|
|
Evil Spirits and how they Operate (2 of 5)
Fri 6 Jul 2012 PM Baycity Outreach Center, Hastings, NZ
|
Examples of Jesus' ministry of deliverance, how He worked, how He operated, and then some of Jesus' teaching as to what evil spirits are and how they operate. How spirits get into people's lives and the ways they operate, leading into a closer examination of the scriptures around deliverance, and what they reveal about demons, and the spirit world. Some basics of the deliverance ministry, leading into a practice exercise (activation).
What we want to start to look at now is, we want to look at how demons enter people, how do spirits get into people's lives and if a spirit got into someone's life, what ways would it operate? What would it do? How would you know that a demon was in a person's life? We'll find there are a number of ways you can establish that there's an evil spirit present, so we want to look first of all at how evil spirits enter, and before we get into how they enter, it's a help to understand what they are. So if you're going to be doing deliverance, you will engaging or commanding an evil spirit to come out, it helps if you understand firstly what Jesus taught about it, and what happened in His ministry related to it, and secondly, how actually they gain entry into a person's life. Then we'll look at the foundations for a person being set free.
So the first thing we'll do is, we're just going to look at the way demons enter in and oppress people. The first verse we'll look at is in Acts, Chapter 10 and Verse 38. It tells us in this verse: God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost, and with power, and He went about doing good, healing all who were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. So Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit. That's the same anointing you carry. He had a different level of it, a different portion of it, the anointing flowing on His life, but it's not a different anointing. It's the work of the Holy Spirit, flowing in your life - and it said: He went about doing good, healing all who were oppressed of the devil. Now the word oppressed means literally to exercise dominion or spiritual force and hold someone down, to exercise spiritual force and to hold a person down, so it tells us very clearly in this verse, that evil spirits, whatever they are, exercise a spiritual force on people, so that they feel held back, held down, held imprisoned, like I can't break out, even though I want to. I can't seem to change, even though I want to change.
But behind it is a spiritual force. That's why people struggle to get free of things. They want to get free, they know what's right and what they should do, but there's often anchored to the problem in their life, a spirit being which literally holds them down. In Ephesians, Chapter 2 and Verse 2 it says that spirit that works or energises within the children of disobedience, so when we our life is out of alignment with God, when we disobey or break His laws, and a spirit gains entrance, it'll do one of two things. It'll either hold you down so you're held imprisoned and can't break free, or/and it will energise problems in your life so they stay alive, and keep working, and you can't ever seem to get over them. Say for example a spirit of unforgiveness, or a spirit of bitterness, they often work together these spirits, then what the person would do, they would find that they're constantly feeling offended and hurt by things that people are doing to them. They can't ever seem to get out of thinking about the injuries that have been done to them by other people. It's like it just goes on and on and on. A new hurt comes, suddenly they're preoccupied, and they can't get out of their mind the injustice they've got and what's happened.
Now they may not be thinking that consciously but they get reactionary, so you'll find a person who's got a demonic spirit say working in that area, they get very reactionary over something quite small. The response, or reaction, is out of proportion to the injury that was done. A little misunderstanding and someone can flare up, and they didn't do the most obvious thing which was just, calm down, think about it, ask what's happened, enquire for information, try to establish and work out what's going on. It doesn't happen. It's just this fire suddenly comes alive inside, of anger or resentment or whatever, or reaction or a wall of offence comes, and it feels like there's little control or management. Even though the person knows I ought to, they just can't, and so the demonic spirit will either bring a cap and a pressure and a binding, or it'll energise problems, so they just flare up, and they're hard to manage, like a fire that's suddenly gone out of control. The word the Bible uses is the word energise, to energise or flame something in, so it becomes quite big.
So you notice that many people you know, have you noticed how little is much for them, and how it doesn't take much to get them really upset, a little wee thing? What are you - off they go. They've got an area of their life out of control, they're in bondage, and demonic spirits are energising a root problem. Now it's not just a matter of getting the demon out. You need to address the root problem that gives it a right to be there. We'll come to that later. So the second thing we notice is - we going to have a look at an example of Jesus doing deliverance, so it says: He was anointed with the Holy Ghost. That's a crucial thing. You cannot do deliverance without the Holy Ghost, and usually He doesn't do it without you, so you'll see a little later, it's a working together with the Holy Spirit.
So we'll have a look in Luke, Chapter 4, and we'll go down, read it there in Verse 32. They were astonished at His teaching, for His word was with authority. Now in the synagogue, there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon. So the environment they're in, is in church. The guy's a believer, and he's sitting in church, and as he's sitting in church, Jesus gets up and begins to minister, and He's preaching, sharing the word of God. The spirit of God starts to fill the place, and as the spirit of God fills the place, there's a man in there, now he's come to church to worship, to give, and to listen to the word of God. Instead he's becoming agitated, and he's firing up inside, and suddenly he just bursts out in the middle of the meeting, and starts yelling out. What does he yell out? Leave us alone! Ever prayed that prayer? Leave me alone. [Laughs] It's a male prayer I think. [Laughter] Leave us alone! What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come here to destroy us? I know who You are - the Holy One of God!
Now let's just have a look at what the demon said, and see if we can gain a bit of insight. The man is now no longer in control. A spirit is speaking through him. The spirit has now got a hold of his voice, and it's now the spirit that's talking, so what happens to the guy? Here's what would happen to the guy. He would be aware that someone is talking through him, but he'd have no control over it whatsoever. The spirit being is now speaking, and expressing itself, and talking directly at Jesus, and reacting to Jesus very, very strongly. He would be aware of what is happening, but he has no power to deal with it. The hidden spirit that tormented him is now in a full manifestation - so that's what it means, the spirit is manifesting through him. It's expressing its life in a way which it can't be hid. Now one of the things about evil spirits is, they seek to conceal that there's a spirit there.
They want you to think you've just got a problem, so if we look at this man - the Bible says it was - notice another thing we notice, it was an unclean spirit, so it's almost certain that the man had problems of a sexual nature, meaning his mind was tormented with lust, or tormented with unclean pictures. There's an unclean spirit is operating in his life, so he would be pressured into sexual sin. He would find himself falling and failing regularly, he'd be troubled in his mind with pictures, he would be under pressure, or there's like a fire burning inside him, that he can't seem to get the power over. He's forever saying sorry, and asking God to forgive him, but can't break free into wholeness. Why? It's empowered by an evil spirit, and not only that, we notice here it says, the demon said: leave us alone, what have WE to do with you? So it's almost certain there's more than one spirit there.
So we gain insight, that not only can a demon come into a person's life and torment them, but it will try to bring others in, so they get a cluster of them, and that makes the problem worse. So for example, if this say was a sexual demon, how would it have come into his life? It could have come in a number of ways. It could have come in generationally. It maybe was in the family, it's a family spirit. I remember praying for one girl, age of four, tormented with unclean pictures. It was a demon that came in, because of the conduct of the father and the mother, which we established when we talked with them, so it could have come in and been in his life all his life. It could have come in if he'd been molested at some point in his life, and from that point on, there's got this defilement, and this burning lust thing going on in his life - never wanted it, but can't stop it because it's a spirit that's empowering it. The third thing it could have been, he may have been involved in idolatry, or some form of spiritism.
When people are involved in idolatry, much of the idolatry in those days was connected with temple prostitutes and sexual sin, because the part of our mind that's engaged when we love God or worship, or when are loving or expressing love, is the same part that's involved in the sexual area, so worship and the sexual area of your mind are very similar areas. They touch the same part of your brain, so we don't know then whether he was involved in idolatry and that's how the spirit entered into him. My experience has been, that when people have been involved in idolatry or spiritism, they usually have spirits of lust go with it - or he may have been involved in sexual sin, had a relationship or engaged a prostitute, or been involved in sexual sin of various kinds. We just don't know. The Bible leaves that part out, but those are some possible ways.
What we do know, is he had more than one spirit, and the main one was an unclean spirit. In the presence of a strong anointing, it began to flush up and manifest in a way which was visible. I was in Singapore a couple of years ago and we were just speaking in one of the meetings [laughs], and I just got up and started to talk; well the Holy Spirit's going to come and start to touch people. I'd talked less than five minutes and this cleaner lady suddenly appears up the top there and she's holding a broom, and she must have been just outside the room cleaning. She just burst in, held up this broom and began to shake it, and she's shaking it at me, and yelling at me: why you come here? Why you do this to me? And it's obviously a demon, so I began to walk down towards her, but as I did I saw other people start to manifest and I thought if I do that, we're going to have it all go off right now, and I want to preach the gospel and get some people saved, so I'm not going to let demons take over. I just re-managed the meeting a bit, and then we had all the full scale deliverance at the end of the meeting.
So you see here, the evil spirit cries out: leave us alone, what have we to do with You? We know who You are, so evil spirits recognise the person of Jesus. A lot of people don't know who Jesus is, but the spirit world does know. The spirit world sees things as they are. We see things as they appear to be, so people can appear to have their life together, but in the spirit world you're seen for who you are, and what you are. Everything is seen, so if we were to look at one another now, we'd just see the temple, the body, the external, but the real man is the hidden man of the heart, the spirit and the soul. Now we look, and the body looks as though it's got substance, the soul and spirit looks a bit, sort of way out there. I can't kind of see that or understand that, but from the spirit world if you looked, they would look at the spirit man and soul, and say that's the substance, the other is temporary. It's like a cloud of water vapour that conceals the person.
So in the spirit world, it's your spirit man and soul that are eternal, and therefore substantial. So the spirit world, demons, can look at people and see their condition. We'll come across that a little bit later. Now that's a bit scary isn't it? God can see your condition too. It's just we've lived so long thinking no one knows what's going on, that we can hide, and we do try and hide like Adam and Eve like hiding from God, rather than actually being and living a full life and an open life before Him. So the demon said: what have we got to do with You? We know who You are. Now see how Jesus handled it; Jesus rebuked him, or rebuked the spirit - Be quiet. Come out! So you notice how Jesus dealt with in the area of deliverance. He asserted His authority, He spoke a verbal command, and He had faith that the demon would come out. That's how it operates, just straight verbal commands, to deal with the demonic spirit - and the demon came out.
It says when the demon had thrown him on the ground, it came out of him, and didn't hurt him, so you notice that the demon manifested as it came out. It threw the guy on the ground, and I have see some extraordinary things of demons throwing people on the ground, or doing different things, and it looks spectacular, but at the end what really counts, is actually that the spirit came out. So the key thing is not that he manifested, not that he fell on the ground, it's that the spirit came out, and so the man got mightily delivered, and the demon - notice it didn't hurt him at all. It just looked like it was going to, but it couldn't. Jesus was in firm control. The demon didn't hurt Jesus. The demon didn't hurt the man. The demon just left the scene. I've spoken to one or two who have had spiritual visions or pictures of demons leaving. I said tell me what did it look like? Both of them said to me a similar thing. They said: they went so fast, we could hardly even see them. They said they're just like [whoosh] They just were out of that place as quick as they could. They just left the place, couldn't wait to get away.
Also, you can see that implied in the story; the demon is now reacting very strongly, leave us alone, what have You to do with us, I know who You are, the Holy One of God. And Jesus shut him down, because He didn't want a demon announcing that He's the Son of God. Stop, and then out, and the guy's set free - so that's an example of a person being set free, and they said, notice this, what kind of word is this! With authority and power He commands the unclean spirits, and they go out of him. So you notice they ascribed to Jesus two things; He had authority, and He had power. Now let me just explain what the two are, so you understand the difference. The word authority, authority is a legal right to speak and act on behalf of someone else, so Jesus had a legal right to speak and act on behalf of His Father. That makes sense, because remember He says: whatever I see the Father doing, that's what I do; what I hear Him say, that's what I say. So you notice that He had authority. He had authority, a legal right. The demons had to yield.
Now you also have authority over demons. God has given you that authority. That's part of being joined to the conqueror of demons. It's part of being joined to Jesus Christ. Where is He? In heavenly places. Where are you? Joined, one spirit, with Him. You also have a right to represent Him, and of course the right to represent Him is also conditional on you listening to His instructions what to do, so if we're going to move in deliverance, you have to understand this; I am delegated the right to represent Jesus. So when you are doing deliverance, it's not about you. Sometimes in deliverance a demon might challenge you, and say: who are you? Who are you? You know... Don't tell him your name, you know? No, no, no, no. No, what the demon is doing is challenging your authority to actually confront him and push him out, and the response is always the same; I come against you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I represent Him, who defeated you at Calvary. You will yield. You understand, we're representing the government of God.
Okay, the second thing He had, was power. Power is the word dunamis, it's a different word. It has to do with the level of anointing, or activity of the Holy Spirit on your life. So authority means I'm delegated the right to represent Jesus. Power means, I actually am connected to the Holy Spirit, and am empowered by Him to do the job, so that comes out of your personal life, and your walking with God and so on. Let's have a look then what Jesus taught about that. I love that story, it's a great story, and I've seen that, and I've heard demons talk. It's quite interesting how they talk at times. I've had one of my daughters was in Indonesia, and she was praying for this woman, and a man's voice spoke out of the woman: I will kill you. She got a bit of a surprise when that happened, just kept praying and the demon came out. She asked the lady later, do you know any English, and she didn't understand her at all. She knew NO English, but the demon understood the words. It doesn't matter what culture I go to, if I address the demon in my own language, it understands it.
Okay, now let's have a look what Jesus spoke on deliverance. In Matthew Chapter 12, He's just done a deliverance - Verse 22 - and He's cast a demon out of a man who had problems with his vision and his speaking. Then of course there's a huge reaction. Now notice what He says in Verse 28, and here's the first thing about Jesus' teaching that's important to grasp. Deliverance is the kingdom of God manifesting. It is a manifestation of the kingdom of God. It said, Verse 28: if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. So let's go through that scripture and have a little look at it. The word cast out, means literally to violently displace something, so He said: if I violently displace evil spirits, by the Spirit of God, it is the kingdom of God manifesting. So whenever you do a deliverance, or command spirits and they leave, the kingdom of God has become established. You've represented Jesus, and now the devil is displaced.
Probably a way of picturing it is like this; if you wanted to become a policeman, police officer, you'd have to do training. Then you have an oath of allegiance to the government, that you will represent the government. Then they give you a uniform, and if you're in another country they give you a gun. Now the uniform, you represent the government. That's why you're driving down the road, and you're going a bit fast, and you see a police car or a policeman standing there, the immediate thing is you become conscious of your sin and failure, and conscious of the authority. Now it's not the authority of the man. It is the government that is actually confronting you, and you become immediately aware of it. In other words when you see the uniform, you become aware of authority, and aware of your condition straight away, so this is one of the things. So the policeman's just an ordinary person. He gets up and goes to work like everyone else goes to work. Now he's wearing the uniform, has the gun, now he's got the power to stop someone - stop, or I shoot you! So he has authority, a legal right, so long as - notice this - he has to stay within his jurisdiction.
If I'm a policeman here, it doesn't mean I'm recognised in Australia, or anywhere else. I'm a policeman here, I'm representative of the government, I've got to stay within the law, and I've got to operate out of my own instructions that have been given to me. So I have the law book, and I have direct instructions, and I have to heed both of them. You have the word of God, and the instruction of the Holy Spirit, and you've got to listen to both of them - and you have the power to carry it out. Now what did Jesus say? He said: if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come among you. Now who does the casting out? A person must cast out the demon. Someone has to make the demon leave. It will not leave unless it's made to, so that word is to hurl it out, so in deliverance, a person has to represent God and confront the demon. You've actually got to hurl it out. That means you engage it.
You can't just pray some little prayer; oh God, just set this person free. It's not like that at all. It's like with word commands, you are violently displacing a spirit. It requires asserting your spirit. It requires being aggressive. It requires - you know, like it says, the kingdom of heaven, violent men enter and possess it, so it requires you be strong and forceful. You can't be passive in this matter. Now that doesn't mean loud or shouty or losing your voice. It's you must speak strongly, with conviction and authority from your voice. Okay, so I cast them out by the Spirit of God, so the work of deliverance requires the Holy Spirit to engage with me, so therefore I need to believe that something will happen when I pray. I need to believe God is in me, God is with me, that when I pray, something's going to happen. Now if you go and you think, well I wonder what will happen, then maybe something, maybe not, but most times nothing much happens. But if you go there, I know that when I speak, that spirit is going to go, when there's a confidence in your heart that faith gives, something will happen.
Demons, often in deliverance, will just deliberately resist you, to see if you'll persist and give up. They check out whether you really do believe you have the right to deal with them, and sometimes they just play up and just resist you, or just pretend there's nothing happening, and just make you - oh, maybe nothing going on, I knew I couldn't pray very well anyway, it's not my thing, you know? Your mind starts to fill with thoughts that would take you out of casting the demon out. So if I, by the Spirit of God, cast them out - so in order to cast out demons, you need the Spirit of God working with you. Now one of the exercises we're going to get you to do is we're going to get you to pray in tongues, and activate the flow of God inside you, then learn to minister and release the power of God to another person by voice command. Now you've all got excited about that. We'll do that, I'll show you how to do it shortly, and I'm going to get each of you to start to practice, believing, that if I speak, then something will happen. Isn't that a good thing?
If you have no confidence that God is in you, or God is with you, then nothing much will happen. If you are absolutely confident that God is in me, God is with me, I'm a minister of God, when I speak, something is going to happen; then you'll find things will start to happen. So how do I move from where I am, to that kind of place? Well you develop confidence, the more you are willing to step out, and learn to work with the Holy Spirit in this area. So what we will do shortly, I want to just do a little bit more of this, and then we'll have a break before we go onto gateways, I'm going to get you ministering to one another in just a moment. But before we do that, let's have a look a little further down, we'll finish in Verse 43 through to 45, and we'll look a little more on Jesus' teaching on demons.
When an unclean spirit goes out of a man - Verse 43 - what happens? Where do they go? Well, he goes through a dry place seeking rest, but finds none. Then he says: I will return to my house from which I came. And when he comes he finds it empty, swept, and all in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Alright then, so notice now, Jesus is giving a tremendous insight in this passage to the spirit world. He's talking about what happens when someone gets delivered, what actually goes on. Now He says: when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, so He's talking about deliverance. The whole context is deliverance, so when you speak and command the spirit it goes out of the man, what happens and where does it go? It says here it goes through dry places seeking rest, so let's just talk a little bit about this.
Firstly, it's referring to the demon as a spirit being. It is a spirit being. You're a human being. You're a spirit living in a body, you're in one place at one time. A demon is a spirit being, so it can only be in one place at one time. It's either in the person, or it's gone from the person - it's a spirit being. Now just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not real, like for example, I can look and I can see the outline of a body, I can't see your spirit, I can't see your soul, but it doesn't mean they're not there. If they weren't there, you would be quite different. You'd be gone. There'd just be the shell see, so just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there. It is there, and it's a spirit being. Now notice it says a number of things; spirit beings have a name, just like you've got a name. You have a name - if I say Brian, so you notice Brian just turned around straight away, the moment I called him by name, and then everyone else looked. Now in deliverance, if you name the spirit and challenge it by name, it'll immediately respond, and all the other demons will wake up and get concerned. I've had that many times. I start to challenge demons, other demons start to stir up, and very soon you can actually trigger off lots of things happening in the room - then it's a big problem then. [Laughter] You've just got a lot of things to do then.
So demons have a name. Now generally the name of a demon, really it describes the work it does, for example, a spirit of lust, what does it do? It stirs up passion, lust, unlawful hunger for something inside a person. A spirit of fear torments their mind with fear, causes them to believe evil is going to come upon them, fill them with dread and sick feelings in the stomach, so that's what a spirit of fear does. A spirit of bitterness will cause a person continually to resist forgiving, and to become sour and angry, and to speak critically and negatively. You notice the spirit of bitterness, the name describes the kind of work it does. A spirit of death, what would a spirit of death do? It will come around a person, and will cause them to become feeling separate, or unable to bond and connect in relationships, and quite numbed in the emotions, so when people have had trauma or abuse, generally they have a spirit of death around them, and they're numbed in their emotions. They can connect properly. There's that spirit keeps them isolated.
So we could think of lots of various kinds of spirits, so the Holy Ghost will guide you what the spirit is. In almost every situation He'll show you what it is, so it could be a spirit of idolatry, which is a spirit that bonds a person in, and connects them in, so they continually are drawn back to worship something, or to stay connected to something in place of God, so there are various - spirit of hatred. A spirit of hatred will eventually erupt with violent anger in a person, and so you find if you go visit the prisons, you find people in there who were involved in violent crime or in murder, and they say something like: I don't know what came over me. They don't know what came over them. I'll tell you what came over them, a spirit of hatred, and hatred's the root of murder, so a spirit of hate and murder came over the person, and what happened is, it caused rage and hate to become destructive against the other person.
So mostly you can just describe a demon, or the name of a demon describes what kind of work it does. In the case of occult spirits they do have names, and it requires revelation to get those names. God would have to tell you what it was. In almost all of these things, if we'll listen the spirit of God will help us identify what the particular spirit is, so spirits are real. They're a spirit being. They have a name and a nature. They're only one place at one time. They can enter and leave people, and notice there that demons have a personality. You notice the demon says: I will, it's got a will of its own. Notice it remembers where it came from, so it's got a memory, it can remember where it was, so demons have a personality. They have emotions. They can get fearful. They have desires and plans, so they actually have a personality, evil personality. So it says: when it goes out, it seeks to find rest; now when it says find rest, that does not mean the demon is wanting to have a lie down, it's exhausted. What it means is that the demon is wanting to find a place where it can live, and be in harmony with the environment, so a spirit of bitterness will want to enter a person who's got bitterness sins in their life. A spirit of hatred will want to enter into a person who's got hate in their life, and then dwell there and inflame it, so it becomes an out of control issue.
A spirit of anger will want to come in where a person's got unresolved sin or anger issues, or unresolved grief in their life, and inhabit that person, and stir it up so it becomes out of control. Getting the idea? So it says then: the demon's seeking rest, so where would a demon go? Well demons could inhabit a number of things. Spirits can go in and live in a building, so you could find perhaps in a house - one of the most obvious things is a temple. If you've ever been to a temple, there is a feel of oppression, because of the presence of multitudes of demonic spirits, or spiritual power, sitting over the building. I don't encourage you to go into those places, because sometimes the spirits transfer. It's just not a smart thing to do. Sometimes in a house, if there's been a trauma, like a murder - have you ever noticed the thing like maybe a multiple murder or something horrendous happened in a house, often they burn the house down? Someone gets there and burns it down. You ask yourself - why do they do that? Really simple, it just comes out of superstition and fear, there must be something bad or evil in the place. The only answer for it is to burn it.
Now people may not know what they're doing, but they're actually thinking demons need to be consigned to hell, but people don't understand. They just try and destroy it. What's really needed, is for the house to be cleansed of the demons, and to be sanctified and set apart for the Lord, and the presence of God to come back again. So demons can live inside a house or a building. If you've ever ministered to cleanse, or to do house cleaning, sometimes you'll find one room can be unusually cold. It doesn't matter what you do, you can't warm it up. I've been to some places where you go into one room and whoa, some weird or oppressive - so demons can enter a house. Demons can live inside objects, particularly things used with idolatry, carvings and things like that. Many times with carvings of idols, they lay hands and invoke the spirit into it, or dedicate it to the spirit that it represents, and that allows the demon to come in, so when the person's worshipping an idol, they're actually engaging the evil spirit that lives in the idol.
What that means is, if you pick up items that have been used for idolatry, or used in various places, and hands have been laid on to impart a spirit, and you bring it into your home, you've welcomed a demon to come into your home, and generally you have some consequences of that. Now one of the consequences is oppression enters the place, so you can have a heavy or a dark atmosphere come. I had one man ask me to come to his place and pray because he said - here's what he said; we have constant sickness, and constant conflicts in the home. This is a Christian, and I prayed before I went, and the Lord showed me that he had some carvings that came from Fiji. I said do you have these faces, face masks at all in your house on the wall, that come from Fiji? He said yes, we do. I said well hands have been laid on those, to impart a demon into them, and I said: when did this start? Did it start following your trip to Fiji? He said yeah - but he hadn't connected, just what he thought was a work of art, actually it was representing a demonic deity, and he'd opened the way for the spirit to come in, and create the turmoil in the home that he was now experiencing.
There's a chapter in the back of the notes on house cleansing, how to go about doing it. This would apply to objects specifically which are involved with the occult or idolatry. Most objects are quite neutral. Sometimes if you're uncertain, just pray and ask the Holy Ghost what to do. So this man, I said: why don't you get rid of those masks, why keep them? So he took them outside, and I said why don't you just take them out and burn them? So now they're wooden masks, so he took them outside, and I said: how did you get on? He said: I couldn't burn them. I said why is that? He said they would not burn. I said they're wood aren't they? He said yeah. He said I lit a fire and the fire went out, so I poured petrol on them and the fire still went out. They did not burn! I said really? I said that's a new one, I haven't heard of that one. I said why don't you stand and next time just pour some more petrol on them, light the fire, before you light the fire, bind the spirits, and forbid them operating in Jesus' name. He did it, and he said I'm glad I stepped back, because the thing nearly exploded, they just burnt, and there was nothing but ashes left, just burnt completely, so he'd encountered a real demonic power around these objects.
So when the demons seek rest, they look for a building, they look for an object, or preferably they look for a person. Demons want a person, to get into a person. Why are they so obsessed with getting into people? Very, very simple, because God made man for dominion in the earth, and what demons want to go, is they want to go in, number one, they want to hurt God's heart by injuring His children, and number two, they want to defy God, by expressing their own life, through His representative on the earth. That's why they do it, so they can't hurt God in any way. God's in control totally. The devil has very limited spheres of power. God is totally in control. It's not a touch and go battle whether God wins or not, not at all. God is totally in control, and the demons have a specific realm they can operate in, outside the laws of God. However, we can find we have our challenges in dealing with them - so there it is.
Let's read on a little bit further. It says he goes and finds... and then he says: I'll return to my house from which he came out. So notice the person - this is a bit disturbing - that after a demon's gone out, it can come back and find you. That's a bit disturbing isn't it? So the demon's cast out, it can relocate to you. In other words you can't hide. The demon comes back, and notice this, the demon calls you - it says: you're my house. Now that's a legal term. If I say: this is MY house, I'm claiming ownership, I'm claiming a legal right. So if you were to say, concerning a building: this is my house, you're saying that because it's your house, you know? If it's a flat, well this is a rental place, it's not my house. I live here, but it's a rental place, I don't own it. So demons look for legal rights, for a legal ground to occupy a person's life. What do we mean by that? Well for example, outside here we've got I think a 50 kilometre/hour zone, and so there's a sign up there somewhere saying 50 kilometres per hour. That is a legal requirement, that if you're going to drive down the road outside this building, 50 kilometres per hour, so that's a law. It's written in red, got the number, it's all legally gazetted. It is the law, outside there, 50kph.
So if you break the law, if you go in excess of the law, you go 70k, now you may not see the sign. You may just be out there, and you've come from the country, you're zooming along, and you didn't even see the sign that says the speed has changed. Now you zoom down there, and you're doing 70 not 50, and the policeman sees you, he can then pull you over and say: you broke the law. You say: I didn't know. He says: there was a sign, you were responsible to know, so not knowing is never counted as an excuse. You broke the law, you pay the fine. You notice now there is a consequence for the broken law. In other words, he has the legal right to impose a fine, because you broke the law. Now there are also spiritual laws, the laws of God. People break the laws - whether they knew or not, it still creates a legal ground for evil spirits to enter people's life. That's what the cross was about. The cross was about removing the legal rights.
Notice this scripture, you may remember it but not really thought too much about it, because often you read scriptures, don't really understand what it means. In Colossians 2:14 it says that Jesus took away the list of ordinances, the writing that was contrary to us, and against us, took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross, and disarmed spiritual powers, principalities and powers, and triumphed over them. What is that scripture all about? Very simple. The list of every possible transgression, broken law that you and I have committed, Jesus took it all in Himself on the cross, and by taking it to the cross He broke the legal rights of the demons to gain access to our life. He disarmed them. He took away their weapon. The weapon demons use is sin, so when sin happens, they have a right of access, so a demon will tempt a person to sin. Once they've sinned the legal ground, or the broken law, is now established. They have the right to enter. Getting the idea?
So if we're going to set people free, we have to understand what the cross has done, and bring sin issues to the light, and to the cross. There's no deliverance without dealing with sin. We have to be willing to address sin issues. If we don't address sin issues, the way the Bible tells us to, confess them to Him, if we confess our transgression, we confess to Him our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us all our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So what Jesus has done, by the power of our confession, He can wipe away the legal rights the demon has, and also make us clean on the inside - but I've got to do my part, bring my sin to the light. Now many people just want to get free of demons, but they don't want to address the root cause the demons are in there. Generally the root cause is legal rights, or issues of trauma and brokenness in the person's life. Got the idea?
So notice the demon will say: my house. Now to just illustrate this, I have had many deliverances where the demon suddenly erupted and began to argue and said something like this: she belongs to me, he belongs to me. I will not leave. In other words, the demon claimed legal ownership, so we'll see when it comes to preparing people for deliverance, it is quite important to get them to confess that they belong to Jesus Christ, their faith in Christ, that Jesus, I belong to Jesus, spirit, soul and body. Why? It's a profession of faith. Why? Because we want to counteract what the demon's about to say: no, I won't go, they belong to me. So we get the person into a confession, or profession of their faith, to remove the legal grounds that the demon has, so when they profess their faith in Christ, they're in the kingdom of God, they belong to Jesus. When they repent of their sin, the legal rights for the demon to enter are now dismissed. Now we are able to command the demon, it cannot stay, it must go. Getting the idea?
So the work of Jesus on the cross is extraordinary. There's so much you can continue to learn about what our loving saviour has done for us. Okay then, let's keep going then. So demons, what else can they do? They can come back, they find the person, and find it's empty, swept and put in order, so notice that demons can recognise your condition, so if you've just tidied up your place, and you're empty - that word empty means on holiday, not active and not business, not going and you're just looking good, but you've never established your life with God, the demons can come back and enter again. So it's important that people are discipled, not just delivered. We have to help them establish their life with God again, so he goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than himself. So obviously there are levels of wickedness among evil demons, and some are more wicked than others, and create more harm than others. It's also obvious from this, that demons talk to one another, and strategise how to work together to get into a person's life.
So we see that we need, not just to cast the demons out, but to help the person rebuild their life with God, so now there's no doorway, no gateway. There's a resistance, and the person is now on the alert. Amen. That's fantastic isn't it aye? Alright then, why don't we just stop now, and I'm going to - the next session we're going to look on spiritual gateways, how demons enter people's lives. We're going to go into that shortly, and then we'll look finally at what demons do when they get inside people. But what I want to do, is to just give you a bit of a break, and we're going to get you to do something, so we'll just have a break and we'll have the next 10 minutes we're going to do some exercise. It's going to be fantastic. You'll all have a chance to do something. That be good? Okay then, so what will we do? Now don't get nervous. It's just going to be a lot of fun. It's always a lot of fun.
Okay, here's what we're going to do. How many are filled with the Holy Ghost, can speak in tongues? Okay, alright, great, so we have the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we can speak in tongues and build our spirit man, so in a moment we're going to get up, and begin to start to pray, and exercise the gift. When you speak in tongues, your spirit is speaking, the Holy Ghost is arising in you, giving you the language, you're building your spirit man. Let's just do that for a little bit, and just energise ourselves and come alive. I encourage you, when you're praying in tongues like that, begin to move your body, allow your whole body to yield and get excited, God is in me! God is in me!
A lot of people think God's so far away, isn't he? He's just right inside me, but you don't always believe that. Your mind often thinks that God seems like He's a long way off from me, so begin as you pray in tongues strongly, and move your body and physically shift your body, begin to think as you're praying God is in me, God is filling me! Let your mind and heart grasp, God is filling me. Amen. Let's just do that together first of all, and see what you experience as you do that strong praying, strong building up your spirit man. Are we ready? So make yourself a little bit of room where you can do that, there we go, are we ready? We're going to all pray in tongues, going to bless God. Amen, so here's the first thing we'll do. On the count of three, we're all going to give the loudest clap, and the biggest shout we can give, then we'll pray in tongues. Ready? One, two, three. [Applause, shouts of praise] Halleluiah Lord, we love You Lord! Wonderful Jesus! We love You Lord! Halleluiah! That's good, alright, now let's begin to just pray in tongues. We'll go about 30 seconds. Are we ready? One, two, three. [Prays in tongues] Thank You Lord, Holy Ghost, how we love You.
Right, how many of you felt the energy just start to come up, just speaking in tongues like that, start to lift you up? Alright, how many you consciously were thinking God is in me, how many were doing that, just starting to think God in me? How many of you sort of felt you became aware of the spirit of God filling you? How many kind of had that awareness? We don't necessarily feel a lot, but usually what happens is your mind clears and your energy rises, you just are more alive on the inside. Amen.
Okay, now I want to just demonstrate for you what I want you to do, and why I want you to do this, okay? Now what I'm wanting you to do, is I'm wanting to lead you to a point - you can just sit down, that'll be easier for you to see then. I want to lead you to a point where, you start to have confidence that if I speak, God is with me. Remember, if I cast out demons BY the spirit of God - notice it's BY the spirit of God. I need the Holy Spirit to move. If He doesn't move, nothing's going to happen, but I've got to do something, so I work, believing that as I minister, the spirit of God will work with me. Now the problem of course is, that the moment your mind starts, I wonder if God is with me? Then immediately you've got a gap between you and the Holy Ghost. See, He loves us to just love Him, and honour Him, and thank Him that He's with us, He loves us to delight in Him. It doesn't take much to grieve the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's like a dove. He rests where there's peace. The moment there's turmoil, His presence lifts, so you know that's why it tells us in Colossians 3: let the peace of God be the ruler of your heart, because the moment you lose peace, and get in agitation or fear or anxiety, the spirit lifts, until you come and set your mind right again, then He comes back and rests again. It feels like that. Does that make sense?
He's a dove. Doves get frightened off easily. They get frightened away, so doves lift off, and it's very easy for us to grieve the Holy Spirit with a heart attitude that's wrong, with holding things in our life that aren't right, but it's easy to welcome Him if I just begin to just talk how much I love You Holy Spirit, I thank You, I'm just dependent on You. Now Lord work with me as I begin to minister - and as I begin to become conscious of Him, see the spirit of God is living in you all the time, but often we forget that, and we say and do things. We just forget He's there, and we dishonour Him, and He's grieved and He draws back, and there's no power around our life. So what I want to do is, I'm just going to show you an exercise, a very simple exercise to do, and the purpose of the exercise - it's not to see whether you can do it, or whether you can't do it. The purpose of the exercise is to get you to start to expect that if I begin to speak, God will work through me, and touch people. That's the purpose of it, okay? That actually God will work though me, alright?
So you're here nearest Brian. We'll start with you, then I'll pick two or three others and go around the room and just pick some different people, so Brian, like to come up? Can I practice on you? I need someone to stand behind him, someone stand behind him just to catch him. Okay then, we'll just move this back here so - alright then. So Brian, I want you just to close your eyes and look up to the Lord, expecting for God to touch you. So notice I've directed his attention towards the Lord, not to me, because it's the Lord who must minister, not me - but I've got a vital part. So now what I'll do, is just take his hand. Now I'll speak out loud what's going on. Now what I could do is begin to pray in tongues. Now just praying in tongues itself isn't all the picture. Praying in tongues stirs your spirit, [prays in tongues] but what I'll do with my mind and heart, is just begin to reach out; Holy Spirit, You're with me. You are with me, and so I'm just expecting Lord, for You to flow through me and to touch Brian right now. So as I release POWER, I expect the Holy Ghost to touch him.
Now - that's good, he's had a whole touch of God on him, that's great. We'll get someone else up too. We'll get a few more people, and we'll just do the same thing. Like to come up? Can I pray with you dear? Okay, just come on over. We just need someone to be there to catch her. Come on up on the top there, alright then. Can I practice on you? [Yeah.] Great, just close your eyes, and just reach up to the Lord, expecting God to do something good in your life. Now I'm not trying to do any deliverance. This is not the point of this exercise. The point of this exercise is to become aware of the Holy Spirit, become of God in you, so pray in tongues. [Prays in tongues] As you're praying in tongues, your spirit is becoming alive with the Holy Spirit. Now I need to centre my attention and focus - what do I focus on? I just think well, Holy Spirit, You're there. I so need You Lord. Just come and touch her. I know she wants the touch of God. Holy Spirit, as I speak now, just flow through me and touch her. POWER - now, you feel the power of God just touch her. Yeah, could you feel it while I was talking? Could you feel Him starting to come on you, and touch you? Yeah, I could feel that too, sense Him coming.
Now the point of this is to help you become confident - you are a minister of God, God is with you. Now I've just done it in a very slow and very low key way, so you can see it's nothing about striving or struggling. It's all about a relationship with a person who loves you, He's committed to you, He lives inside you, and there it is - so just close your eyes and look up again. Let me take your hand. Taking a person's hand's quite an easy thing to do. Holy Ghost, come. Holy Ghost, come. Now I'm going to speak the word power - POWER! - and she gets touched by the power of God. Alright then, great, we're all getting ready. I'll do one more, and you can feel the atmosphere already starting to change, because the spirit of God is here.
Josie, can I just pray with you? Okay then, now I'll just do it again. I'll explain what we're going to do, okay, we right? Need someone to catch - okay, you right? Can I practice on you? [Yes.] Great stuff. Okay, close your eyes. Look up to the Lord in your heart. So remember again, we're going to pray in tongues. [Prays in tongues] Now already, I can feel the spirit of God just coming on her right now, just straight away, presence of God. Now you notice, it's like God was wanting to do it, and got ahead of me. I'm sort of trying to get through my thing [laughter] and He's just already going ahead of me. [vroom] Holy Ghost! [Laughs] Just stay there and enjoy the presence of God, see?
Now can you see that God is more willing to use us than we realise? He just needs someone to co-operate with Him, so a lot of this, it's not about trying to make God do something. It's actually about you just resting in your heart, that I am a minister of the spirit, God is with me, and that He will work through me. The key issue is one of just believing that God can work through me. Can I pray for you too? Come on - I can see you looking, wanting something to happen. [Laughter] Why not? Exactly, that's the spirit, why not me? Amen. Alright then. Now you notice that there's an anointing flows from within, but there's also the spirit of God will come on people as well, and so I always yield to Him moving, coming on people, but I can always stir what's within me - there it is, He's already starting to happen... [Yes.] ...right now, so you could feel it straight away couldn't you? See, so I'll just again pray. [Prays in tongues]
Now what I'm wanting you to do is to get used to doing this, stirring up your spirit through praying in tongues, expecting God to do something, and being willing to just speak. POWER! Release the power of God into the person's life. Believe that as you say - thank you Brian, well done, catching all the ladies tonight. It's a grand thing to do. [Laughs] So I'm wanting you to get used to, that as you will just arise in your spirit, and speak, that God will work through your words, to touch the other person. Amen. Okay then, so we're going to get you all into threes, one catches, one receives, one prays and ministers. Follow the same process, because it'll just make it easier. Ask the person, can I practice on you? Why? Because it is just a practice, to just do what we can. Secondly, ask them to close their eyes, and lift their heart, or look up to the Lord, not to you so the pressure's not on you to perform - unless it's inside you to perform.
Then you close your eyes and take their hand, and just begin to ponder and meditate that God is in me, and begin to pray in tongues. Allow your heart to become conscious of God, then POWER! Okay? [mumble mumble] Come on, you can do it! [Laughter] Let's do it! Let's do it!
*Use the scrollbar to see more...
Keywords: manifestation, generational spirit, idolatory, spiritism, authority, power, house cleansing, energise, spiritual force, unclean spirit, spirit being