James Maloney - Living above the Snake Line: A Unique Perspective on the Present-Day Deliverance Ministry of Jesus Christ

Living
ABOVE
THE SNAKE LINE

A Unique Perspective on the Present-Day Deliverance Ministry of Jesus Christ

James Maloney

Copyright 2015 Dove on the Rise International.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Disclaimer: The author is not a medical professional and recognizes that there are people who need to seek medical and psychiatric help, apart from spiritual issues. The contents of this book are not to be construed as medical or psychiatric advice, nor are they intended to diagnose any health issues or provide treatment for such. If you are under the care of a mental or physical health care professional, do not stop taking medication until you have cleared it with your doctor.

Greek/Hebrew citations from Strong, J. (1890). Strong's exhaustive concordance of the Bible. Abingdon Press.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture taken from the Amplified Bible, copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-2020-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2021-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015918880

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/9/2015

Contents

To the late David Alsobrook, a mentor and a true fr iend.

"How you are fallen from he aven,

O Lucifer, son of the mor ning!

How you are cut down to the gr ound,

You who weakened the nat ions!

For you have said in your h eart:

'I will ascend into he aven,

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;

I will also sit on the mount of the congrega tion

On the farthest sides of the n orth;

I will ascend above the heights of the cl ouds,

I will be like the Most High.'

Yet you shall be brought down to S heol,

To the lowest depths of the Pit.

Those who see you will gaze at you,

And consider you, sa ying:

'Is this the man who made the earth tre mble,

Who shook king doms,

Who made the world as a wilder ness

And destroyed its ci ties,

Who did not open the house of his priso ners?'"

---Isaiah 14:12-17

1

Satan Has Been Defeated Your Whole Life

S atan is a defeated foe. If you've been a follower of Christ for any length of time at all, you know this, at least on some level. You understand the biblical concept that the works of the enemy of your soul were brought to no effect upon Christ's death on the cross. What the devil had intended to be his greatest victory---the death of God Himself---was turned back upon him, and he found himself crushed under the heel of God's Son, to whom all authority in heaven, and on earth, and below the earth, and on the sea, was given. (Matthew 28:18; Revelation 5:13) When Jesus died, Satan's power was stripped. When the Lord was raised from the dead and exalted by the Father, it solidified Jesus' place for all eternity over Lucifer, the fallen son of the morning.

"Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:9-11)

One of the greatest "keys of the kingdom of heaven" is the revelation that God the Father gave Peter in Matthew 16:13-20; that is, Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God. It's upon this rock that Jesus said His church would be built, and the gates of Hades would not prevail against it. The believer's authority to "bind and loose" is rooted firmly in the understanding that Christ has defeated every entity of hell, including the prince of lies, Satan. Our Lord is a conquering King, a total Victor, and the fact is that Satan has been defeated for your entire life! He is an utterly vanquished and subjugated tyrant. He is not the same devil that he used to be!

There are many books on deliverance out there, and the vast majority of them have great merit. But what will make this book unique (and prayerfully important) is we approach the concept of deliverance from the standpoint that we are facing a muzzled, broken foe. I cannot state this clearly enough---demons are already defeated. They have no authority or power in our lives, as believers in Jesus, save what we choose to give them. It's not like some days the devil is winning, and sometimes God is winning---a back and forth struggle, and poor humanity is stuck in the middle of clashing tides of angelic and demonic hosts. That is an errant philosophy.

Yes, I am aware that Satan is the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2), and that this world system is corrupted by his activity. That word "prince" in the Greek means the one who is in the first position of rank---the chief ruler or commander. (See Strong's #758.) "Power" here is authority or jurisdiction. (See Strong's #1849.) The word "air"---which, appropriately enough, is the word aer ("ah-air," Strong's #109)---means the lower, denser atmosphere closest to the earth. It is the air that we breathe, not the upper, rarified air as we approach space.

In other words, Satan is the chief ruler over the jurisdiction of this earthly realm. He doesn't own it; he is merely operating in delegated (or rather, pilfered) authority that was given to him by Adam when the man sinned.

I know that there are skirmishes in the unseen atmosphere between angels and demons, as the fallen foe tries to reassert dominion over their regional areas of influence, and that we do "wrestle... against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (See Daniel 10:10-14 and Ephesians 6:10-13) But concerning you and me, who are born-again, blood-purchased followers of Jesus Christ---not "children of disobedience"---our adversary has no rights over us, excepting what we choose to yield to him by rebellion against our Lord.

Can the enemy try to harass you? Yes. Does this mean your life is all roses and cupcakes? No. Can the enemy test your defenses, look for broken hedges, generally be a nuisance? Can the enemy try your faith? Of course. Otherwise there would be no need to write a book such as this, and there would be no reason to include the Book of Job in the canon of scriptures. But this does not negate the truth that Christ made a mockery of Satan's principality and power at the cross (Colossians 2:15), nor does it change the hard fact that, "...the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen." (Romans 16:20)