Insightful Musings on theScriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Greetings, dear ones….

…on this beautiful cool summer morning. Becki should be showing up here any minute so we can head out for our little walk/jog excursion. Yup!—here she comes now. So I’d better draw this to a close right away.

Be good. Love, Dad/Ray.

Paul begins this section with the stern command to “flee from idolatry” (10:14). By that he means that believers must do their utmost to avoid anything that would contaminate their faith—anything that would neutralize the purity and effectiveness of their worship and relationship with the Lord—anything that would substitute for Jesus being Lord.

It is apparent that Paul had a deep concern that the Corinthian believers develop a quality of faith that would achieve real lasting victory over sin, self, and Satan. Before going further, please allow me to meddle in your affairs and ask this: Do you share in this same deep heart-level concern?—for your children?—your family—and those with whom you work and associate?

Paul understood that any retention of superstitious beliefs and magical practices from their pre-conversion lives would certainly rob from the effectiveness of their Christian faith. I have shared in that concern during our years of cross-cultural ministry experience where animism and various forms of magic was the norm. For example, it was common for a person to partake of Holy Communion on Sunday, then use various forms of “custom medicine” (medicines prepared with magical ceremony) during the week to treat various forms of “custom sickness” (ailments believed to be caused by magical “poisoning”). It was difficult for many to grasp that such involvement with the supernatural outside the Kingdom of God is to make them to be PARTICIPANTS WITH DEMONS. This is one reason why I believe the simple thesis that THERE ARE ONLY TWO KINGDOMS is such a pertinent and practical foundational concept toward establishing the purest form of Biblical Christianity. That also means that you don’t have to step into some heathen culture of witchcraft to be a PARTICIPANT WITH DEMONS. I’m convinced that the popular doctrines of secularism and naturalism, for example, are equally demonic insofar as effect and outcome are concerned. Choosing to live outside the protective boundaries of the Kingdom of God (the area where God reigns) is to become a “sitting duck” for the subtle deceptive influences and controls of the other kingdom (the area where Satan is allowed to reign).

I have often been made very sad to learn that the only kind of Christianity that many of our island people knew was, in fact, this contaminated and neutralized form—a form that would prevent them from developing a true and victorious conversion with its accompanying benefits and blessings. If this form is allowed to be the norm, then faith is reduced to cold superficial “religion”—and can only become another sad case of “the blind leading the blind” (Matthew 15:14) and a treadmill of wrong standards for judging spiritual matters (2 Corinthians 10:12). When nominal Christian people willingly or ignorantly become PARTICIPANTS WITH DEMONS, the demons always win and the result is always a false form of Christianity—powerless to achieve real heart-level faith and real victory over sin, self, and Satan.

Are we not returning again to this bottom-line essential of a personal HEART AFTER GOD? So beware—“I do not want you to be participants with demons.”