8.2 The Demon at the Heart

During the season of deliverance at the Blueberry Community, we learned graphically a principle of demonic power. There is one central stronghold of power that allows many weaker things of evil to enter. That stronghold has to be removed before a flood of others flee with it. Nonetheless, sometimes other powers sitting on top of that central stronghold must go before you can “get at” the big guy.

From the view of redemption, very often, forgiveness towards a critical person in someone’s life must come before all the petty little things vanish with the giant of resentment. For me, of truth, it was forgiving my dad (towards whom I had no cause for resentment). Yet that came a few weeks after an initial, but only partial, experience of deliverance.

One Demonic Stronghold. In a previous chapter, I suggested that all seven demonic strongholds keeping God’s people from knowing Christ Jesus written upon their hearts must go all at once, as in a “shotgun” blast. There is some truth in that, for just removing one arena of false thinking is never successful. If Christ is not all, first, then it doesn’t take long for the remaining accusations to invite the missing guy back in.

But now I understand that there is one demonic stronghold that is the key point in the deliverance of the entire Church of Christ, the demon at the heart. I am speaking literally. This is not Satan, but his most evil captain in his desperation, the one that upholds the rest.

The Left Hand of Contempt. Go back to Lesson 5.2, “A Mighty Stronghold,” and consider the words of the man on Facebook speaking against me. He enters the conversation with contempt. – “God doesn’t hear you, Yordy.” At his right hand is the super “Christ,” Jesus “above you,” but at his left hand is his definition of “redemption.” That demon at the left hand of contempt is the kingpin, debasing the sacrifice of Jesus into “appease me.”

The demon at the heart is the horrific and wicked definition of “redemption” found in Nicene thinking. In this lesson I hope to address the ideas of that false definition, but in addressing ideas, we do not lose sight of the reality that we are speaking of demonic power. We have the authority to remove this evil from the heart of the Church.

The Blood. The Blood is the statement of Jesus to us, “I love you. I give Myself for you that you might enter into Me, into Life.” According to Hebrews 10, that Blood became our way into already living inside of God without consciousness of sins.

For convenience, let’s give this demon a name, let’s call him Appease. Satan gave to Appease the task of altering the “idea” of the Blood in the mind that knows good and evil, the mind that retains all consciousness of sins.

Picture the blood on the doorways just before the Exodus. Picture the children of Israel outside those doorways, “pleading” with God to be allowed to enter their homes that they might be saved from the angel of death. Picture them screaming as death takes their firstborn.

When They See the Blood. It didn’t happen then, yet that is now the way of Christianity. Appease has become the idea of the Blood in the minds of Christians, and when they see the Blood, they think only of Appease.

I had the opportunity recently to observe a mind that KNOWS that evil is “real,” and that reality is defined only as a great, cosmic struggle of good versus evil, that the Christian life consists mostly of a struggle against sin in the flesh. God has brought more clarity to me as I pondered the meaning of that mind, for indeed we know it well, having lived in it for years. Paul said that such a mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

Only Two Ways of Thinking. Suddenly I realized that when Paul said “the law of God,” here in Romans 8, he was speaking only of “the law of the Spirit of life inside of Christ Jesus,” and not “the law of sin and death” at all. The first is the Words of God as they are known while eating from the Tree of Life, having entered already through the unlimited Sacrifice of Jesus. The second is the Words of God as they are known by those who come to God through Appease and who live under his whip, unable to enter Life.

I realized that the mind that “knows good versus evil” is the only possible way to think, even for Christians, in the absence of two things, (1) giving thanks inside of all and (2) knowing a Personal Jesus who saves me by coming into union with me.

Limited APPEASEment. Here is our diagram of the seven seals binding Christian believers. I have re-worked the wording just a bit. The most evil phrase in Christianity is “limited atonement,” except they do not mean atonement at all, but rather APPEASEment. The entrance remains unthankfulness, but see limited APPEASEment as the weight dragging it all down.

The Meaning of the Sacrifice. I do not need to present the evidence of Scripture that NOTHING is more valuable to God than the offering of Jesus to God for our sakes, a value infinitely greater than all other values combined. In that offering, Jesus received you and me into His soul as He spoke these words, “I and the children whom You have given Me.” And He received the Father into His same soul with us when He said, “You have answered Me.” Jesus gave God what He wanted, and He gave us what we wanted. He joined the Father and us together as one – atonement, joined back together again.

The only way to debase the Church would be to utterly pollute the meaning of Jesus’ Sacrifice in their minds.

The Beginning of Life. I can see now how this demon at the heart is the ruin of everything inside Christian thinking.

When God restored us to a full life of sharing every next step with Him, in April of 2022, He was not bringing us to a “high level” in the Christian experience. God was simply bringing us to the beginning of the Christian life, to that normal relationship with Himself intended for every little believer who flees into Jesus. Rather, it was through our study of John, speaking Christ made personal as us out from the LIFE that fills John’s gospel, that caused the last shadowy tendrils of that awful DEMON of evil, that had wrapped themselves around the Sacrifice of Jesus, to vanish from our minds forever.

Not Enough for Me. Here is how John saw this demon in the Church in his vision. I saw a black horse and the one who sat upon it had a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard the resemblance of a voice in the midst of the four living things saying, “A measure of wheat for a denarius and three measures of barley for a denarius, and you will not do wickedly against the oil and the wine.”

Famine. The cross of Jesus is not enough for me. The blood of Jesus is not enough for me. The resurrection life of Jesus is not enough for me. Not enough, not enough, not enough. I want to touch briefly on a number of things this demon has taught Christians on how to think about the Sacrifice.

Out from Paganism. Appease operates at the intersection of consciousness of sins and the lust for superiority. In practical terms, it assists the human desire to negotiate, as Adam did after he ate of death. Appease came into Christian thinking from paganism as early as the second century of the Church, placing pagan definitions upon Bible concepts.

It is hard to isolate Appease from the other six demons binding the Church into unbelief; they all assist each other. The demon of the super “Christ” serves to separate Jesus from us, to make Him “above” and us “unworthy.” This is the foundation of the Catholic mass. But Appease deals strictly with Christian ideas of the purpose and meaning of the crucifixion of Jesus.

The Crucifix. I suspect that the greatest power in the minds of Christians operated by Appease is the crucifix, the image of static death. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ demonstrates for us the mix of pagan and Christian ideas regarding that static and external image of “the suffering Christ.”

Here is the line of thinking. – God hates sin. You have done sinful things. You have to pay for, that is, be punished for, your sins. (There is in punishment no thought of justice or restoration of what was stolen.) Your punishment is the execution that is death followed by hellfire forever. – Thus Jesus came in-between God and sin so that the punishing hatred coming out from God would hit Him rather than you.

Removing God from Jesus. Appease does not need to deal with Salvation or the Life that is Jesus inside of us, for that is the work of his companion, Death as Salvation – “go to” heaven, salvation someday. What Appease does is separate the Father from Jesus in the minds of those looking at The Passion, the crucifix, from afar. It inspires in the thinking of those who perceive a faraway Jesus the belief that “My sin did that to Jesus,” that, “God is punishing Jesus instead of me.” Hence, the Roman soldiers show us God, beating Jesus, but Jesus shows us our own sin, being punished by God. Pagans are the revelation of God, but Jesus is the revelation of sin.

– There is no thought of God inside of Christ reconciling us to Himself or of Jesus showing us the Father.

Dissolving Hatred. The pagan idea, coming from sacrifices offered to demons, including burning one’s children in offering to Molech, is that a God who “knows evil” has to be appeased to get Him to “back off” so that the “good” side of God can be for a few. Somehow God’s hatred of us is dissolved only because Jesus was killed instead of us (even though we still must die). (These things are not actually well-thought through, they just sit and turn every good word of the Gospel into a horror.)

The most wicked term in Christian theology is, I think, the phrase “limited atonement.” But look at what is actually “believed” in the mind of good versus evil. – Jesus’ sacrifice really was not enough for God!

Not Enough for God. The idea that killing Jesus could dissolve God’s hatred has its limitations. Clearly, God’s hatred survived and is always leaking through. This is where Appease really comes into his own in the horror of the Christian mind of hades.

The demon we could call Pretend worries about the mechanics of all the outward show, but it is Appease that is the cause of all the pretending. Not enough, not enough, not enough – For God. God’s wrath is yet unsated. Do, Do, and Do, twist and jive, hide and mask, face after face – SOMEHOW God’s lust for your pain has to be countered. – An unfinished and incomplete Atonement.

A Measure for a Price. Appease, like the Pharisees, is pleased to sell you a more complete “atonement.” – A measure for a price. Penance, whipping one’s self, going on pilgrimage, paying tithes, writing down your sins of the week so that we can throw it into the fire, cursing yourself, running down to the altar, “repenting” over and over, making sure you look “holy” when you go to church, the list of payments for a tiny measure of a limited and insufficient “atonement” is endless.

I have heard Christian leaders tell little children, “If your neighbor goes to hell, it’s your fault.” This is evil, and the demon out from which comes such words sits at the heart of the mind of the flesh, imagining a “struggle against sin.”

Two Unconnected Minds. I find this to be quite an exercise of mind, seeking to isolate and set out the specific parts of a dark and anti-Christ theology. Even in doing so, the specific parts of the glorious Redemption of Christ are also made more clear. LIFE has no knowledge of good versus evil. Good versus evil has no knowledge of LIFE. They are two universes, with no bridge or connection between, one a complete fantasy and delusion, the other the only reality there is.

Yet Appease, looking through the eyes of a Christian seeing one who is eating of LIFE, sees only “blasphemy,” and, in “service to God,” strikes against such “blasphemy. Appease lives in, and thus requires of all, consciousness of sins.

A Self-Created Hell. Indeed, if we willingly continue in [the consciousness of] sins [refusing the entrance of the Holiest], after we have received the acknowledgement of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice [inside our consciousness], but a certain fear and expectation of judgment, a zealous fire that is ready to eat up that which opposes. …Of how much worse penalty, do you think, will he be worthy who has disregarded the Son of God, and placed no value on the blood of the Covenant in which he was made devoted to God, and treated contemptuously the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:26-30). – They hated Me without a cause.

None of this is external to any human, all of it is taking place inside the human soul, a pointless and self-created hell.

Sharing with Jesus. There is, in fact, something more wonderful than the Sacrifice of Jesus, giving Himself to the Father for our sakes and for His, that He might join us together with God inside His soul. And that something is that Jesus then invites you and me to share that same redemption Love together with Him, that we can turn and, in the costliness of His joy, include our brethren in that same embrace of God.

Appease MUST lose his grip upon our brethren BECAUSE we give him no regard. We care not for any falseness, but rather, with Jesus, we join our brethren with Father inside our own souls, and that’s an end of it. We are little, God is big, and together we are redeeming all.

Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is titled “Unfaltering Pursuit.” We want to consider the meaning of Jesus carrying His entire Church inside Himself through 2000 years of darkness. And then, how He has invited us to share with Him in that same unfaltering pursuit of Love. Have you loved someone so much that you are willing to bear all for centuries for their rescue? Jesus loves His Bride so much that He has done this. Gethsemane has lasted for two thousand years.

I am also adding a short lesson to the end of Chapter 7 titled “Into Goodness.” This will explain my change of the title to “Repurposing Human Folly.” Be sure to finish reading Ch. 7.

Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, You share with us the grief of heart over this awful pollution placed upon the love of Jesus for us. Inside of You, Father, we are utterly clean regardless of the need to understand that which is being cast down. Enable us by Your Spirit, oh God, not just to understand, but to cast down with power and with complete effectiveness.

“We know, Father, that as humans on this earth filled with Jesus, we have the authority to stand inside of You for the sake of our fellow Christians, as if they are here with us, part of us and part of You. It all boils down to how we Love You, Oh God, in every circumstance and limitation, loss and joy, giving thanks in all.

“As we love You, Father, and as we love sharing every next step with You, whatever it might be, rooted and grounded inside of Love, so we turn and return that same Love back to you by loving our neighbors in the same way.

“Here, in this wondrous place of simplicity and joy, inside the limitations of our flesh in this world, limitations that are entirely Your design of us, we have the authority to Love our brethren and to cast down the demon at the heart, the wicked doctrine of “appeasing” a God who is hated without a cause. Here, inside of the name of Jesus, we cast down every false claim of an insufficient atonement, the false ideas of a “salvation” not yet reached. Be gone from the Church forever.

“We know only Life, Father, and together with You, we include our brethren in Life with us. Let it be so; it is so.”