Neil T. Anderson - Finding Gods Will in Spiritually Deceptive Times

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Harvest House Publishers, Inc., is the exclusive licensee of the federally registered trademark THE BONDAGE BREAKER.

FINDING GODS WILL IN SPIRITUALLY DECEPTIVE TIMES

The Bondage Breaker Series

Copyright 2003 by Neil T. Anderson

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Anderson, Neil T., 1942

Hearing God in spiritually deceptive times / Neil T. Anderson

p. cm. (The bondage breaker series)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-7369-1220-7 (pbk.)

1. Discernment (Christian theology) 2. Christianity and other religions.

3. Providence and government of God. I. Title. II. Series.

BV5083.A525 2003

248.4dc21 2003001913

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

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To Sammy and Hannah Anderson, my precious grandchildren

May your lives reflect
Gods will as He guides
you through the maze of life.

Acknowledgments

For 60 years people have been building into my life. Books by authors I never met and tapes by people I never knew have contributed to my growth in Christ. Im grateful for all the teachers that I have had over the years. Im sure each one has contributed something to this book.

I want to thank Dr. Robert Saucy for reading through the rough draft and adding valuable insights to and making suggestions for the original manuscript. I have the highest respect for him because I know he loves the Lord and is committed to the truth.

I also want to thank my wife, Joanne. She has been my faithful companion who supports me and loves me enough to give me honest feedback.

Im deeply grateful for Dr. Bill Bright and the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ. It was through their ministry that I found the Lord. Years later, I was one of the hundreds of people who dedicated their lives to full-time Christian ministry at Expo 72 in response to a message by Dr. Bright. (I was an aerospace engineer at the time.) And it was Heres Life Publishers, a former ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, that challenged me to put together the original manuscript of this book.

I am also very grateful for the relationship I have with Harvest House. To me, they are more than a publishing house; they are my friends.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

From the Counterfeit
to the Real

I N A TELEPHONE CONVERSATION a woman asked me, Dr. Anderson, my pastor says my favorite television evangelist is a false teacher. Is he right?

At a ministerial retreat, a pastor said, Neil, Ive been at this church three years, and heres the situation After explaining some of the difficulties of his ministry, he asked, Do you think God is calling me out of here?

A potential but doubting groom asked, After meeting with my girlfriend and me twice now, do you think we should get married?

A zealous new Christian declared, The Lord spoke to me last night and said I was to leave my family and their traditions and attend a new church that believes in miracles and prosperity. Was that the Lord speaking to him? Or was he being deceivedand how can we know?

Good questions. Important questions for those seeking divine guidance and for those who are making decisions that will make a large impact on their lives. Tragically, false teachers and false prophets disguised as ministers of righteousness are distorting Gods guidance. People are also paying attention to deceiving spirits. Consider the apostle Pauls warning to Timothy: The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons (1 Timothy 4:1 NIV). That is happening right now, all over the world.

Are Christians vulnerable to this deception? There is abundant evidence that an extraordinary level of deception is present among believers. I have been helping people find freedom in Christ for many years, and hardly a day goes by that I do not talk to a believer who has been deceived. Many Christians are paying attention to deceiving spirits, and most of them desire to know and do Gods will. Tragically, good people can be deceived.

I have listened to hundreds of parents tell of their children falling away. Others have told me about their spouses, relatives, and friends who are being deceived. Thats the kind of fallen world we have lived in ever since Satan deceived Eve. It seems the intensity of the enemys attacks is increasing as the day of the Lord draws near.

Counterfeits from Other Religions

Since the 1960s, Eastern religions have had a huge impact on our Western culture. Religious philosophies and alternative spiritualities based on this influence are not newwhat is new is how their beliefs have penetrated every level of society in the Western world. A corporate executive thinks he is going to a helpful seminar on resolving conflicts in the workplace. Instead he is introduced to a meditation technique. Your teenage son or daughter enrolls in a class on holistic health, only to find the teacher espousing medical practices based on Eastern philosophies. Your elementary-school child is frightened by an apparition in his or her room, or terrorized by nightmares that you cannot explain. Later you learn of your childs exposure to the game Dungeons & Dragons or the counterfeit spirituality of Harry Potter, which has opened the door to demonic activity. Without spiritual discernment, even well-intentioned Christians can be deceived. That is why we will look first at counterfeit guidance, in part 1 of this book, before we consider how God guides His children.

Counterfeits Result in Bondage

I have counseled people who were heralded as prophets, but who now realize they were in deep spiritual bondage to the lies of Satan. Others believed they were being guided by God, but were actually paying attention to deceiving spirits. A pastor wrote, I discovered that one of the older members of our deacon board, along with two other long-standing members of my church, practice a form of spirit contact that sounds something like a sance. They told me that not all of the spirits one can contact are necessarily bad, and that one had to consider the enduring nature of the good things they brought, such as healings and messages from the other side.

At the same time, in our technological age, many misguided people are so oriented toward the power of human reason and observation that they have reduced their walk with God to nothing more than an intellectual exercise. Keeping both of these human tendencies in mind, we will take a brief look at the balance between Western rationalism and naturalism, and Eastern mysticism.