False Prophets – Page 2 – Short Bible Studies

Photo by Tucker Tangeman on Unsplash You can plug casting out demons in Google and you'll be pointed to "ministries" that charge hundreds of dollars to cast out demons. Casting out demons is one of the unique supernatural signs that (should) accompany the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What should not accompany this ministry is a price tag. I will state plainly that the practice of charging people any amount of money to cast out a demon is explicitly forbidden of God. It is a sure sign of covetousness, heartlessness, and callousness. What should not accompany this ministry is a price tag. No true minister of Jesus Christ will tell a person directly or indirectly, overtly or through insinuation, that unless he is paid he will not cast out a demon. Neither will he in the absence of pay cast out a demon with a grudging heart. Jesus Forbids Casting Out Demons for Money Jesus states explicitly that casting out demons for money is prohibited: And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease...And as you go, preach, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.Matthew 10:1, 7-8 Why does the Lord forbid us to put a price tag on casting out demons? Several Reasons Why Casting Out Demons for Money is Wrong There's no need to again include in the following list the foundational reason that the Lord forbids casting out demons for money. Reason One: Jesus Freely Gave the Apostles Power to Cast Out Demons. The apostles did not incur any costs to get this power. Nor could they. For it can't be purchased. When a guy tried to purchase a spiritual gift from the apostles, Peter and John, Peter said to him, "Your money perish with you, because you thought the gift of God could be purchased with money!" (Acts 8:20). Therefore, since the apostles paid nothing for this gift, they could not honestly say they were trying to recoup their investment. Which is something you do when you're in business. Reason Two: Charging Money to Cast Out Demons Gives People the False Impression That You Control the Gift. Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches...without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Some people add ceremony and antics and weirdness to casting out demons. This can give the impression the person is deep or special. Charging Money to Cast Out Demons Gives People the Idea They Can Use Money to Get What They Want from God. The truth is casting out demons is nothing more than using one's spiritual authority in Christ to order a demon to leave a person, place, or thing. That's it. Nothing more. Here's the critical point we must understand. When a saint commands a demon to leave, the demon will do so only if the Holy Spirit backs up your command. That is why Jesus said, "Without Me you can do nothing." He made that statement after He had given them power to cast out demons! Reason Three: Charging Money to Cast Out Demons Gives People the Idea They Can Use Money to Get What They Want from God. This further emboldens the rich in their deception and further crushes the poor in their misery. It opens the door for all kinds of superstitions and abuse. Hence, the Vatican and its selling of indulgences and Masses for the dead, and Protestants and their extortion of tithes and offerings. Yet, irrespective of the covetous financial schemes of preachers, the currency of God is repentance, faith, and humility. Reason Four: Charging Money to Cast Out Demons Causes the Ministry to Be Seen in a Bad Light. Generally speaking, everyone who knows anything about Jesus knows He hated covetousness and that He freely cast out demons and healed the sick. When the world sees so-called ministers selling the power of God as they would bisquits or foot massages, they rightly criticize these opportunists as scoundrels. Their Judas-like behavior gives the world an opportunity to unjustly condemn all ministers as money-grubbing crooks. (But if so many ministers weren't obviously greedy, this one-size-fits-all accusation wouldn't stick as it does.) Reason Five: Charging Money to Cast Out Demons Degrades the Priceless Value of the Gift. I am overwhelmed with gratitude and awe for God each time I have the opportunity to cast out a demon. There's nothing like receiving a desperate call from someone who describes a situation you know you are powerless to change. Yet, in faith you rebuke the condition on behalf of the risen Christ, and soon the person bursts out in spontaneous praise to God, saying, "Thank You, Jesus. It's gone!" Absolutely beautiful. A tormented person delivered from a decades-old bondage in minutes or hours! And me, the weak vessel honored by God to be His instrument of deliverance. But the beauty of the moment evaporates when you realize the gift is a commodity sitting on the shelf next to the corn flakes. Nothing more special than any one of a million low-value cash register transactions. When a Person Who Casts Out Demons is Covetous There's nothing worse in ministry than preachers who love money. They poison everything they touch. This is why God categorically disqualifies them from leadership ministry: It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. An overseer, then, must be above reproach...free from the love of money.1 Timothy 3:1, 3 Further along in the same letter, the Holy Spirit is even more explicit in His denunciation of money-loving preachers: But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many a pang.1 Timothy 6:9-10 Notice how the love of money destroys money preachers: They fall into temptation.They fall into a snare.They fall into foolish and harmful desires.They are plunged into ruin and destruction.They wander away from the faith.They pierce themselves with pangs, sorrows. These are the types of people who sell their services to people tormented by evil spirits. Does Casting Out Demons Fall Under "A Workman is Worthy of His Hire"? Money preachers routinely abuse the Scriptures to justify their greed for money and their heartless, profit-motivated behavior. Here's a favorite: ...For the worker is worthy of his hire.Matthew 10:10 It's amazing how eight words can be used to justify a heart attitude God abhors. You see the three dots before the words? Those are called ellipses. They are to let you know these words are pulled out of a larger passage. What is that passage? Well, it begins in Deuteronomy 25:4: “You must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain" (NLT). Paul explains this passage in detail when he was teaching the Corinthian church about their obligation to support his apostolic ministry team: What soldier has to pay his own expenses? What farmer plants a vineyard and doesn’t have the right to eat some of its fruit? What shepherd cares for a flock of sheep and isn’t allowed to drink some of the milk? Am I expressing merely a human opinion, or does the law say the same thing? For the law of Moses says, “You must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain.”Was God thinking only about oxen when he said this? Wasn’t he actually speaking to us? Yes, it was written for us, so that the one who plows and the one who threshes the grain might both expect a share of the harvest.Since we have planted spiritual seed among you, aren’t we entitled to a harvest of physical food and drink? If you support others who preach to you, shouldn’t we have an even greater right to be supported? 1 Corinthians 9:7-12 Any honest heart can see from this passage that Paul didn't use the ox example to justify greed and charging people to cast out demons. He used it to say, "Hey, even animals are taken care of while they work for you. How much more should you take care of us who are serving you so sacrificially!" So, Should a Person Be Given Money for Casting Out a Demon? The concept of materially supporting deserving ministers and ministries is well established in the Bible. We should do it. It is also well established in the Bible that we should identify greedy preachers, mark them as dangerous to the health of the church, and vigorously resist all they stand for. (Read 1 Timothy 6; 2 Peter 2; Jude) So, what about these rascals charging money to cast out demons? The short and easy answer is don't give them a dime. The longer and more nuanced answer is I wish it were this simple. I say this because between the thick layers of money-grasping scoundrels charging to cast out demons are true ministers who love God and genuinely want to help people. Unfortunately, these genuine ministers may look disturbingly like the false ministers. This is because they finance their ministry by requiring payment for their help. Exactly what the scoundrels do. It is altogether proper to ask why a true minister would require payment for ministry when Jesus said, "Freely you have received, freely give." Why Some Genuine Ministers Charge Money for Their Assistance But if we enlarge the question to include all ministry and not solely casting out demons, the answer becomes quite nuanced. The answer is simple for those who believe the concept of paid preachers is altogether wrong. Every member of the church is a minister and should do the work of the ministry. This makes a class of paid ministers unnecessary, and even counterproductive.The Anti-Clergy Movement However, this extreme position is not biblical and is so full of real-world holes, there is almost not enough left to hold the doctrine together. As I stated before, the truth is more nuanced. I do agree that every saint is a minister--of sorts. The qualification is that 99% of the church lives primarily for themselves. Once they finish catering to their own needs, desires, distractions, and sins, the Lord's work may get a little of what's left over. In anticipation of this, the Holy Spirit specially appoints and anoints some saints whose primary aim and responsibility in life is to evangelize the lost, and build and protect the church. They have an exponentially higher responsibility to the work of the Lord, and will be judged by a higher standard than the typical Christian who spends almost all of his time on himself (James 3:1). Despite this heightened responsibility, it is a shameful truth that in the absence of threats, bribery, and manipulation many Christians will give little in proportion to their possessions. And some find a way to justify giving nothing. This reality causes many genuine ministers to take matters into their own hands. Often this results in questionable fundraising methods. Note: The challenge that genuine ministers face when the Christian community doesn't properly support them doesn't relieve them of the responsibility to ultimately place their trust in Christ for their support. Don't Pay for Having a Demon Cast Out, But Do Generously Support Those Who Are Worthy of Support Someone charges X amount of dollars to cast out demons. Stay away from him. He's a greedy person who is prostituting the gift of God. But... Someone spends a considerable length of time laboring over you with counseling and prayer and casting out a demon. Should you be especially open to the Holy Spirit to materially support their ministry? You should. This is especially true if you are helped by a ministry that does not charge money for its services, but instead leaves it up to the person being helped to give an offering. What About Suggested Offerings for Casting Out Demons? There are ministries that provide services for "suggested" offerings. First, an offering is not an offering if it's mandatory. Second, neither is it truly suggested if a lower offering or zero offering does not qualify you for the same service you would receive for the suggested offering. But let's be clear: A ministry's suggested offering doesn't necessarily mean someone's a crook. It could mean the ministry is taking preemptive measures against people who will work you to exhaustion and then give you five or ten bucks or nothing at all--although they can afford to give much more. Some ministries have rented space and staff and equipment to provide a safe, comfortable, public place for those seeking help. This stuff costs money. So, it's safe to assume there are legitimate bills to be paid. They don't want to charge a fee for ministry. They know that's wrong. But then they're left with the dilemma of asking for nothing and subsequently getting nothing, or getting very little, and having to shut down the apparatus that facilitates their ministry. This means laying people off, shutting down the building, and continuing the ministry after everyone gets home from their new jobs. We need to be real here. It's not going to happen. Or if it does, it's going to be sporadic and few and short. There's only so much time available after you get off work. In comparison to how many people you can help when your full-time job is helping people versus how many you can help when your full-time job is at Company X from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., it's no comparison. Unfortunately, Satan doesn't work part-time. Consequently, the need for deliverance from tormenting demons is overwhelming. There are multitudes of people needing help and very few workers to help them. And one of the teams that was trained and helping people just shut down shop and went back to work making widgets and selling insurance. They had to do this because their hearts are too pure to sell God's power, and the people they helped were either too materially poor or too spiritually deficient to financially support their ministry. Final Word About Paying for Demons to Be Cast Out Greedy preachers have no problem charging money to cast out demons. Don't support these demonized preachers at all. Stay away from them. You don't want the influence of a greedy person in your life. Conversely, genuine preachers whose main occupation (for lack of a better word) is direct gospel ministry have great difficulty balancing their desire to help people with the financial cost of doing so.1 People can be quite demanding of a minister's time and yet quite unwilling to financially support the person helping them. Don't be one of these people. If you can't help them, you can't. But if you can, please do so. Notes The financial costs I'm speaking of are those I consider legitimate. One is the financial personal "cost" of not pursuing a career like everyone else. Nearly the entire American Christian community pursues money through their vocation--and it's considered being industrious. The minister has the same financial needs as everyone else. Yet, he or she has chosen to serve the world and church in a vocation/calling that expressly forbids seeking money for services.Think about it: How would you do if you had to live with this requirement? You're a plumber or attorney or business owner who can't charge a fee. You're expected to trust God for your money. Could you do it? Practically speaking, how would you do it?The other "cost" is that of facilitating the preaching of the gospel and its supporting activities. Preaching and teaching and healing and casting out demons cost nothing to do.But it does cost to travel. It does cost to rent a facility. It does cost for administrative support. It does cost to get and maintain a website. It costs for a host of tangible and intangible items and services that may help the minister serve people better. Here are a couple of Eric's articles on demons you may enjoy: 10 Mistakes We Make When Casting Out Demons and If You Don't Believe Christians Can Have Demons. Eric has written a bunch of books. You can check them out on Amazon.