Spiritual Warfare: Are You Wrestling or Resting?devil's territory when they leave the Word. They say
they are following the Spirit, but you can't follow the
Holy Spirit apart from the Word. Put the Word first and
the Spirit second.
When people endeavor to follow what they call the
"spirit," but hey leave the Word, they open themselves
up to deception. For example, a certain minister had a
marvelous ministry for years that was based on the
Word of God. But some years later, a pastor friend of
mine attended several of this man's meetings. My
pastor friend said there were a few things that were
doctrinally off, but they weren't crucial to the truth of
the gospel. But then this pastor said, "I went back
another night, and the minister told some 'revelations'
he'd had."
The pastor had known this minister for thirty years,
and the man had been in the ministry many years. But
it doesn't matter how long you've been in the ministry,
or how doctrinally correct you've been in the past, if you
leave the Word, you throw yourself wide open for
satanic deception.
This pastor friend of mine told me, "I went up to
him after the service and said, 'I've been going along
with you on some things you've said because they
weren't all that important. But tonight you said some
things, and you're just going to have to give me chapter
and verse for it.'"
Remember the Bible said, “... In the mouth of two or
three witnesses shall every word be established" (2 Cor.
13:1). If people would only heed this scripture, it would
keep them from building doctrinal aircastles and going
into deception on the basis of one scripture taken out of
context.
This minister replied, "Oh, you won't find what I'm