Spirit and spirits

Nathan Adams · Tidal Church Moncton · April 23, 2023 · Spirit series

Nathan Adams looks at Paul in Acts 17 and 16 and Simon the Sorcerer in Acts 8 to show how Jesus completes the good in other spiritualities, redirects what is mistaken, and frees people from false spirits through relationship with the Holy Spirit.

More from Nathan Adams · The Spirit series

Topics: Holy Spirit, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship

Transcript

[0:00] Morning, everyone. Today I want to talk about the Spirit and spirits. Now, how many of you can remember the jingle, sung by the Jackson 5 and little Michael Jackson with his four older brothers, singing ABC? Anyone remember that one? Oh, you remember it, Gisèle? Okay. Well, Gisèle, I have a feeling you might be able to hum that tune or sing that tune a little better than me. Would you care to? All right, ABC, easy as one, two, three, simple as do re mi. A B C. Sing it with me. Why don't you? Yeah.

[0:55] Okay, I think we could do better, but I want you guys to sing it with me. Ready, ready? A B C, easy as one, two, three, a simple as do re mi, ABC, one, two, three. Sing it with me. Yeah. Nice. Thank you. Good job, and thanks for sparing everyone from me singing that little jingle. There's, it's just so clear and nice when you hear that song, but you know, things spiritually in our world are anything but clear right now. We have all kinds of alternative spiritualities that have multiplied in our culture, and we have lots of questions about those, and whether you're a Christian or whether you're not or you're somewhere in between, it can greatly influence how you see these things. I wonder, you know, are they, some people say, are they good? Some people say, are they bad? They're harmless, doesn't matter.

[1:53] Is there a reality behind these at all, and is anybody really practicing them anyway? So, why would we talk about it? A few years ago, our church had a bit of a wake-up call about how many people are practicing. We have a great facility at the church. So sometimes, if there's a big event in the community, people will ask to use our facilities. One such event featured a well-known businesswoman from Moncton. But it came with a strange request. As the planning unfolded, it turned out that this person was a wicked witch or fairy, that her coven of Wiccans wanted to perform a ceremony on our platform as part of the event. So whether openly or in private, many people in our culture are exploring various spiritualities or exploring disconnected spiritual practices that they don't even know where they come from.

[2:47] In the healthcare field, we see that mindfulness is always being promoted now, and there's nothing wrong with centering your mind in itself. But did you know that that comes from Buddhist spiritual practices? Reiki healing is being accepted more and more, which is highly spiritual if you think of spirit in terms of an energy that's impersonal, that you manipulate. And then there's healing crystals, which, to my knowledge, no one in the healthcare field is advocating at this point, but people are embracing it in a large extent. I watched someone who's just trying to express concern to another person and support them, and they said, here's a crystal, it does this for you, and they sent it with all kinds of good vibes and well wishes. So there's many, many options, and all these new ones pile on a whole bunch of old ones.

[3:36] That you might be familiar with: tea leaves, tarot cards, astrology, horoscopes, mediums, séances, various forms of voodoo. And the more recent Hollywood spiritualities, like manifesting something that you want until, supposedly, the universe grants it to you based on the intensity of your wishes. What's interesting about the world that we live in today is that it's not actually that much different than the world that the first followers of Jesus lived in. There were all kinds of spiritual practices. There were thousands of gods and goddesses. There was philosophy coming from, religious philosophy coming from Greece. There was Egyptian magic. There was Indian thoughts that were coming into the Mediterranean world.

[4:23] And this was all before there was ever a world religion. You see, there was just local spiritualities and regional. We sometimes don't think of it like that. The only thing that approached a world religion in the Mediterranean world was that you had to say Caesar is Lord. He didn't care who else you worshiped, as long as you proclaimed him as semi-divine and he could use religion to help his politics. So into this world came Jesus and His 11 key disciples, such as Peter and John, and they're saying Jesus, not Caesar, is Lord. And here is their message from Acts 4: Salvation is found in no one else. But there's no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we might be saved, not by Jupiter, Osiris, Athena, Caesar, or any lesser spirit.

[5:21] And every one of Jesus' 12 disciples, minus Judas, was persecuted, beaten, and eventually killed for this message, except John, who got himself exile and imprisonment at the end of his life. But their main message was unequivocal. As John recorded, Jesus saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Now, I've heard Christians today quote those two verses that we just looked at and come to the conclusion that every spirituality, belief, and religious practice except Christianity is all wrong. It is due to thinking like that that Canada did great wrong to Indigenous peoples, as it wholesale condemned all their religious practices and culture, leading to the destruction of much of their identity.

[6:16] But that is not how early Christians presented their message. That Jesus was the way. The apostles presented Jesus as the completion of the good things that people already believed and did, because God is active in each person's life. Hello. Who is this, is a Batman? Oh, hi, Byron. Hey, I just wondered what it's like to be right up front under the big lights here. You know. Well, Thanks. Yeah, thanks for saying hi and you know, interrupting a little.

[7:03] Thank you. Where was I? Completion. They were coming and saying, the Christians were coming and saying that Jesus Christ is the completion of every good thing that God was already doing in your life. He's also a redirection, because we have a way of mixing in error with God's truth, don't we, and getting wrapped up in it? So Christ brings completion and redirection to other spiritualities. Now, completion is extremely easy to see and how the first believers in Jesus responded to Jewish people.

[7:52] They said, everything you've been believing up to this point, Jesus is the completion of it. And there was an element of redirection too, as they redirected and as Jesus Himself had redirected the Jewish people towards a heart devotion to God. Last week, or two weeks ago, we looked at just nine prophecies that Jesus had fulfilled from the Old Testament. In fact, Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies from the Old Testament, bringing them all to completion and bringing the whole story to completion. But this idea of Jesus being completion of the good things God was already doing in people's lives can also be seen in how the message of Jesus was shared with non-Jews.

[8:37] Acts 17 tells us that Paul came to Athens, the philosophical and spiritual heart of the Mediterranean world, and it does say that Paul was really distressed to see that the city was full of idols. But God made an opportunity for Paul. If anyone's ever watched a movie in Athens or been to Athens, there's the big Acropolis with the temples on it, the ancient temples right in the center of Athens. And in the shadow of the of that temple dedicated to many gods is a famous gathering spot called the area of, oh, boy, I said it wrong. Areopagus. Oh, mmm. We'll get it here in a second. Ariel apagus Areopagus. And this is a place where Socrates 500 years before had spoken and even been tried and condemned to death. Paul gets a chance to speak here.

[9:33] And all the great thinkers of Athens, spiritual and intellectual, gather around, and Paul in Acts 17:22 says he stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said, "People of Athens, I see that you are in every way religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, there were so many that I even found an altar with this inscription: To an unknown God. So you were ignorant of the very thing you worship. And this is what I'm going to tell you about." You're religious, this is good. You don't know everything, this is good. Let me tell you the rest of the story: completion. Paul then proceeds to establish common ground with these Athenian thinkers in that both he and they agree that there is a Creator God, that this Creator cares for our world and is involved in our lives. So in verse 27, I'll pick it up.

[10:31] Paul says, "God did all this so that people would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us." And then he quotes one of their religious poets and says, "For in Him," in God, "we live and move and have our being." As some of your own poets have said, "We are His offspring." That's amazing. Paul's saying, some of your religion got it right. Let me affirm the part that got it right. But then he comes and says, now it's time for a little redirection. He says, "Therefore, since we are God's children," or offspring, "we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an idolatrous image made by human design and skill. In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent.

[11:28] For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead." Now many people said, raising from the dead? I'm out of here. But a core group in that audience asked him more. And they became believers in Jesus Christ. And Christianity started in Athens. Do you see how this idea of Jesus being the completion and the redirection of other spiritualities can really help us today in this multicultural world? We're in. Forget about trying to speak to someone, and it can help you. Just navigate it. So for instance, so many Christians enjoy yoga exercises.

[12:16] Now there's no doubt that helps the body. In 1 Corinthians 6:19 says that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and the more flexible temples, the better, I suppose. So we can affirm and complete the good of yoga exercises. But if we are involved in yoga, we have to correct or redirect the spiritual practices and teachings that sometimes are attached to it, because sometimes they are in contradiction to Scripture and maybe even science. Like, what is a chakra? We have to turn away from those types of things. Even in that, there's this mind-emptying meditation. You know, things that get emptied sometimes get filled, don't they?

[13:01] Instead, as a Christian, if we are to enter in a meditation, we would do it on a Christian model of connecting and being filled with the Holy Spirit and having communion, personal communion with the Holy Spirit, not of something but a someone. And so this completion and redirection idea allows us to affirm anyone's belief in God, whether we're talking to someone who believes in a Creator Spirit, or we're talking to another person from a monotheistic, one of the other monotheistic religions, or even if we're talking to someone who thinks of God more as the universe or higher power. We at least have a little bit of common ground, if nothing else, and we can take that truth and say, God, let me be used in that person's life to help them see that the higher power is a higher person who deeply, personally loves them.

[13:55] A God so personal that He sent His Son in human form to die for our sins, so personal that He offers His own Holy Spirit in communion with us. And so we help them as we see the beauty of what God was already doing in their lives, and we try to bring it to completion and separate it from errors that get mixed in. Not so offensive, right? I mean, what in the world got the disciples so beat up? For if that was their message. Well, let me add to their message: Christ brings completion, redirection, and exorcism to other spiritualities. Now that got them beat up. Sometimes these exorcisms were of specific spirits that were directly connected to a human person. Sometimes the exorcism was of a false a system of belief that had been demonically co-opted, so that instead of the attention going to God, it was now going to a lesser spirit.

[15:00] And these lesser spirits, the Bible tells us, are rebel spirits, demons, and nowhere near to God's glory and power. So if we flip backwards, if you were in Acts 17, if we just go back one chapter to Acts 16:16, we can see an example of an exorcism of a spirit that was directly connected to a person. Paul and his coworker Silas are in Philippi, which is also in Greece, when they come across a female slave who told fortunes. The power of the Holy Spirit is so strong that the fortune-telling slave girl follows them around saying, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved."

[15:45] She kept this up for many days. Can you imagine these men are servants of the Most High God. They're telling you how to be saved. It's great the first three times. Finally though, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her!" And at that moment, the spirit left her, and at that moment her master lost his source of business income. Because she was telling fortunes based on information from this spirit. And that got Paul and Silas dragged before the city, because you're disrupting business, got them beaten, got them thrown in prison. And it's another story, but they end up being used by God. This even save the jailers. Okay, but it gives us a great example. I want you to note something.

[16:34] Whether you or I believe in fortune telling or not, the Bible does. Fortune telling gives information that humans shouldn't know. So if you believe there are evil spirits that seek to draw our attention away from God, and you believe that in contrast, there is the one Holy Spirit of God, who connects personally to us in the love of the Father, Son, and Spirit, then a fortune teller knowing something that a human shouldn't know is no big deal. First of all, it could be trickery of a very human kind. But secondly, it could actually be supernatural. Since spirits know more than we do. They could make better guesses on what's going to happen because they have more information, and they even can to some extent manipulate events in people's lives, so that what they predict happens.

[17:25] But supernatural doesn't always mean good. The Bible says, test the spirits to see if they are from God. Do you know who is most easily impressed by something supernatural happening? Okay. All right. Who do we have here? I'm not sure if it's the Hulk minus the steroids, or, well, I've always wondered what it would be to go viral, and I thought maybe the burlap Hulk could be all the rage on TikTok. Right? Right. So you'd get all those likes and attention and yeah, like, yes. Yes. Well, I want to affirm you as a human being and thank you for exiting our platform, Bryce. All right. Thank you so much for that great distraction.

[18:13] Do you know who's most easily impressed by the supernatural? People who don't believe in the supernatural. For 170 years, Western culture has prized rationalism, the empirical world, a science that really doesn't really need a God for any explanations. And it has carefully chipped away at the idea of the spiritual, to the point where people either don't believe in God, or weren't believing in God, or at least live their lives like there was no God, and had a wee God compartment left over. Those were modern people. However, you know what happens after 170 years of no spirit?

[18:58] Your spirit gets hungry. And the first moment that anything supernatural happens, your whole way of looking at the world is shattered, and you go, "Whoa. This is amazing." And what you are is naive. And these people get sucked in. They're starving. They'll eat any food that's offered, rotten, unhealthy, hurtful, as long as it's food. You see, Satan does not care what anyone bites into spiritually, as long as it's not Christ. It's easy as A, B, C: anything but Christ. That's all he cares about. Now, Christians know from the book of Revelation and 2 Thessalonians that history will end in a culmination of the struggle of good against evil.

[19:50] There will be an appearance of the Antichrist as Satan's strongest power. And that power will be broken only by the second coming of Jesus Christ in glory. But there are two things that we often misunderstand about the Antichrist. The first is that the spirit of the Antichrist is already active. 1 John says, "This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming." Right? You've heard that. "And even now is already in the world." Paul says the same thing. He calls the Antichrist the lawless one, and he says, "For the secret power of the lawless one is already at work." This isn't just something for the end of time. There is an antichrist spirit at work in our world and in our lives. Number two is that anti- in Greek does not just mean against. When we say anti in English, we mean against, but in Greek it means two things. It doesn't mean just against Christ.

[20:53] It means instead of Christ, a replacement. 1 John again says, "Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God." In fact, there's many scriptures about this, and it's always key. It's always, it's a spirit that somehow doesn't fully acknowledge who Jesus is, and that's the spirit of the Antichrist. You see, anything but Christ will do. If Satan can convince you that there's no spiritual realities, like a modern person, and you live out this life until it's over for just what you can see and understand completely, then he's ruined you for all eternity, and he's happy. If you lay aside, though, your non-spiritual views of the world, then say Satan is happy to feed you one spirituality after another.

[21:44] How about some warlocks? How about some mediums? How about a friendly spirit guide, all of which deflect you from the great Spirit, the Holy Spirit? Or how about he just gets you fixated on whether or not there's ghosts or other paranormal phenomena that all works. But over time you begin to realize that these practices are making life worse and not better. And then perhaps Satan might say, "Why don't you go on a tour of the world's great religions?" And I don't have time to get into them. Because they are ancient, their own ancient practices, but as a world religion as you know them now, every one of them has been constructed as an alternative to Christianity.

[22:34] And so he'll get you in on an alternative. And if you start noticing that even amongst these world religions, Jesus is a big deal, and you begin to zero in on Jesus, then Satan will happily suck you into a spin-off group of Christianity that makes Jesus less than He is, such as Jehovah's Witnesses or the Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. And in last resort, if he has to, Satan might actually try to tempt you with evil itself and revealing himself. But there's very few of us that would be interested in actual Satanism, and we would run from him, and that's why 2 Corinthians 11 says that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.

[23:21] Satan is an unclean evil spirit. The last thing he wants you to think when he's coming to you is that he's unclean or that he's Okay, Angry Bird. But the same shoes. Same guy. Well, I guess the gig is up. Don't say a word. Don't say a word. Satan masquerades as an angel of light. So, let me close with a story from Acts chapter 8. That shows the contrast between how using spirits works and how having relationship with the Holy Spirit works.

[24:13] As the very first Christians shared their message in Jerusalem and thousands believed, a persecution did break out against them from the sector of the Jewish religious leaders that did not want to see Jesus as the completion. And so persecution began and Christians scattered. One of the first places they went was Samaria, next door to Jerusalem. And there they found people that tend to take a little bit of the God of Israel and harmonize that belief with other religious beliefs. And there was one guy in particular they ran into named Simon the Magician or Simon the Sorcerer, who was using spirits to have power in his life, and he's a big deal in that area. People call him the Great Power of God.

[24:58] And he was great until a Christian named Philip showed up and was greater, because Philip preached in Jesus' name and people were grabbed by the truth. He would pray for people to be healed. They'd be healed on the spot. Evil spirits would come out shrieking just on a simple prayer from Philip. And then shortly after that, Peter and John come up to bless that outbreak of belief and revival in Samaria. They lay hands on people to receive the Holy Spirit, and these people received the Holy Spirit in ways that are being visibly, miraculously manifested. And so this Simon, the sorcerer, the Great Power of God. "When Simon saw the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money and said, 'Give me also this ability, You say this ability?

[25:52] so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.' And Peter answered, 'May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money. You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that He may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.'" This story gives us a powerful set of contrasts to what a relationship with the Holy Spirit looks like versus using spiritualism. When you're using spiritualism, it is actually powerful.

[26:38] It's a power that you control, or you try to. It uses techniques, spells, and rituals to manipulate this power. It brings attention to you. Byron and over time the spirits take control and poison your life with bitterness. Now, in contrast, in a relationship with the Holy Spirit, He actually is more powerful than any other power. And rather than grabbing control, you give up control in faith. You don't manipulate this power, you pray and you trust God's timing and ways. And it does not bring attention to you. It brings attention to Jesus. And over time the Holy Spirit sets you free and fills your life with joy.

[27:39] A few years ago a drained and drawn lady came to one of the services at our church here. She's allowed me to share her story with you this morning in part. After this particular service, she came up to me and gripped my forearm and said, "What is this love that you have?" I go, "Me?" She goes, "No, everyone." "Like, what is this? I want that love." And I said, "Well, seriously, you want me to tell you about it?" "Yeah." Okay, so I sat down, I told her about Jesus. And she prayed to accept Christ, but very little happened. And she began to ask people to pray for her over a period of months, and it became apparent that in fact what had happened in her life is that she had been tricked in her life.

[28:33] She had invited literally spirits to come into her life and be part of her life spiritually. She felt were good and helpful and that could help her help others. But over time she was reduced to pain, sleeplessness, and absolute no peace. It was after several months though, as she began to try to seek for Jesus, that she finally came across this story about Simon the Sorcerer and realized that the Holy Spirit is not just another power that she could manipulate and control, but rather she had to give up all power and control to Him and surrendered to Him and being a love relationship with God.

[29:20] And today this lady is a transformed lady. She actually radiates joy and love to people at our church because she found the love. Her life tells me that there are people here today that need to be set free. And that freedom looks beautiful. ABC: anything but Christ, when the truth is as simple as one, two, three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's in communion with the God who is love that you will find the love that there is no substitute for. Jesus will complete every good thing that God has always been putting into your life, but He will also redirect you away from the errors that have been tangled up with that good, and He will exorcise you from every false spirit or teaching that seeks to influence you, to control you, to distract you, and to replace the only One who is irreplaceable, Jesus Christ.

[30:30] I want to invite our ushers to come forward now. We're going to go into a time of communion. And as we take the bread symbolizing the broken body of Christ, and drink the juice that sheds His blood shed for the forgiveness of our sins, I invite each person here to receive Christ anew into your hearts. If you've been feeding on other spiritual sources, I invite you now in this holy moment to respond to the Holy Spirit and say, "I will feed on Christ alone from now on." And if you're starting faith with Christ today, then take these elements as a pledge of faith in Him.

[31:15] No more substitutes, whether it be a life of materialism, chasing things and money, things that will pass, or whether it be alternate spiritualities, rabbit holes, and other things. You're going to say, "I'm going straight to Jesus from now on." For each one of us, let us reaffirm our faith that nothing but the blood of Jesus can take away our sins, and note that no other spiritual practices will have a way or a place in our lives. Let us surrender to the Holy Spirit. So would you, just as the band is playing, as they're singing, and you can distribute this now, gentlemen, please, and ladies, if you can distribute the elements. Let's just worship God as the elements go and sing with the worship team as we do.

[32:04] This. And I just want to say a quick prayer. Father God, You know that this world appears to be full of thousands of different options spiritually and thousands of different things to look into, and many of them look good, and there's good people involved in them. But Lord, right now, would You speak to our hearts? Would You show each person here if their hearts have become divided, would You equip them? Also, to be a light for Jesus in this world. And as we take these elements, which we now consecrate to You, we ask, Lord, that we would be able to feed in our hearts in faith on Jesus alone right now. We ask all this in His name. Amen.

[33:05] It looks like I just was You in every space of my life. I invite, invite like a fire, like a flower. Come however You with Your love. Come home.

[34:01] Safe, tearing down. You have no limitations. Like them, however, You are, however You we need Your power. We love. Come home, like like however, You are, we need Your power.

[35:06] We do love. Come home. Here.

[35:57] We're just waiting for the last few people to get the communion elements. These elements here, the easiest way to open them is just to push down on that tab, and then the top will rip off. You get the bread, and then you can take the rest off there.

[36:50] Okay, I believe we're ready on the main level and just waiting for the signal that we're down on the balcony. You Okay, on the night the Lord Jesus was betrayed, He took wine and bread, and He broke the bread and He said, "This is My body broken for you. Whenever you eat it, do it in remembrance of Me."

[37:48] And in the same way, after supper, He took the cup and said, "This cup is My blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Drink it and remember Me." Would you stand? As we close and worship, I do want to invite our prayer team to come up to the far right and the far left, where it's not quite as loud. And I want to invite people to come and receive prayer right now, or if you don't want to be prayed for and you just want to pray, just come and kneel at one of these steps or one of the altars along the sides.

[38:38] Because there's two groups of people here today that I want to invite to Christ specifically. I want to invite those who thought there wasn't much spiritual going on, that had been living materialistic lives focused on only what they can see. But today, if Jesus has spoken to you, I want you to respond to Him and come and give your life to Jesus. And I also want to speak to other groups of people that have been experimenting with alternate spiritualities, alternate practices, and you want to just put those aside today and receive Christ alone and be filled by His Holy Spirit. So I invite you to come down, no matter what your situation may be, as we sing right now and we worship God. God, in this holy moment, come and meet with us. We ask You to speak to hearts, set people free. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.