Bible says about these things. The difference was that I could be aware of these things only as information. I was not born again, and I did not have the spiritual ability to put them into practice. As far as an unregenerate person could, I knew that the Bible was the truth. In fact, I even had a conscious awareness of an innate knowledge of God. I knew that there was a God, that he was the only God, that he had created all things. I also knew that mankind had sinned. I even knew that God had provided a savior, although I did not know the name of this savior, and I did not know that he had achieved salvation by means of sacrifice, death and resurrection. My earliest memory of knowing these things was when I was three years old, and as far as I could recall, that was before I heard about God or the Christian faith from anyone. Certainly nobody spoke to me about these things in such detail. I did not learn these things by sensation or human communication. Of course, as Paul indicated in his letter to the Romans, such innate knowledge is universal. Some people might be more conscious of it than others, and some might be conscious of more details than others. But the knowledge of God is universal. It is sufficient to condemn, but not sufficient to save. Indeed, for many years and in many ways, I sinned against what I knew, until I was born again.

All the essentials of my current philosophy that people insist I learned from some philosopher, I knew between the age of three to seven. After that I would encounter much Christian teachings on these things – though never philosophy, but faith and healing. Still, I knew these things as information. I did not have the faith that comes only from God, and that would unite me to Jesus Christ, the faith that would open up all the blessings, possibilities, and powers that are in him. I knew one could receive the promises of God by faith, and walk in a reality that is contrary to present circumstances. But I did not have this faith yet. I knew about the ministry of healing since I was a child, that a person who has faith can heal the sick and cast out demons in the name of Jesus, but I could not have such a ministry until I was born again. Once I was born again and then received the Holy Spirit, I could begin right away. This has been a digression, but I wish to add this to my comment that empirical evidence is ineffective against a spiritual attack.

Satan wanted me to feel that none of it happened. I do not mean only the miracles. He wanted me to feel that none of it was real, that I did not preach, that I did not heal the sick, that no one was there, that even I was not there. He wanted to derail my ministry at its inception. You can say that such an attack did not make sense, but it did not have to. He was not trying to take away my sense of reality by empirical evidence or by an intellectual argument. He was trying to do it by raw spiritual force. Too few Christians understand both kinds of attacks. Some of them think that spiritual attacks are only non-intellectual, and you must depart from the realm of reason in order to win. The others call this group mindless fanatics and assume that all attacks are intellectual. When an attack comes, argue it away with the Scriptures. Usually those who think they know a lot of theology, or even teach theology, are weak in spiritual power, such that the tiniest push makes them fall over. Then they write books on how it is not their fault that they live defeated lives, and that it is all the will of God. Of course, these people do not know theology as they ought, and they do not practice the theology of Jesus Christ — the theology of ultimate power, the theology of resurrection, the theology of the throne.

When your understanding about this is incomplete, or if you insist on closing your mind to a side of the issue that you do not wish to admit, then you remain vulnerable. All spiritual attacks are intelligible, in the sense that they can be understood and discussed. And in discussing them we might be more prepared to confront them. All attacks are intellectual at least in this sense. They can be defined and discussed by proper doctrines. But not all spiritual attacks are intellectual in the sense that you can argue them away. In some cases, arguments are either irrelevant, or you can win all the arguments you want and still lose the fight. This is because the enemy is not arguing with you at all.

Suppose I attack you and shove you to the ground. Everything about the event is intelligible. We can have an intellectual discussion about it. We can debate all aspects about it, such as the reason for the attack, the physics of the event, and the moral issues related to it. It is not a mystical occurrence. However, I have not attacked you with an argument, and you cannot defend yourself with an argument. There is no intellectual content in the attack itself. If there is any argument at all, you can win the argument, and still end up on the ground, defeated. The attack is physical. I attack you with physical force. You could defend yourself only with physical force. An intellectual understanding about physical force can help you leverage your physical abilities. But to meet the attack and overcome it, you must confront it with a stronger physical force.

In the same way, some spiritual attacks do not make sense, since there are no thoughts or arguments driving them, and what thoughts they pressure you to accept, often find no basis in your current circumstances or expectations, even contrary to what your situation should lead you to think. The attacks are either non-rational or anti-rational. However, they can feel extremely forceful. They can cause a person to lose all sense of reality, joy, or hope. An intellectual response will help. It will provide a solid foundation for the proper reaction. It will help you leverage what resources you have to defend yourself. But by itself it remains incomplete. Again, it is because the spiritual attack in fact carries no argument. It does not even attempt to claim the rational high ground. You can debate it, and if you can find any point to latch onto, you can even win the debate. But the attack will just shrug and push you off the cliff anyway. It is not trying to debate you. It never cared about the truth. Some attacks indeed come with thoughts and arguments, but it is intertwined with this same spiritual force, so that even if you win the argument, the outcome is the same. It shrugs and shoves you off the cliff.

When Saul was harassed by an evil spirit, David did not argue with the demon. He was anointed with the Spirit of God, and when he played music, there was spiritual power that compelled the spirit to leave by force. Jesus did not debate the demons. He did not explain to them that they were wrong in possessing their victims and making their lives miserable. If the demons did not already know this, they would have been happy to discover how evil they were. Jesus did not explain to them that he was the Son of God, and that these spirits should have been afraid of him. In fact, they already knew this, and cried out and persisted until he commanded them to come out of the people they occupied. He cast them out by force, or as he said, by the finger of God. As he explained, a strong man can guard a house, but then a stronger man comes and binds the first man and takes over the house. What about diseases? Jesus did not persuade them to leave. He would rebuke a fever, and the fever would leave. A storm attacked his boat. It could have at least killed the disciples, but not by an abundance of arguments. It did not come to debate them. Jesus rebuked the storm, and the storm ceased.

Consider the girl who had a spirit of divination. She followed Paul and his companions, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who declare to you the way of salvation.” This attack was indeed accompanied by words and thoughts. Did Paul respond with an intellectual counterattack? Did Paul debate her out of town? What could he have said? What was there to argue about? Was he supposed to say that they were not servants of God, or that his God was not the Most High, or that they did not come to tell them the way of salvation? Her statement was not false, and there was nothing to argue about. Yet it was a spiritual attack from a spirit of divination. How would your theology handle this? How will you do your apologetics when your enemies, including the demons, agree with you? My theology would tell me to cast out the demon, and my apologetics would know how to do it, and have prepared me with the spiritual power to make it happen. And this is what Paul did: “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” He overpowered the demon. He won. The spirit left the girl and she lost that spiritual power that drove her. When Jesus encountered people who were possessed with demons, sometimes the spirits would cry out, “What are you doing here, Son of the Most High God?” Jesus did not say, “Well, you see, I am here because…” or “No, I am not the Son of God.” What would your apologetics look like in this situation? The demons were rightly afraid, and they correctly said that he was the Son of God. Behold his “apologetics” — “Shut up and come out of him!” If you think apologetics is only about arguments, you do not know biblical apologetics. There must be arguments, but these arguments are intertwined with miracle power. If there is no power, you have a false apologetics, because there is no such thing as a biblical vindication of God without the participation of divine power.

The temptation of Jesus likely involved both intellectual argument and spiritual power. We should indeed assume that both things are involved in spiritual attacks, only that some attacks focus more on intellectual harassment and deception, while others turn up the spiritual force applied against the person that can be effective apart from any thoughts and arguments. The intellectual exchange between Jesus and Satan was elaborate. Jesus answered the devil with the Scriptures, and then the devil tried to distort a promise of God to trick Jesus, who then exposed the deception with another statement from the Scriptures. Nevertheless, do not forget that at the end of Matthew’s account of the incident, Jesus forcefully told Satan to leave. Then the Scriptures says, “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit.” It was not only a clash of theological wits or moral character, but also of spiritual power. Suppose you affirm, “Praise God! According to the Bible, the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” Then Satan whispers, “Yes, but you are not righteous.” And you counter, “God has made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. I am not righteous in myself, but my righteous is not considered. Jesus himself is my righteousness. God declared him righteous and raised him from the dead.” You are correct. You have won the intellectual argument. We must not undermine what you have achieved. However, unless you are strong in spirit, when under demonic pressure, you might not even manage to convince yourself. The victory is not complete, and genuine freedom eludes you. If you have ever been attacked this way, you should know what I mean. Then, some attacks are almost purely spiritual. It is as if someone punches you in the face and refuses to tell you why. There is no argument to win. The only way to win is to punch him back and knock him down.

Power. Power is what you need. Christian orthodoxy is accustomed to promote a culture of false humility and sacrifice, and insanely stupid suffering, and along with this, also a contempt for power in the spirit. If it talks about power at all, it is a power to endure, and not a power to overcome, to alter reality, to change suffering into prosperity and victory. This situation exists because the Church has lived under the deception of Satan. It is God’s power that overcomes the wicked one, and never man’s endless patience and senseless suffering. Power from heaven is what Satan fears. He is not nervous when Christians repeatedly – and heroically! – ram their heads into a wall of their own making. He laughs at their random sacrifice. He is the one who tricks them into it. He wants us to feel like we are spiritual and serving God when the truth is that we have been immobilized, exerting a lot of effort but all the time running madly in a small circle. Satan uses a theology of weakness to make Christians his pet hamsters. Almost all orthodox theology in church history has been infected with this theology of weakness. Almost all church heroes, both historic and modern, have been accomplices to it. Christians think they have started some kind of revolution when the only thing revolving for them is a hamster wheel. They exert so much effort, only to kill themselves with their own theology of unbelief and defeat. Does the hamster know that it is not going anywhere, that it is not really moving forward? Does he know that it is all for exercise and entertainment? If it does, then it is smarter than the Christians. Their theological efforts amount to mere exercise and entertainment. Theology done correctly will move forward in power, producing tangible effects and miracles.

Power. Power is what you need. You must have it. Then you must have more of it. If your theology limits your power, throw it away. It is false. True theology ought to stimulate a crazed desire for spiritual power, and a love for others to benefit them with this power. Never be embarrassed to seek spiritual power. This sense of shame is also from Satan. Power is the thing that defeats him. Jesus said, “You shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” Paul wrote that there is a power that works within him mightily. He said that God will perform more than we ask or think by the power that he causes to work within us. The Christian life is about power, no less than it is about love, or humility, or truth. This is obvious when we read the Scriptures. But Christians are only ashamed to seek power. And then like unthinking crabs, they tear down those who wish to climb out of that theological prison to a world of power in Christ. They are the glory of Satan! Christians even use the doctrines concerning love, humility, and sacrifice to attack the doctrines of power, faith, healing, and prosperity. It is a simple deception, but Satan never needed to do more. Christians like these become nothing more than stupid crabs and hamsters to him. He laughs and chants their Latin phrases along with them. “Corem Deo! Corem Deo!” he roars with delight. “Jesus I know, Paul I know, and Vincent I know, but who are you?” If we are truly humble, we will seek power — power from God to help us. If we truly love God and people, we will seek power — power to serve God and to bless people. But no! Christians shout, “Let us weep, suffer, and be poor, for tomorrow we die!”

This is why the Church has been feeble throughout the centuries. It has been tricked. It has been satisfied as long as it could keep thinking that it has the moral high ground. Satan does not even want the moral high ground. He wants to win. The prophets and apostles, and most of all Jesus himself, emphasized the power of God. Jesus was the least jealous about his power to work miracles. He told his disciples to heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. Then he told more disciples to do these things. Then he told his disciples not to stop even those whom he never commissioned to do these things. And then he said that all who believe in him can do these things, and even greater things than these. Jesus wanted everybody to work miracles, so that the Father may receive honor through the things done by the name of his Son Jesus Christ. But Christians are most ashamed to seek spiritual, divine, miracle power. Why? Let us wake up! Power is what defeats Satan. Power from God is what makes things happen for the gospel.

It is often said, “The Scriptures say that God is love, but it does not say that God is power.” Actually, it does. It says this in a way that is stronger than most Christians would want to admit, and in a context that is more intense than “God is love” in the letter of John. Jesus declared, “From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64; Mark 14:62). In other contexts, the word refers to miraculous power, such as when Jesus said, “Power has gone out of me” to heal the woman with the bleeding disease, or when he said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” Power. This is what Jesus called God. He did not say that he would be seated at the right hand of Love or Wisdom. He did not use a different word for power to call him Authority, but he called him Power, raw ability and force. No matter what hermeneutical excuse you attempt to use, I know all the tricks and I have already considered them, and the fact remains that in this place he did not refer to God as anything else but POWER. God is Power as much as Jesus is Word. Where is Jesus? Power. He is next to Power. What kind of power? Power for miracles. Power over demons. Power to rule in creation. Christians are ashamed of power. And if you are ashamed of power, you are ashamed of God, for God is Power. If you refuse to seek power, you refuse you seek God. If you mock miracle power as if it is some sideshow, you mock God as if he is a sideshow.

Everything else that Christians have been saying about “God is love” can be said with even greater emphasis about Power. Do you worship the one who is on the throne? Do you raise your hands and praise the one whose right hand is your Lord? Good! But your Lord called him Power. Now do you still worship him? Do you worship Power? Are you now zealous to excel in power no less than you wish to excel in love? Or do you shrink back and insist on calling him something else? We do not worship power, as in some impersonal force. But Power? Certainly, we worship Power, as in God who is All-Power. If you do not worship Power in this sense, you do not worship God at all. As the Scriptures say, “No one has ever seen God, but the One who is himself God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” If you reject the God that Jesus himself declared, which is Power — miracle power — you will burn in hell. But Christians are ashamed of power. They are ashamed of such a God, who is All-Power. How often have you heard it said, “God has power, but God is love”? Jesus denied this. God is power at least as much as God is love. Power himself is on the throne, and Jesus is at Power’s right hand. This is the gospel. Accept this, or make up some other religion.

Satan has convinced Christians that it is unholy and unspiritual to seek spiritual power. But Jesus is at the right hand of Power. To seek the one on the throne is to seek Power. Thus it is most holy and most spiritual to seek spiritual power, no less than it is holy and spiritual to pursue divine love, because – you guessed it – God is love. Of course Satan has also tried to hinder Christians from walking in love, but it seems he has never tried to convince them that it is unholy and unspiritual to walk in love. Power is what he is afraid of. And love remains ineffective without the spiritual and miracle power that it is supposed to wield. If you love as God loves, you will want to preach the truth, heal the sick, and cast out demons. Power lets you do these things. Compassion is the strongest catalyst in the ministry of healing, but without power, it is either counterfeit compassion or compassion frustrated. Love and Power are not in conflict, but if you walk in love, you will seek the power. Pray that God would grant you, “according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man.” Power. You must have truth as the foundation. Then you must rise up in power. All this discussion about power is theological truth. But it will not release power if you only debate it and sit on it. Truth will release power when you boldly affirm it and act on it. Do it.

Let me finish the story. Satan wanted to attack me and sift me like wheat, but I saw through his method. He exerted spiritual pressure upon me to make me lose a sense of reality about what happened at the beginning of my ministry. He did not argue. He did not send elaborate words and thoughts. He attacked me with brute force. So I did not try to argue. I did not call the people and tried to confirm: “I was there, right? Did you hear me preach? You saw what happened?” I did not return to the place and visualize what I remembered. I did not even replay the recordings and watch the videos that were on my desk. All this might have provided some superficial relief, but soon I would have lost all sense of reality about these confirmations as well. Satan did not claim that there were no evidences and testimonies. He tried to wrest away my sense of reality about the events by force.

Instead of seeking empirical evidences and testimonies, I did two things. First, I returned to the word of God. The Scriptures. He commanded me to preach the gospel to every person. He commanded me to teach all nations. What if God had summoned me to his throne in a vision and issued a mandate, in distinct speech specifying the nature of my ministry? And what if Jesus had appeared to me on a different occasion and affirmed another aspect of my work? Suppose these things had happened, I did not appeal to them. If these things had happened, I did not appeal to them even though they would be experiences of the spirit akin to what we would have in heaven, and not empirical evidences and experiences of the senses. Instead, I returned to the Scriptures. He commanded me to lay hands on the sick, and promised me that the sick shall recover. Even before I did these things for the first time, I was certain of the ministry of preaching and healing on the basis of his word alone. Nothing changed after I experienced these things that I was already sure about before I experienced them. My faith was in the word of God before I experienced what it says and after I experienced what it says. Experience adds nothing, removes nothing, and changes nothing. Satan’s attack made empirical evidences and testimonies irrelevant, but then I made his attack irrelevant by returning to the word of God regardless of my sense of reality about experiences. Second, I stood up in power against the enemy: “Satan, of course all that happened. The word of God is true, and when I obeyed the word of God, he was there to confirm his word with signs following. And I will continue to preach the word and heal the sick. I will continue regardless of what I see, what I hear, and what I feel. But I believed the same way even before any of this happened. The word of God is the same. Now Satan, in the name of Jesus Christ I command you to cease this attack and leave me.” The word of God is true. As the Bible says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” I resisted the devil, and he fled from me. The pressure lifted, and that strange sense of a loss of reality disappeared. This happened several more times, and every time I resisted him in the same way. After that he never attacked me like this again.

Lest you imagine it was a weak attempt against me, only three years before that time, before I was born again, Satan attacked me with a much weaker spiritual pressure, a much weaker sense of meaninglessness and lack of reality — and I wanted to kill myself. And from that time it would happen on and off until I was born again by God’s power. Then I began to gain the upper hand. This time he attacked me with ten times as much pressure, and I brushed him off in less than an hour. I did it a few more times, and he stopped forever. I am not boasting about myself, because obviously I could not stand up to him before. But as a follower of Jesus Christ, it was so easy to defeat him in a frontal clash that the Lord said, “Do not be too impressed that you have power over demons, but rejoice that your name is written in heaven.” I hope that you are not too impressed either, because you will need to do the same thing for yourself when he attacks. No, never underestimate Satan. Don’t be smug and stupid. Be sober, be vigilant. Be smart. But when you cling to Christ and draw power from him, then you should defeat him easily, just as Christ could defeat him easily. It is his power and his name that grant you the victory.

 
A Deeper Deception

Spiritual attacks can come designed to produce different effects. Before I was born again, one came as an irrational and extreme form of depression and purposelessness, nudging me toward suicide. After I was born again, I affirmed my place and purpose in Christ, and became free from it in about 18 months. The Holy Spirit was my therapist and untangled more than 16 years of hurts and fears, and rage and sadness and confusion. At the beginning of my work in preaching and healing, one came as a forceful sense of unreality. I affirmed God’s teachings and promises as my sole reality, and I commanded the attack to cease and dispatched the enemy in short measure. This was the approach of rationalism, but with power. Another effect of a spiritual attack can be arbitrary or exaggerated anger, often entirely irrational, that ends in much regret, and that cannot be soothed by reason, since it was never fueled by reason. Another can be nagging fears and doubts, or intense hatred and blasphemous feelings and thoughts. It does not matter what effects spiritual attacks are producing in you. For now it is enough to understand what I mean by these spiritual attacks. Our discussion will help you with all of them. We have in mind an intense spiritual pressure or force that is often disproportionate to the thoughts and arguments associated with it. In fact, it may come almost entirely apart from thoughts and arguments, and void of definite intellectual content to grasp onto or to interact with. This could intensify the despair in those who lack understanding in spiritual things. Sometimes many thoughts and arguments may arise as effects of these attacks, or it may seem that many thoughts and arguments come along with them, but you also find that the feeling or pressure, the despair or depression, all remain even when you have overcome the thoughts and arguments. This is because these attacks are not about right, but about might. This is why some of you are able to think through the issues again and again, but still fail to become free from oppression. Some fool can yell “1 + 1 = 3!” and punch you in the face. You can scream “No! 1 + 1 = 2!” but you still get punched in the face. If you want him to stop spouting mathematical errors and damaging your pretty face, you must knock him out.

If you are a follower of Christ, born again by the word of God, I condemn any suggestion that you might have to live with the effects of a demonic attack all your life, whether we are talking about rage, terror, depression, blasphemy, or any such thing. I condemn any suggestion that there would likely be an extended struggle. You most assuredly do not need to live with it for very long, not to say all your life. This is utter foolishness. Treasonous. For this reason, I must denounce most Christian teachers and writers that comment on this subject. I condemn them and charge them with sin. Listen. This is one of the most important things you must know about this topic. The lie is so pervasive and protected by Christians that what I am asserting is heresy to human tradition — that you can experience total freedom in Christ in a matter of minutes, and even with extremely entrenched issues, sometimes days or weeks, but no attack should persist for years, and certainly not entire lifetimes. This is the truth. Christ has set you free. Let unbelief and tradition — and those who cling to them — burn in hell.

The lie has been partly propelled by hero worship, or idolatry. You might have read studies about Christian leaders, perhaps Spurgeon or some other figure, who battled depression or some other spiritual issue all their lives. Rather than holding firm the promises and achievements of Jesus Christ as their standard, and then evaluating the experiences of Christian leaders by this standard, they justify and even beautify the experiences of these leaders and reinterpret the promises and achievements of Jesus Christ. It is relatively unimportant whether we have an exact account of the experiences and feelings of these Christian leaders. They are accountable to God, not to us. However, if we suppose that what has been reported, sometimes in their own words, are indeed accurate, then we must conclude that so many historic heroes of the faith were deceived in this area. They utterly failed to receive by faith the promises and powers of Christ. They did not live up to the gospel that they preached. They were weak. They were wrong. They were defeated. You do not need to live like they did.

Let them be as great as they were, where they were truly great, but if they were depressed all their lives, they were failures in this thing. And if they had to fight blasphemous thoughts all their lives, or if they were harassed with doubts all their lives, they were defeated. Do you want the truth? You probably do not, but here is the truth: If they lived like this for many years or even their whole lives, we can be sure that they had other problems in their faith and doctrine as well. You only see the tip of the iceberg, or you only allow yourself to see this much. But should I destroy a weak brother to set you free from idolatry? The idolatry is your sin. Destroy the idol, and you will worship some other man. There is no need to dismiss their accomplishments, although it is difficult to say that spectacular defeat in one essential area does not diminish what appears to be success in other areas, since our lives cannot be divided like this. But I am not trying to take anything away from them. I want us to think about ourselves. They are dead. We are alive. (Current religious leaders who are worshiped as heroes are alive, but they live as dead men because of their unbelief and tradition.) Just as they are accountable to God, and not to us, we are accountable to God, not to them. Still less are we accountable to those who worship them. We must think about how we must now live as followers of Christ. We cannot use the failure of others as standard for our success.

The miserable examples of spiritual heroes are supposed to offer comfort to us today. This is the thing that perhaps no one told you — it is just a deeper level of deception. Just when you become ready to throw off the yoke of slavery, a gentle teacher comes along and declares, “This great one suffered depression all his life.” Wait a minute! Why are you telling me this? What does that have to do with me? Nothing! This is deception. It is a deeper level of deception camouflaged under the more obvious one. It is another demonic attack underneath the first demonic attack. Satan whispers to you, “You are worthless. Life has no meaning.” You become depressed. As you seek for answers, or as you struggle, sometimes gaining ground and sometimes losing ground, a messenger of Satan suggests, “Be comforted. This our hero never totally triumphed. This will probably happen to you too. Let this encourage you to keep hope and not give up!” But is this what the Scriptures say? I do not even know this fellow. I do not know what he truly believed. I do not know what he did to attempt victory, if he did anything useful at all. Maybe he did not believe the gospel promises that could have delivered him. Maybe he did not do what Jesus said. Why must his experience — his failure – define my experience? Why must I allow his defeat to ruin my life? I am not supposed to judge God’s word even by my own experience, and now you want me to judge God’s word by someone else’s experience? What kind of super moron do you think I am? Or are you the super moron? It is suspicious, isn’t it? It is a scam. It is a trick to make you stop fighting the attack, or to fight it half-heartedly, or to fight it without expecting a speedy and complete success. It is an attempt by Satan to install a demonic dungeon under the stronghold that he has constructed in your mind.

Prolonged struggle can easily turn into “the devil made me do it” excuse. The same Christians would expose those who claim that the devil made them murder, rape, and steal. They would say, “Perhaps the devil tempted you to do it, but you are still responsible. You could resist, especially if you are a Christian, but you did not. God will punish the devil for tempting people to sin, but he will hold you accountable for surrendering to him.” They would not excuse even someone genuinely possessed by the devil, if they believe in such a thing. Then they would turn around and tell you that the devil might keep you depressed all your life, or give you evil thoughts all your life, or that we do not understand why this continues, or that God is doing this to you for his glory. Our heroes experienced the same thing. Do not worry about it too much. But…they do not say this to those who molest children over and over and over again. Or maybe they do? If they do, I withdraw a charge of inconsistency, but then I insist that such scums should be excommunicated immediately, and if it is found that their counsel encouraged continuing criminal activities in a manner that violates the law, they should be reported to the authorities. So these Christian teachers and writers that claim to help people turn out to be either super stupid or super evil, if not both.

The same thing applies to thoughts, since thoughts are mental actions or events. The devil can tempt you to perform certain mental actions or verbal actions. If you are a non-Christian, you are still culpable if you comply. If you are a Christian, you can overcome him. The Bible says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” If he does not flee from you, then you are not resisting. If you keep saying the devil makes you do it, then the truth is that you want to have these thoughts, but you know they are wrong, so that you are using the excuse to have it both ways. You perform the mental and verbal sins that you wish to commit, and then you make yourself into a victim. Even sincere believers can be tempted to use this excuse, but they would be less tempted if they knew that there is a better way, that they could in fact be free. Just then Christians preachers and scholars come along and tell them that even the supposedly best believers could suffer lifelong problems of depression and such things. This reinforces Satan’s temptations to sin and to persist in sin. I tell you, there is a way to be free. Jesus is the way, and there is no excuse to suffer very long. You say, “The devil made me do it.” If you do not stop him, then you are that devil.

People, of course, have more confidence in their heroes than in Jesus Christ, and so they will oppose what I am saying. But Jesus Christ is my hero. To be honest, I really do not care about your heroes. If they were great, that does not make me great. If they were defeated, they were the ones that failed. It has no effect on me. Can’t we learn from them? Well, if this is the kind of lesson you are taking from them, then NO THANKS AND GET OUT. Get out right now before I kick you out, you stupid piece of orthodox trash. Wrap yourself in that garbage bag you call a historic creed and throw yourself down a cliff. Why are you still here? No one needs you. I despise those who call themselves followers of Christ but in fact worship someone else. They are worthless not only as believers, if they are believers, but they are worthless also as human beings in general. They are trash. They are the rats of society. I speak clearly about this so that you will have a chance to untangle yourself from this deception. Whatever Satan is doing to attack you, you can overcome it. In Christ, you can have total peace in mind and in spirit. It is easy to attain. Jesus said that he left us with his joy and peace. He said that he has overcome the world.

Christian traditional teachings vilify the legitimate expectation of swift and total deliverance, and an unwavering happiness in Christ Jesus. The Bible teaches an “unspeakable joy and full of glory,” but unbelief and tradition cannot even promise a speakable joy and some of glory. Now unspeakable sadness and full of humiliation is the gospel! Such “orthodoxy” has contributed to millions of defeated believers and ineffective ministries, leading to global historic failures in convincing multitudes with the gospel, and thus allowing hosts of humanity to remain in sin and burn in hell. Such “orthodoxy” has contributed to poverty, sickness, even suicides, since it allows suffering and oppression to continue even when the people could be easily delivered. All of this is counted against the “Our hero endured this all his life and never really got over it, so take comfort!” people, and also all others who propagate the same scam in different ways. They have blood on their hands. If they even twitch their stupid mouths to defend against this, they add to their condemnation.

Renounce the error of idolatry and tradition. Abandon the pride and admit the unbelief. Then return to the way of faith and power. Preach complete and immediate deliverance to those who believe in Christ Jesus. The Bible says that the gospel is the power of God to save those who believe. It is not a mere explanation from God to comfort those who are oppressed. It is power to save those who are oppressed. The traitors among us have made the gospel the power of man to excuse those who suffer, and to excuse those who disbelieve. You can be free from whatever oppression you suffer. You can be free soon, even today. It will take some time to increase in strength and establish yourself in a place of safety, and even that should not take too long, but immediate deliverance from oppression is yours. Then renew your mind, affirm your place, and remain happy for the rest of your life. Jesus Christ has set you free. All oppression was absorbed by him and destroyed on the cross. If you are a slave to Satan, you are a willing slave. As Jesus said to a man, “Do you want to be healed?” Come out from that false theology that has ruined so many lives and so many souls. Come out from that bloody orthodoxy.

 
A Special Category

Compassion is essential to every kind of healing ministry. Toward those who are eager to listen, and who make no excuses, we can exercise patience. But never allow our patience to become their excuse. Now those who suffer attacks of blasphemous thoughts and feelings belong to a special category. I would not give it time at all. All blasphemous thoughts, feelings, and words must be stopped now. Today. “Fight it for a few years and you will eventually win.” No. “Struggle with it for a lifetime and you are still the best Christian.” No. “That’s just how it is with some people. God is using it for his glory.” No. These are all lies. Again, such counsel installs a deeper level of deception that delays deliverance, that allows you to continue the blasphemous tendencies and thoughts. If you permit yourself false comfort, you will only manufacture a delay that does not need to be there. It must end now. All of it. You must regard the matter with urgency and refuse all counsel that permits any delay to total deliverance. Perhaps a gradual reduction of blasphemies? No. Ten years later? No. When you get to heaven? No. Now. Take that in-depth analysis of somebody else’s lifelong depression and give it to your satanist neighbor, because that’s what he uses for his funny toilet reading. Accept nothing except teachings that insist on swift and total deliverance, and joy, and peace, and spiritual strength in Christ. Satan has attacked you with lies. You have surrounded yourself with more lies to comfort yourself. “Do you want to be healed?” The first step is to remove the lies. Today.

What if this thing continues for a while longer because of your lack of strength and knowledge? Don’t give up. Don’t kill yourself. That’s not what I am suggesting at all. You don’t win by getting more defeated. But I cannot offer you any comfort or excuse to remain in blasphemy. Whatever I say, you know in your heart you need to stop it today, not later. So I am just being honest with you. But you can win. You can win quickly. Remember that something like this is not only a matter of arguments, because the episodes are often senseless and irrational. There is nothing to latch onto and argue it to death. Or the thing remains even if you can debate it and win. It is often more a matter of spiritual power. A punch in the face. If you can reach someone who understands spiritual things, he can resist the devil with you, but even if he can join you at the beginning, you will need to learn this yourself in order to fend off further attacks. The devil will return to test you several more times until you demonstrate your resolve, and until you have built up sufficient inner strength. This is true with all kinds of spiritual attacks, like depression and others.

The Christian is able to end any spiritual attack today by the power of Christ that is at his disposal. If you dispute this, you are the one who has to sin longer, and suffer longer. I am free. I am just telling you what I know. There is one thing that even an unbeliever can do today, and that is to stop listening to false and weak theology. If you get stabbed with a knife, you don’t drink cyanide to cure yourself just because it aligns with how you already feel. It makes the situation much worse. Almost all the best regarded counsel amounts to spiritual cyanide. If you do not stop drinking that today, then there is no help for you. By your action, you testify that you want to live in this condition. You embrace the sin, the depression, the blasphemy, all of it. Even what is considered the best biblical counseling approach, one that purportedly confronts the individual with Scripture, is based on a theology that rejects the power of God. It turns out to be another concoction of spiritual poison. Stop consuming spiritual poison today. Do not listen to that sermon everyone is raving about. Do not finish that book that adds to your theological street cred. It is foolish to boast that you have consumed more poison than your friends. It does not mean you are educated. It means you are stupid. What good is it, if a man reads the whole Christian library, and by doing that, loses his own soul? Consume only faith and victory. Drink the sweet elixir of Christ.

Now it is common for Satan to harass people by suggesting that they have committed the unpardonable sin. At this point, theology will either sink us into a deeper level of deception, or it will offer a clear statement that removes all deception, to relieve those who ought to be relieved. Almost 100 percent of historically accepted orthodox theology has added to the deception. Christian preachers and thinkers respond by calling the spiritual attack a deception, but their explanation amounts to either reducing the words of Jesus to irrelevance or outright contradicting him on the subject. They claim that this sin is either a persistent and permanent rejection of Christ or it is something that is impossible to commit. This is supposed to be the truth that sets people free. However, this universal teaching is false. Jesus said that if you blaspheme the Son, you can be forgiven, but if you blaspheme the Spirit, you cannot be forgiven. He did not say that if you blaspheme the Son intensely and endlessly, then eventually that is to blaspheme the Spirit. He clearly distinguished between speaking against the Son and speaking against the Spirit. He was referring to those who opposed his ministry of healing and called the work of the Spirit the work of a demon, so that they indirectly spoke against the Spirit and called the Spirit himself a demon. These are different sins because they speak against two different objects or persons. The Pharisees were doing it left and right, in front of everybody, and spreading the blasphemy around like butter. It was easy to commit. It was so easy to commit that when he warned about this sin, Jesus said that “on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.” He did not say that the Pharisees were making scholarly premeditated blasphemies. He warned that a “careless word” could be blasphemy. This is the truth about the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

The popular antidote for this attack is in fact poison. It attempts to comfort people by dismissing what Jesus said. Some people have indeed committed this sin of speaking against the Holy Spirit, and they will burn in hell forever and ever and ever. The proper way to face the spiritual attack is to study what Jesus said about it to obtain the correct definition. Then if you have never committed it, you will know for sure because any sin you have done will not fit the definition. And the truth has set you free. If you have committed the sin, then it does not change anything even if someone lies to you about it to make you feel better. If you have indeed done it, then no one can help you. I have no authority to change what Jesus said. And if you have committed this sin, I have no power to save you. What I know is that it is possible to commit this sin. Perhaps your pastor does it every Sunday when he criticizes those preachers on television as you shout “Amen!” Perhaps your shelf is full of books by scholars who blaspheme the Spirit in every volume as they persecute those who have faith in God for the ministry of healing and miracles. I don’t know what trash you read. What I know is that you cannot fight deception with deception. When you do, Satan wins. Either the second deception replaces the first, so that the person thinks he is no longer deceived when he is taken even deeper, or the second deception reinforces the first deception, and also takes the person deeper. Either way, compound deceptions make the person more stubborn in his delusion and it becomes harder for him to escape. Satan knows this, and Christian preachers and thinkers have been his accomplices.

This is often a very religious sin. The people of the world usually do not care to speak against the Holy Spirit, if they even know there is a Holy Spirit. If they witness a ministry or miracle of healing and such, they might marvel at the reality and compassion of God, and often become followers of Christ, while others might remain skeptical without calling the ministry the work of demons and wickedness. Some might indeed commit the unpardonable sin at this point, but they are rare in comparison. Most of the people who commit this sin are church leaders and church members. Like the Pharisees, they are those who consider themselves experts in religious matters, and zealous to defend the orthodox faith. It would not occur to them that they have committed this sin, and that they will burn in hell forever. They are so self-righteous that this is the last thing on their minds. They consider themselves the most educated and the most faithful, the Christian elite. Theologians extraordinaire. Apologists supreme. They will harden their hearts and continue their wickedness. And they will burn in hell. If you tell them this, they will become enraged with you, do some of their apologetics on you…and then burn in hell. They did that to Jesus too, and then they burned in hell.

Of course, Satan incites some people to think that they have committed this unpardonable sin when the truth is that they have not. They become pressed down and extremely fearful. Some of them become crazed and obsessed. Some choose the way of denial. Others choose to resign themselves to a life of wickedness. Some commit suicide. It is possible for Satan to cause such damage because people are not clear about what this sin is. The solution is to restate the correct definition of the sin, rebuke the devil in the name of Jesus, and set them free. The most common reaction is destructive. Preachers would rush to offer false assurance, nullifying the words of Jesus in the process, so that even those who have committed this sin would think that they have not done it. This response in itself is blasphemy against Jesus Christ, because it shoves him out of the way in order to introduce a lie to make people feel better about themselves, whether or not they should have relief. And the lie makes it more likely for people to commit the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. People would assume that whatever they have done or whatever they want to do, it is not the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, or that they can be forgiven even if they were to speak against the Holy Spirit, to imply that he is a demon, to call his work in healing the sick and casting out demons deceptive, fanatical, against orthodoxy, or some such thing. They would not think to avoid the sin. In fact, they would think that they perform God a service by doing some of their apologetics on those who follow the example of Jesus, when their whole enterprise is a ministry of blaspheming the Holy Spirit! All this certainly sounds ridiculous to them. See, it is because they are deceived, and they are deceiving others.

For our purpose I have no interest in specifying individuals or groups that might have committed this sin. I might have my opinion, but you can judge for yourself based on what they say. Examples are easy to find. Here I am only telling you what Jesus said. If you do not want to hear it from me, read what he said about it. He said that if you speak against the Holy Spirit, such as to imply that the ministry of healing is the work of a demon, a work of evil, then you are finished. Taking what he said elsewhere about God’s judgment against sin, we deduce that if someone makes a habit of doing this or even build a ministry dedicated to calling the Holy Spirit demonic, then he will suffer more extreme punishment when he burns in hell. All this is a direct application of what Jesus said. You are not accountable to me. If you do not believe me, forget about me and go read this from him. Believe him. But if he said the same thing I am telling you, then more than a few people are in deep trouble. Oh, they are in so much trouble. They will suffer and hurt in ways that I cannot describe or imagine. The pain and anguish will never end. It will never become dull for them. It will be as fresh and intense ten thousand years later as it shall be on the first day. And it will keep going and going and going.

Some people have criticized me for agreeing with Jesus on the definition of this sin and on the fact that it is possible to commit. They blame me for troubling the faith of some and instilling a sense of hopelessness in them. But…I am not troubled and I am not hopeless. How come? Because I have never committed this sin! If the people are troubled by a clear definition of the sin rather than liberated by it, then they are the ones in the wrong, not me. In fact, I have done very well. The ones who blame me are those who perpetuate the lie, and thus continue to allow more and more people to commit this unpardonable sin. I have troubled some people by repeating what Jesus said and agreeing with him, and this is because I have done well. In contrast, my critics are smoothing the way for people to slide into hell and burn forever. They are the problem, not me. Let those who ought to be disturbed, be disturbed. Let those who ought to lose hope, lose hope. In fact, many people instinctively know that the common teaching on this sin is false, so that even if they take hold of it as the only lifeline, the worry remains at the back of their minds. On the other hand, anyone who has not committed this sin no longer needs to wonder, because we know what this sin is, and so anyone who has not done it is fortified by the truth. Satan can no longer find any vulnerability to trick us into thinking that we have done something unpardonable when we have not done it. This is what I have done for the people.

If you are disturbed when I define the sin of adultery directly from the words of Scripture, how is that my fault? Why blame me? Is it not because you have probably committed adultery? If you have not committed adultery, you would be liberated by a proper definition of it, especially if you have been confused about it before. A burden would lift from your shoulders. The dark cloud of condemnation would depart. You would thank me. You would share the teaching with other people. If you become troubled and blame me, you bring condemnation upon yourself, because it is as if you are admitting to something. To criticize me for this would be more like a confession than some heroic attempt to defend everybody’s faith and feelings. Either you have committed adultery, or you have not defined it correctly, and you are angry because I have made you look bad. As Paul said, “Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” The more you complain, the more guilty you appear. Why are those people disturbed by a definition of sin? Have they done something that they should be worried about? If so, why weren’t they disturbed before? No one showed them the truth. You see, I have done so well. Perhaps you should blame your conscience instead, because it agrees with me more than you will admit. I must talk about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and tell it like it is. People are so dismissive about this ultimate sin, and some are even eager to commit this sin, and I do not want their blood on my hands.

 
A Sin Unpardonable

Practically all Christian preachers and thinkers that mention this topic condemn Jesus’ definition of this sin, and also against the possibility of committing it. They would assure people that they have not committed this sin without even asking what these people have done. This does not come from compassion, for true compassion cannot break ranks with Jesus. They are zealous to do away with what Jesus said about it probably because they have done it or they want to do it. Why are you so eager to establish a right to speak against the Holy Spirit? Have you done it yourself? Do you want to do it again? Is this why you are like this? Hmm. The more you deny the definition or the possibility of this sin, the more problems you allow because there is no clarity. The way to fight Satan is with the truth, and not with more deception. The way to fight doubt is not by covering up the conscience, but by the knowledge of the truth and the assurance of the Spirit.

The assurance of the Spirit? This is another thing that Christian writers have lied about. They will tell you about church heroes who by all accounts were the best of the best, but nevertheless struggled with a lack of assurance all their lives. Ah…NO. If they lacked assurance all their lives, they were not even good believers, let alone the best Christian leaders. Seek for years? No. Seek it all your lives? No. If you are indeed a Christian, born again by the word of God and by the Spirit of God, then absolute assurance belongs to you. You should have received it the moment you believed. If you do not have it for some reason, you can get it today. Prolonged and complicated “seeking” is nonsense. We are not talking about what you can discover. We are talking about what you are, and you are already what you are. If someone is truly a Christian, then the lack of assurance is sometimes another spiritual attack that takes more than arguments to overcome, since it is not only about reason, but about force. So what we have been saying also applies here. Nevertheless, we must have sound doctrine on this issue.

Even Peter’s triple denial of Christ was not unpardonable. What he did was not good, but it was not blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. He did not speak about the Spirit, speak against the Spirit, or make disparaging implications about the Spirit. He spoke about Christ. He denied Christ. He even cursed while he denied Christ to add emphasis. But he did not speak against the Holy Spirit. He did not call the Spirit a demon. He did not say that the ministry of healing the sick and casting out demons was evil, or any such thing. If someone sins like Peter did and becomes disillusioned, the truth would set him free from condemnation and hopelessness. The truth would be that his sin can be forgiven. As the Scriptures say, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” As he repents and returns to Christ, he is restored. This is the solution for those who are being deceived by the devil to think that they have committed the unpardonable sin, when the truth is that they have not.

The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is what it is, and it is unpardonable. If you have done it, you will never be forgiven. If you have not committed this sin, then whatever you have done, you will be forgiven if you repent and confess that Jesus Christ died in your place. The whole thing is not complicated. You say, “But Jesus died for all sins.” Well, don’t tell me that. Tell him! See how far that gets you. He is the one who said, “The blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven” and “Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” Tell him: “You died for all sins. So why don’t you shut up, Lord!” Go. Go tell him that. Leave me out of it. If Jesus died for all sins in the sense you mean, then he also died for the sin of the final rejection of Christ, and there is no need to believe in him. You say, “He died for all sins, but each one must receive what he has done by faith.” But if he died for all sins in the sense you mean, in a sense that can even overturn Jesus’ own explicit exception to forgiveness, then he must have also died for the sin of refusing to receive what he has done by faith.

Of course, the Bible is clear that faith is necessary to receive the benefits that Jesus Christ achieved for his people. Anyone who does not receive Jesus by faith will burn in hell. The notion that he died for all sins does not overturn this, but it is understood in the context that salvation is received by faith. Likewise, the Bible is clear that the one who speaks against the Holy Spirit, such as calling the ministry of miracle healing demonic, evil, or some such thing, will never be forgiven. The notion that he died for all sins does not overturn this, but it is understood in the context that blasphemy against the Spirit will never be forgiven. In fact, another way of looking at this is that the one who speaks against the Holy Spirit has never been given faith in Christ and he will never be given faith in Christ. You can declare that Jesus died for all sins in any sense you wish to mean it, as long as the gospel saves only those who have faith, a person who speaks against the Holy Spirit is still locked out forever.

It follows that another attempt at false comfort is also futile, which is to declare that a Christian will never commit the sin of speaking against the Holy Spirit. This is marvelously stupid. This solves nothing. Suppose I say, “God can never die.” This is true. But then I continue, “Therefore, John Smith can never die.” This would be true only if John Smith himself is God. The first premise does not show that John Smith is God, and it does not show that John Smith will never die, because John Smith might have nothing to do with this first premise. But if John Smith dies, it shows that he has never been God in the first place. The first premise is true — God can never die. But we cannot establish that John Smith is God by this premise. The second premise is missing: “John Smith is God.” In an argument, the first premise is never meant to establish the second premise, but they are both supposed to be known as true, so that the conclusion follows from them. If we can establish that John Smith himself is God by some other way, then we can use the first premise to deduce that John Smith will never die.

We can say that a believer will never fall away, because God will keep him by divine power, and a believer will never commit the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. However, this premise does nothing to show if a specific person is a believer. It provides assurance only if we can establish that a person is a believer by some other way. Only then can we deduce that this person has never committed the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and that he never will commit this sin because God will keep him from it. Otherwise, if he has spoken against the Spirit, and if a Christian would never commit this sin, then obviously he has never been a Christian. All claims and appearances are then irrelevant. For him, the doctrine that a believer will never commit the unpardonable sin becomes a pronouncement of ultimate damnation instead of assurance.

All of this is simple and impossible to refute, but people will still resist and criticize me. Why? It is because I am correct about this, and as much as they want to attack Jesus openly, they do not want to expose themselves as false disciples. They dislike the idea of an unpardonable sin. They refuse to honor the Holy Spirit as much as God does. They resent God for extending this unique jealousy toward the Spirit. They resist because their own historic and modern heroes might have committed this sin, and have convinced many to do the same. It is because they themselves might have done it, repeatedly and gleefully, full of mocking words and condescending tones. Now someone tells them they will reap what they have sown, and they are afraid and angry. As Jesus said, “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Even the sinful rich man said, “Father Abraham, at least send someone from the dead to warn my brothers, so that they will not come here to suffer with me.” These “Christians” are worse than this rich man who went to hell. They strive to tell everyone, “Be comforted. What Jesus said does not apply. You have not committed this sin. In fact, it is probably impossible to commit.” When the blind leads the blind, they will both fall into the ditch. They wish to lead others to hell with them. The result is that these liars will suffer even more than others in hell, where they will burn but they cannot die.

We talk about the unpardonable sin not because we wish to frighten people and rub it in their faces. We have a duty to talk about it, so that their blood will not be on our hands, so that God will not hold us accountable for their damnation. We wish to warn people about it, so that they will not commit this sin, and so that they will not endorse those who claim to be teachers but who diminish the seriousness of this sin. The accepted orthodoxy, characterized by a man-made theology of unbelief and defeat, actually increases the rate of depression, apostasy, blasphemy, and by extension also increases the rate of terminal tragedies such as suicide and damnation. This is because man-made orthodoxy does not believe in the promises of God for deliverance, and it does not accept the words of Jesus about sin. From the view of biblical orthodoxy, this traditional orthodoxy is in fact heretical and demonic. The good news is that it has no authority over us. If you flush it down the toilet, people cannot do much to you. As Jesus said, “Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Even if I twist the words of Christ to destroy his teaching, he still said what he said, and even you would still know he said what he said. God will not send you to hell based on my words, but his words. So it does not help you at all to criticize what I said. If you wish to sin, but still save yourself, then refute God. That’s all you need to do. Destroy him if you can, and you will be saved. But if you have not committed this sin, then you have not committed this sin. And now that we are clear about it, you are free in Christ Jesus.