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The "church life" was the new wineskin and what we were experiencing was the new wine. To put the new wine into the old wineskin would cause the old wineskin to burst, and the new wine would be lost.
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Originally Posted by Toledo
Yes, and this is why I read here. How do we go on?
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Toledo,
I think a good place to go, at least start to go, is in these paragraphs:
(1) I believe that it is POSSIBLE for a Christian to be deceived.
(2) It is possible for ME to be deceived?
(3) I AM deceived.
(4) WHY am l deceived?
...
Just as there are various degrees of deception, so there are degrees of deliverance. Deliverance from deception is based on the understanding of the believer, and his WILLINGNESS To FACE ALL THE TRUTH ABOUT HIMSELF, and all the ground given to the enemy.
In doing this the believer needs to recover the ground in mind and body which he has ignorantly yielded to the foe. The deceived believer himself must ACT to get rid of passivity. He must revoke his CONSENT given to deceiving spirits to enter. By his own volition the believer must reject and revoke the gound (Ephes. 4: 27) the enemy has taken by deceit.
God will not act for believers in regaining lost ground, nor will He exercise His choice for the man. Man must himself stand on the ground of the victory of Christ on the cross and claim his freedom.
Assuming, then, that the believer has discovered that he is a victim of deception, what are the subjective steps in the path of freedom? Briefly,
(1) acknowledgment of deception;
(2) refusal of ground;
(3) steadfast fight against all that deception means;
(4) being on guard against excuses;
(5) the detection of all the effects of deception; and
(6) a discerning of the result of these actions.
When I was still meeting with the LC, I took the position that it was not possible for me to be deceived, because I was in "God's best". It was beyond my wildest dream that Christians could even be deceived. Other Christians maybe, but not me.
We do a lot of back and forth on these forums, and even on this thread. The thing that opened my eyes, more than all the back and forth in the world, was remembering all the doubts I had stuffed under my mattress. I'll use the example of idolatry. I didn't deny that I was an idolator. I asked the Lord to show me my idolatry.
Or, put another way, rather than assume I was in God's best, I had to acknowledge a very basic premise: my true condition.
THE BASIC FACT OF THE FALL
The primary fact to be recognized by every human being is the complete and utter ruin of the first creation at the Fall, when the First Adam admitted the poison of the serpent, which permeated and corrupted his whole being beyond repair. This fact of the utter corruption of the human race as a consequence of this is unmistakably declared in the New Testament:
"The old man, which waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit." (Eph. 4: 22 R.V.)
"Being darkened in their understanding; alienated from the life of God." (Eph. 4: 18).
"We all once lived in the lusts of the flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as the rest." (Eph. 2: 3).
Thus the Apostle described the whole race of man, Gentile and Jew, Pharisee and Publican--in all, he said, "the prince of the power of the air" wrought, as "the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience."
These facts declared by the Word of God, and the reality of the blinded mind (2 Cor. 4: 4), and ruined condition of every human being, is the ONLY BASIS UPON WHICH THE TRUTHS WE ARE CONSIDERING ... CAN BE UNDERSTOOD, AND PROVED TO BE TRUE, IN EXPERIENCE AND PRACTICE.
From this position, we have nowhere to go but UP.
Nell
PS: These paragraphs in blue are from the writings of Jesse Penn-Lewis.