April/May
2019 - Vol. 103
Jesus
sends out 70 disciples to proclaim the kingdom of
God and to set people free, illustration by James
Tissot
The
Gospel of the Kingdom and
Liberating the Captives.
.
by Michael Harper
The hardest war to fight is the one without a
front line. Christian conflict is always like
guerrilla warfare. "The whole world," John
writes, "is in the power of the evil one” (1
John 5:19). We are fighting in enemy-held
territory. Satan snipes at us from every
direction. There are enemy agents everywhere.
The enemy has immense power and resources, and
numerous allies.
We need to be made very much more aware of the
subject of "the Kingdom", for it figured
prominently in the teaching and work of Jesus.
The word means "authority" or "the rule of God".
When the noble man, in Jesus' parable (Luke
19:11 ff), went into a far country to receive "a
kingdom" (AV), it does not mean an area of land,
but authority to rule. The RSV correctly
translates the word "kingly power". According to
Dr H. Ridderbos, the expression originated “with
the late-Jewish expectation of the future in
which it denoted the decisive intervention of
God, ardently expected by Israel, to restore His
people's fortunes and liberate them from the
power of their enemies"
[quote from New Bible Dictionary, IVF
1962).
God's world has been taken over by enemy troops.
His concern is for its liberation. We are His
troops fighting a non-stop and ruthless war,
recapturing one stronghold after another from
the enemy. This is what Jesus meant by the
Kingdom. It is interesting that in the New
Testament it seems at times to be almost
synonymous with a word we are very much more
familiar with: Gospel. For instance in Luke 9:2
Jesus commissioned the Twelve "to preach the
Kingdom of God and to heal”. They obeyed, yet in
verse 6 we are told that they went through the
villages "preaching the Gospel and
healing everywhere".
It seems as if the Gospel and the Kingdom are
different aspects of the same thing – the
reclaiming of the world for God, and the
rescuing of men and women from the hands of the
enemy. Jesus put these two words together in the
expression “the Gospel of the Kingdom" (Matthew
24:14). But if we do not link the Kingdom to our
thinking about the Gospel, then we are losing
something that is vital. For whereas the word
"Gospel" signifies that it is "good news" that
we proclaim, the adjunct "Kingdom” signifies
what happens when we proclaim it – people are
set free from the power of Satan.
The message that Jesus preached was centered on
"the Kingdom”. He was concerned with delivering
people from the power of Satan. He was sent to
"proclaim release to the captives and...to set
at liberty those who are oppressed" (Luke 4:18).
As He moved from town to town it was like the
passage of an army of liberation. There was the
woman "bound by Satan for eighteen years" whom
Jesus released (Luke 13:10 ff.). There were the
poor madmen out of whom He cast demons, so that
He could say "the Kingdom of God has come upon
you" (Matthew 12:28). Disease and even death
departed before the authoritative word of the
Son of God.
The disciples also were given power and
authority to do the same when they were sent out
by Jesus. They too healed the sick and cast out
evil spirits. They were told by Jesus that as
they healed they were to declare, “The Kingdom
of God has come near to you" (Luke 10:9). They
came hastening back to the Lord with enthusiasm
saying, “Even the demons are subject to us in
your name!" (Luke 10:17). Paul and the other
apostles had similar experiences after
Pentecost. Paul himself was commissioned with
the words, "I send you to open the eyes of the
Gentiles, that they may turn from darkness to
light and from the power of Satan to God" (Acts
26:17-18). He reminded the elders of Ephesus of
his "preaching the Kingdom" in their midst (Acts
20:25). He was still preaching the same message
the last time we hear of him in the Acts of the
Apostles (28:31).
It is for this task that the power of the Holy
Spirit is chiefly given.
Evangelism
It is fashionable to say that "the Church is
Mission". We are soldiers in an army of
liberation. If we are true Christians, we have
ourselves experienced the joy of release and
freedom which comes through faith in Jesus
Christ. So, with a deep sense of our own
gratitude, we join hands with others in the task
of liberating the captives of Satan. Our enemy
is a past master in the art of psychological
warfare. He is the father of lies. He has
infiltrated into the Church, and persuaded many
to believe in his lies - even that he does not
exist !
Paul describes Satan's work as "blinding the
minds of the unbelievers to keep them from
seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of
Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:4). The activity of
Satan is massive and powerful in preventing
people from believing the truth. He has
succeeded in closing a third of the world's
population to unrestricted missionary work. He
has sent confusion into large areas of the
Church so that few are clear as to what they
should be preaching, and fewer still have any
confidence in the Word of God. He has dangled
enticing "red herrings" before the Church, so
that some have become so preoccupied with these
that they have almost completely neglected the
primary task of the Church: evangelism. Then
even amongst those that are most active in
evangelism, he has succeeded in blinding many to
the full-orbed ministry of the Holy Spirit,
without whom evangelism becomes a heart-breaking
chore rather than an exciting adventure.
One of the most important purposes for the
baptism in the Spirit is that we might have
power to be witnesses to Christ. It makes
possible our initiation into the strategy of the
Spirit. Just as He was the inspiration behind
the effective evangelism of the early Church, so
He will be today.
We are not preaching to neutral forces, waiting
to hear the Word of God before believing, but to
people who are Satan's captives, although
unconscious of it. It is the function of the
Holy Spirit, working through channels that trust
Him, to break these chains and deliver the
prisoners. It is He, for instance, who convicts
a person of sin, righteousness and judgement,
words which modern man laughs at. It is the work
of the Spirit to make Jesus Christ real to
people – as the Son of God and Lord of all. Only
then will they acknowledge His deity and
surrender to His Lordship.
But the Spirit is not only concerned about the
preparation of the listeners - He wants also to
be the guide and director of the evangelists. It
was He who moved Philip from a city to the
desert, and called Paul and Barnabas to leave
Antioch. It was He who told Peter to go to the
Gentiles in Caesarea and directed Paul and Silas
to Europe rather than Asia. As we wait on God
the Holy Spirit will direct us in remarkable
ways. Is there not too much man-centred
evangelism today? May this not be the reason for
the pitiable results so often? Is it not time
for us to trust the Holy Spirit more?
Jesus told His disciples that the Holy Spirit
would give them the words that they would need
to speak in different circumstances (Mark
13:11). Expository preaching and courses on
evangelism are important if the Word of God is
to reach those for whom it is intended. But
however faithful the exposition may be, and
however good the training course is, they should
never be substitutes for the Spirit. We need at
all times the anointing power of the Spirit upon
the words that we speak, if they are to be like
"sharp two-edged swords" to our listeners.
But evangelism without compassion will never be
really successful. Here again it is the Holy
Spirit who helps us. He will give us that divine
love which transforms evangelism into such a
joyful work. He disturbs the complacency that is
so often born of unbelief in the power of God
into a fiery concern for the unconverted and
unconvinced.
Healing
The Gospel of the Kingdom is also related to
those who are sick in body and mind. Jesus did
not divide people up as meticulously as some do
today. His Gospel was for the whole man. He was
concerned about their bodies as well as their
souls. His salvation meant health to the whole
personality. His Kingdom meant the overpowering
of Satan in the realm of the body and mind as
well as the spirit.
Even if we have had little or no interest in
divine healing, the baptism in the Spirit brings
us immediately into this sphere of conflict with
Satan. Jesus was as indignant over sickness and
disease, where it had been caused by Satan, as
He was over sin and hypocrisy. He yearned to
dismiss Satan from his position of authority in
this realm as well as in every other. But He was
careful not to form a healing cult around
Himself. He forbade many of those He healed to
tell others, and He related this healing power
to every other part of human life. To one He
forgave the sins before He healed the body, and
to another He warned, "Sin no more that nothing
worse befall you" (John 5:14).
The early Church continued to heal the sick and
regarded it as part of the message of the
Kingdom. And they did not regard it as a
prerogative of an apostle. Stephen and Philip
the evangelist, for instance, were much used in
this ministry, and in the Epistle of James it is
the elders of the church who are to be called by
the sick man to pray and anoint him. It is
important too to notice how often the Holy
Spirit used the power of healing to arrest
people and bring them to faith in Jesus Christ.
When the early Church was forbidden to preach
and teach, it is most significant that their
prayer included both a request for boldness to
preach the Gospel, and also that the hand of God
might be stretched out "to heal, and signs and
wonders are performed through the name of Thy
holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:30). Or again, it
was the miracle of tongues at Pentecost, and the
healing of the lame man at the gate of the
temple shortly afterwards which drew the large
crowds, thousands of whom were converted and
added to the Church. Or again, in Samaria we are
told that the people "gave heed to what was said
by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs
which he did” (Acts 8:6).
When Peter healed Aeneas at Lydda, the people
who lived there "turned to the Lord” (Acts
9:35). The same results followed the raising of
Tabitha – "it became known throughout all Joppa;
and many believed in the Lord” (Acts 9:42). How
can we neglect, as some do, this important
ministry, when it has such enormous potential in
communicating with the unbelieving world around
us?
We surely need to have the same compassion
towards the sick and indignation about illness
as our Lord displayed during His earthly
ministry. This is another area of spiritual
warfare. Satan may sometimes trespass into God's
territory here, too, and needs to be boldly and
confidently evicted in the name of Jesus.
This is not to say that all illness is the work
of Satan. We will need discernment to know how
to act. Healing raises many problems,
particularly concerning those who are not healed
in spite of believing prayer. There is not space
here to go into this in any detail. But it is
easy to be glib about it all, either by
dismissing this area from consideration and
leaving it entirely in the hands of the medical
profession, or by presuming too much.
Nevertheless, it is important to discern the
enemy in this field as well as others, so that
he may be defeated and God's Kingdom ushered in.
Deliverance
Jesus specifically related the Kingdom to His
ministry of exorcism, and we should do the same.
He said, "if it is by the Spirit of God that I
cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God has
come upon you" (Matthew 12:28). Part of Satan's
power over this world and its people is through
the agency of evil spirits. When Jesus sent out
the Twelve and the Seventy He commissioned them
to cast out demons as well as heal the sick, and
this seems to have been part of the normal
ministry of the early Church.
In recent years there has been a growing
interest in this subject. Some of this has led
to very real and successful exorcisms of people
and places. However, it is a field of ministry
into which we should only move with great
caution. There are signs of a dangerous lack of
balance by some who claim to have this ministry.
This includes an exaggeration of the function of
exorcism, and encouragement to some to take a
morbid interest in the subject, bringing them
into superstitious bondage, which can be
spiritually harmful.
This is no ministry for amateur demon-chasers,
as the sons of Sceva discovered to their cost
(Acts 19:13 ft). It calls for much prayer and
self-discipline as the disciples found to their
shame when they failed so signally in their
attempt to deliver a young boy from demon power
(Matthew 17:14 ff). It calls for careful
discernment, and much harm has been done already
by irresponsible though sincere Christians, who
have had very little experience in this field,
claiming to discern evil spirits in people where
there are none. This has been encouraged by some
who teach that straight forward sins of the
flesh, such as pride, anger and lust, are due to
evil spirits. While this may be so in some
cases, there is a need for the balance of the
New Testament to be seen, where exorcism does
not have the dominant place that some modern
teachers would like to give it.
There is much more emphasis on holiness and the
life of self-discipline in the New Testament
than on exorcism. A story is told about someone
who met the devil in the street one day outside
a church and he was weeping copiously. When
asked what was the matter, he replied, "Why,
it's these Christians, they blame me for
everything".
Demon-possession takes place when the
personality is "invaded” by an evil spirit,
which remains there, at times overpowering that
person. There may be more than one spirit
involved. These attacks come in different ways.
In some cases there may be physical
manifestations - such as epilepsy. In others
there may be abnormal or immoral behaviour, when
the will of the person is completely bound. The
evil spirit needs to be discerned, and if the
person is willing to be delivered, the spirit
should be cast out in the name of Jesus. Let it
be repeated, this ministry can be dangerous, and
is not for everyone. If in any doubt, it is best
to find someone who has had experience in this
field, rather than tackle the problem ourselves,
which could do more harm than good. The
after-care of a victim of evil spirits is
essential, for there are counter-attacks to be
dealt with, or the room which is "swept and
garnished” can be repossessed by other spirits.
The empty void must be filled with the Spirit,
if the person is to survive further attacks, and
the loving prayers of friends are all-important,
as Satan is resisted, and the reclaimed ground
defended.
But there is a similar ministry which is very
much more common than demon-possession. This
concerns dealing with what we might call
"bondages". This is satanic power over some area
of the life of a person. It may arise during
early childhood, when an emotional crisis
results in repression, with later psychological
or even physical bondage. It may manifest itself
in a variety of ways, such as irrational fears,
shyness, indecisiveness, evil habits,
depression, insomnia, etc. Satan has gained a
foothold in the life, and it may well take the
prayer of faith to dislodge him. It is wonderful
to rest assured that any such spiritual bondage
can be defeated and overthrown. Jesus said
"whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven" (Matthew 18:18). He gave His
disciples authority to loose people from every
kind of bondage in His name.
Part of this healing may involve the memories.
Some need these to be cleansed and healed,
otherwise Satan can use them to bring God's
children into bondage, and cripple part of their
spiritual life. Agnes Sanford has some very
sound advice on this aspect of the subject.
Social concern
There are many who view the theology of the
Kingdom almost exclusively in terms of social
concern. The roots of this can be traced to the
Christian Socialism of F. D. Maurice, Charles
Kingsley and others in the nineteenth century.
It is fashionable to jibe at pietism as so
"other wordly" that it fails to be deeply
concerned with the real problems of life, such
as racialism, war, hunger, etc. On the other
hand modern exponents of the social gospel tend
to be oblivious altogether of those aspects of
the Kingdom outlined in this chapter,
True pietism, however, has in the past been
deeply concerned with social matters, and their
prophets have attacked social injustice and
exalted social righteousness. The roots of
modern British socialism stretch down to the
seed-beds of Methodism, for instance.
Every one of us should be passionately concerned
about justice, public morality, and the plight
of the under-nourished and under-privileged, and
a balanced spirituality should reflect really
deep commitment to the cause of man's physical
as well as spiritual well-being. The Holy Spirit
in the Acts of the Apostles was constantly
destroying racial barriers, and reconciling
deeply entrenched prejudices. It is important to
notice too that in 1 Corinthians 12:13 the
baptism in the Spirit is seen in this context.
We often forget those words which follow the
phrase "baptised into one Body"– "whether we be Jews
or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free" (AV).
How we shall act in order to fulfill this
concern is another matter and not within the
scope of this book. But if we are to speak and
act with authority in the sphere of social
concern, then we not only need an accurate
knowledge of the facts, but also prophetic
insight and power which only God can supply.
***
If we are to be the children of the Kingdom in
the fullest sense, then we should be those who
know the liberating power of the Spirit
ourselves, so that we can serve in the Kingdom
of Christ. Then we are to proclaim to all the
message of the Kingdom, and through prayer and
the Word we shall see other lives delivered from
the hands of Satan. We have seen the wide scope
of this ministry. It is in this context that the
gifts of the Spirit are so important. Without
them we shall never be fully successful. We need
particularly the gifts of discernment, the
discerning of spirits, and the words of wisdom
and knowledge, as well as the gifts of healing.
But whether directly through their operation, or
indirectly through the edification they bring to
us, these gifts are weapons in spiritual warfare
– and we
need to be armed with them.
This
excerpt is from Walk in the Spirit,
Chapter 5, © 1968 by Michael Harper. The
book was originally published in 1968 by
Logos International, Plainfield, New Jersey,
USA, and reproduced from the Great Britain
Edition by arrangement with Hodder and
Stoughton, London E.C. 4.
Some of Michael Harper's
books and articles are available
online at: http://www.harperfoundation.com/books.html.
 Archpriest
Father
Michael Harper (1931-2010) was a
world-renown leader in the charismatic
renewal movement. He was a minister in
the Anglican Church for 40 years. He
joined the Eastern Orthodox Church in
1995, and was appointed Archpriest of
the Antiochian Orthodox Deanery of the
UK and Ireland.
He and his wife Jeanne
formed the Fountain Trust in 1964,
which organized charismatic
conferences all over the world at
which he addressed thousands of
people. Jeanne co-edited the songbook,
Sound of Living Waters, which
is still used by many charismatic
churches today. Harper also founded
Soma (Sharing of Ministries Abroad),
which was committed to sharing
ministries between the developed and
developing world.
He was involved for many
years with the World Council of
Churches. He spoke at several Catholic
meetings. He met Popes Paul VI, John
Paul and John Paul II.
He also edited Renewal,
the longest-established charismatic
magazine in the world. He wrote 18
books, including the bestseller Equal
and Different, which set out his
views on women’s ordination and the
gender debate. Colleagues remember him
as a man with the ability to build
friendships across the Christian
traditions. A gentle and humble man,
Harper was nevertheless a dynamic
speaker and networker, able to draw
people in, whatever their background
or differences from himself. He is
survived by his wife, Jeanne.
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