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Gateways for Demonic Spirits (3 of 5)
Sat 7 Jul 2012 AM Baycity Outreach Center, Hastings, NZ
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Demons need a 'legal doorway' to enter a persons life. In this session, a check-list of 9 common doorways are explained; and what kinds of things would happen inside a person, as a result of demonic bondage.
I want to welcome you this morning again, we're looking at the ministry of deliverance, and there are many approaches that people have to this whole area of deliverance, so this is one approach. There are other ways that people approach it, and other ways they look at it and resolve some of the issues, but what we want to do is to give you understanding of the ministry of Jesus and deliverance, and we want to give you understanding of what demons are, how they operate and how they access people's lives, and some of the foundational keys to getting people free, and ministering to people. We also want to give you an opportunity to just practice praying for, and ministering to one another, and I expect that God will do some great things today.
Yesterday we looked at Jesus' ministry. We looked first of all at the apostolic ministry, that we're all sent by God, we all have a sphere of influence and God wants us to be used in this ministry, not only of sharing the gospel but of healing the sick and delivering people from evil spirits. We looked at Jesus' ministry of deliverance. We saw an example of His ministry, we saw how He worked and how He operated, and then we looked at some of Jesus' teaching as to what evil spirits are, and how they operate.
So today, we're looking now in your notes on Page 4, Section 2.4, we're looking at how demons enter people, and when they get into people, what kinds of things would happen inside the person as a result of that. There are a number of ways of approaching this particular aspect, and I've used a way which has been quite helpful for people to get an overview, and so you know what to look for, you know the places to look. Then there are a number of ways that we can approach the actual ministry.
So first thing we need to realise is that demons cannot access a person's life unless they have a ground or a reason to be able to do so. We saw that demons will occupy buildings, they'll occupy objects, they can occupy animals, and they definitely seek to occupy people, but they need in a way in. They can't automatically just get access into you, so they need a way in, and if we read in Ephesians 4, Verse 18, Paul is writing. He's writing to believers, and he's talking about being angry but don't sin, don't let the sun go down on your anger. Then in Verse 27: give no place to the devil. Give no place to the devil. He's writing to believers, and he's telling them do not give a place to the devil. The word place is a - many times these words if you don't understand the original, they lose their meaning in translation, so the original word, it's the word topos. It means something like this; it means a foothold, don't let the devil get a foothold. A foothold is where you put your foot in the door, and you stop the door shutting, so you can get your way in.
Another translation of that word is a beachhead. In the Second World War, the allies sought to establish a beachhead, that's a small area that they occupy, from which they can launch a greater assault, a beachhead. But one of the most important meanings of the word means, a legal right, a legal right, a lawful right to do something, a legal right. We talked a little bit about that last night, how legal rights are very, very crucial in the operation of demonic spirits getting into people's lives. If they can find a place where the law of God is broken, they have a room to operate against people, and so when we bring our life under the kingdom of God, under the lordship of Jesus Christ, and begin to flow in His principles, then legal grounds and rights are diminished. But when we violate the laws of God, we come outside the kingdom of God, then the grounds have been established for demonic spirits to enter.
So they can enter when you break the laws of God. Now you say well, what if I didn't know? Well ignorance does not matter. You know, the fact you didn't know doesn't mean the demon can't use it. They will use every ground possible, and the nature of the demonic kingdom is one of darkness and deception, so you may be sitting here today, and already there are areas of your life which are in bondage to evil spirits, and you're not even aware of it; accept that's just me, I've got this struggle I have, and it's just me, I've always been like that. So we can have areas of bondage and we're not even aware of it, and we're going to just identify some of the doorways now that evil spirits use.
In Nehemiah 9, Verse 37, Nehemiah is praying, and what he does is he says: You have set kings over us, because of our sins. So from a spiritual perspective he's saying that we are under bondage because of sin, and so let's have a look then, at some of these doorways or gateways that demons use. Let me do one more verse before we go to look and identify the gateways, and it's found - it's not in your notes - in 2 Timothy, Chapter 2, so if you've got a Bible you could look at it. It's talking about ministering to people, and it says in Verse 24: the servant of the Lord must not quarrel or argue or strive, but must be gentle to all men, able to teach and patient. So it's saying if you're going to minister to people, then don't argue with people, it's not going to work, get any results - but be gentle, able to teach and patient, in humility instructing those who oppose themselves, and perhaps God will give them repentance, that they may acknowledge the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, who have been taken captive by him to do his will.
So in those three verses there it says there are some people, and the devil takes them captive. Any time he wants to he can manipulate their life so that they end up doing what he wants, rather than doing what God wants. They are taken captive. That word captive means a prisoner, taken in a battle, so it says the devil takes people captive. He captures people, holds them in prison, and then manipulates them so they do things they don't necessarily want to do, or they do things which are destructive. It says that he captures them by getting them in a snare, and that word snare is like a trap, like a baited trap, like a bird trap. You have the bait, and the person goes in, takes the bait, and then they're in the trap, and then they're manipulated because they're now imprisoned. So it says that if we are to get people free, we as the servants of God, need to not quarrel with people or argue, but just have a gentle, humble attitude. It says we need to instruct people on some of the foundation reasons why they've got their life into bondage, and it says perhaps God will give them repentance to acknowledge the truth, then they come to their senses, and get out of this area of the devil.
So there's a part we play. We must instruct people, work with people, and help people see why they're in trouble. Secondly, they have to make a response. They need to actually acknowledge where they have opened their life to the demonic powers, and come to a place of repentance and acknowledging the truth. Then they come to their senses, or they stop being drunk and under the influence of a spirit, and we can set them free from the demonic bondages. So there's a process of instructing the person, helping them understand how their life got into bondage, working with the Holy Ghost to identify some of the areas of bondage and the roots of it. Then they must come to a place of co-operation, so sometimes you'll have people come and they want help and want ministry, but they want it their way. They want you to pray and fix them up. You can't fix anyone up. What you can do is work with the Holy Spirit to get them realigned with Jesus, and then you can minister on His behalf, and freedom comes.
So the process of deliverance is not all about casting out demons. That's actually the easy part. The bigger part is actually discovering how they got established in the person's life, and bringing the person to place of co-operation with the Holy Spirit, so that you can then minister and get them free. So it really helps to understand it, because many people will come, and they just want to be free, or to feel better, or to get over the problem, whereas our role is to help them realign with God, and take responsibility for their life. So if someone's blaming the demons for their problem, help them understand the demon is not the problem, the demon is the consequence of something. The demon's not the problem, the demon is the consequence of something else that happened; deal with the root issue, and the demons are quite easy to deal with. That make sense? It's quite important you get that, because otherwise you'll be looking to blame demons for all the problems that people have, and of course demons do create huge problems. We'll identify what some of them are shortly.
A demon can be at the root of the problem, and creating all kinds of issues in a person's life, but underneath that, there's some legal ground, some foothold it has. Remove the foothold, and the demon's got nothing to hold onto to let go, so you can imagine a person coming to you, and what you can't see, but there's all these handles on them, and demons have got a hold of the handles. Unless you get the handles broken and off their life, then the demons will just keep coming back and latch onto the person again. That's perhaps a way of looking at it. Okay, so what are some of the doorways or gateways that evil spirits enter? Remember, we are called to be a gateway for the spirit of God to flow through. Demons want to come in, and they come in because they've got a ground. Now here's the first one. I'm going to give you a list of a number of them, they're not necessarily in order of importance, but they're common ones that I have come across in working with people.
Number one, generational inequity, the sins of family members of previous generations. In the Bible, as in practically - let's look at it first of all from a practical level. When you go to the doctor they will ask your family medical history. They know there's connection in your medical history and your family background. You go to the insurance company, they'll also ask your medical history, because they know there's a connection between medical history, and the current problems, or the problems you may have in the future. So from a spiritual perspective, the generations are connected by genetics. We're also connected spiritually. God sees generations as being a continual line, interconnected with one another, so God's plan is that if you walk with God, that all the generations after you will be blessed, they're all connected. But if you walk against God, then you open a gateway for evil spirits to come in, and everyone connected after you, is subject to what you have done. They come under. They're not responsible for what you did, but they are subject to the consequences of what you've done, so if a person is involved for example - well let's just have a look at it, in Exodus, Chapter 20. You'll see it very clearly laid out.
Exodus, Chapter 20 - there are many other verses like this; You shall have no other Gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or the likeness of anything in heaven above or the earth beneath, that's in the water or in the earth; you'll not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord you God am a jealous God, and I visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but show mercy to thousands who love Me and keep My commandments. Notice it says: visiting the iniquity. The iniquity is the root of sin, it's the tendency to go crooked. It's the twistedness in a person's life, so when idolatry gets into a family, or spiritism, or sexual perversions, or things like that, a legal right is established for spirits to come in, and the consequences go generationally, from one generation to another. So the sins of your parents and grandparents will create a legal ground for evil spirits to come into your own life. When did the spirits transfer? Well they may transfer while the child is in the womb, they may transfer at birth, they may transfer sometime during their early stage of their life, or they may not even manifest until teenage years, or a little later - but they will always show up. They always show up.
Once a legal ground is established, they then start to occupy generation after generation, so we are not at all responsible for what our parents did. We're responsible for our own actions, but it may well be that already, without us doing anything, we are subject to demonic oppression and pressure. Remember we said demons hold people down, and energise sin? You could be born into this world already having demonic spirits, that make you subject - that you become subject to the pressure they bring. I've had a whole heap of them. I had one couple I prayed for, their child would wake up very early in the morning - the child was two - and would become very destructive. We couldn't work out why, and they couldn't do anything. If they didn't wake up early, the child would destroy things in the house, so we checked their background, and he had a background of anger and violence and drugs, and she had a background of the occult. We prayed over the child, stood with the parents and prayed over the child. The child just sighed, spirits left, and then there was no behaviour problem. It just changed as dramatically as that, because the origins were demonic.
I had another lady I prayed for, and she said I'm a Christian, I've been a Christian almost all of my life. I've served the Lord faithfully, but I am tormented with unclean images in my mind. They just are there all the time. I come to worship, they're there. I don't understand why I have such a problem, so I asked the obvious; have you been involved in sexual sin? No, I haven't, I've kept my life. Right, I asked the next obvious one; did anyone ever sexually abuse you? No, I've never been sexually abused. Oh, okay, I'll ask another one. Have you ever had any bad sexual experience of any kind? No, I have not, I've kept myself in God - so that left it back, it could only have a generational origin. Can you tell me about your family background? When she told me about the family background I was quite amazed, because what happened was this. Her grandparents were missionaries in China, and they had two children, a boy and a girl, and they had put the boy and the girl in a boarding school, and the missionaries were in another area.
The Japanese invaded China - this was in the '30s. They invaded China, and they took over the province that the boarding school was in. They took the young boy and the girl, and they sexually abused the girl - this is another generation back see? Okay, so then eventually the children were rescued, the place was set free, the children restored to their parents, but damage had been done, and through the sexual abuse, a demonic spirit had been imparted. So the young girl grew up and eventually married, but the marriage didn't last. Because of the trauma she'd gone through she was unable to stay intimate in any relationship; the marriage broke up, but she had this daughter, and this was the daughter that we were speaking with and talking with. So we realised then, that even though she had done nothing herself, the consequence of an abuse two generations ago had opened the doorway for the demonic spirit to come in, and she was now all her life under this demonic pressure in her mind and emotions, that brought torment and guilt to her, because as a Christian she wants to please the Lord.
She can't understand why she's got this stuff in her head, and we prayed for her, and I got her to acknowledge this generational iniquity, to forgive the Japanese soldiers who'd abused the grandmother, and the moment we did that, the demonic spirits manifested, and she was completely set free. So it's a very, very powerful story of this generational issue. Now, there are a whole number of areas from the generational background. One of the common ones in the west is freemasonry. Freemasonry will always open the door for demonic spirits. They're spirits of infirmity, they usually produce coldness in the emotions of men, lack of love and intimacy in the relationship, in the family, and they produce all kinds of spiritual blocks for people coming into the things of the spirit and going on with God - so generational iniquity and the curses that this brings.
The Bible's very clear, in the days of Nehemiah, he confessed not only his own sins, but the sins of the parents which had brought them into this place of bondage. So generational iniquity can open the doorway for spirits, particularly around the area of the occult, so you find sometimes children struggle from when they're very young with occult experiences. There is a generational factor involved there. The parents or grandparents or someone in the family line has made an agreement, they've worshipped an idol, or made offerings to an idol and come into agreement with it, or perhaps they have opened their life to divination, fortune-telling and spiritism, or perhaps they've engaged in some form of occult practice, or some sexual perversion. They've broken laws of God, and it's opened a door through which the demons now have legal access, so it's like leaving the door open, and there's wild wolves outside. They just keep coming in while the door stays open. The door has to be shut.
So when you're checking out, or working with someone, one of the questions I always ask, is when did this problem first begin? Many times you'll find, well it's been there all my life, it's been there since I was very, very young. So you have good indication then, that the likely cause or origin, is a generational iniquity or sin of some kind. When people pray, often God will uncover things in the family, and you become aware of issues that no one had talked about. In our generation no one talked about anything, but the stuff went on, and so it was all secret. The Holy Ghost was able to bring it out by word of knowledge and by revelation. That's why you can't do deliverance ministry without the Holy Ghost. He's the only one who can help unlock the generational iniquities and the bondages, and He'll do that by a picture, a vision or something will come to the person. He'll just bring it to mind what is the problem, when we ask Him to help. So for generational iniquity it is important that they be acknowledged, and repented of, and confessed, and the curses renounced, so the person can be set free.
The second thing there is patterns of sin or habits of sin. Sin always opens the doorways for spirits, so sin - what we do, not what someone else did, they are what we do - and so a range of areas to look for, that open doorways for spirits, are: hatred; a spirit of hatred. In 1 John 2:11, the person who hates his brother is a murderer. Unforgiveness; Matthew 18:35, Jesus said if you harbour unforgiveness in your heart you will be delivered to the tormenters, so unforgiveness is a crucial one. You would be amazed how many people do not feel hate for someone, and do not feel unforgiveness, but it's there, sitting in their life, and the Holy Spirit can bring it to the surface. Unforgiveness is a huge issue, it's a demand that someone pays me back. It's a demand for justice, and we need to let that go, and release it to the cross, and forgive and release others, as we have been forgiven.
Bitterness is another major root of sin, where people harbour resentment, and anger, and hostility against someone. It eventually becomes a deep root of bitterness. Hebrews 12:15, a root of bitterness will defile. Bitterness is a big problem that opens the door for demons. Anger is another one. Now remember, behind all of these sins there's usually events, there's something that's happened, that caused the person to feel hurt and grief and pain, then they've chosen to react by holding unforgiveness, rather than forgiving and so on. Rebellion is another one. In Proverbs 17:11, the person who rebels, a cruel messenger will be sent against him, so rebellion - often people rebel when they're rejected, so a young person who's rejected, one may become compliant, and another one may rebel, and be the black sheep of the family, because they just feel so rejected, and they're saying I'm not going to tolerate that, so they react in many kinds of different ways. Rebellion is a major one. Rebellion is seeking to impose your will over another, so it says it's like witchcraft.
Many times when there's roots of rebellion in a person's life, you'll have spirits of witchcraft operating as well, so rebellion is wilful resistance, and in New Zealand one of the most common forms of rebellion is what you call passive rebellion. Passive rebellion is not so easy to spot. Passive rebellion is the person resists, but they're not showing it outwardly, they show it in different other ways. They show it by, I'll do it my way, I'll do it on my time, I'll do it when I feel like it, and so they may comply, but actually there's no heart in it. There is a rebelling and imposing their own will around it, and so you'll find you can't get things done, you can't get them done on time. There's actually a wilful resisting of you, and you can feel the lack of flow, the pressure that it seems to bring around. So rebellion, they'll just nod and smile and say yes, but then not do it. You see the pattern, you know there's rebellion underneath, in the heart - but the person doesn't feel rebellious. That's their behaviour they've gotten used to.
Another area is the area of lying. Lying brings people directly into agreement with an evil spirit. In Isaiah 28 it tells us that when we lie, we come into agreement with demonic spirits, the spirit of death. We've made a covenant with death, with hell we're in agreement, because we made lies our refuge. Isn't that amazing? We're in a covenant with death, and with hell we're in agreement, because we made lies our refuge, so lying opens the door immediately then, for demonic spirits to come in and torment a person's life. So those are some of the patterns of sin that you'll find. There are others which I've mentioned here, because I want to identify them specifically, so remember patterns of sin, usually there's a trigger cause. It helps to find out when this thing started, what lies behind it, because often there's grief and pain, or an injustice. When you talk that out, then the person comes to a place of resting, and releasing forgiveness, and repenting of their sin.
A third area, which is a significant area, is the area of occult involvement. Deuteronomy 18, God wants us to be connected to Him. God is a spirit, and we are made for spiritual experience, we're made and designed to live and operate and move in the realm of the spirit. It's not to be a complicated thing, it's actually a natural part of our life that we would engage with God who is a spirit, and learn how to activate, walk and operate in the flow of the spirit. But people who do not know God, get drawn into the demonic realm, so when we talk about occult - the word occult means to be concealed, or covered, or hidden, or to be covered over - so when we refer the occult, it's any practice where the source of the power is concealed. So when you get involved in the kingdom of God, it's a kingdom of light. Everything is in the open. What we see, is what we get. There's no big surprises in that. Jesus is the king of that kingdom, the kingdom has His nature, the power behind anything that happens is the Holy Spirit, and when we open our life to Jesus the king, we open our life up to the Holy Spirit. The source of power is always identifiable.
When you get in the kingdom of darkness, you have no idea who the king is, but the king is Satan himself. He's a king over a kingdom, and it takes on his nature, cruel, deceptive, treacherous, murderous and dark. The second thing is, the source of power in the occult practices, is concealed. You don't know where the power comes from, so you'll find in the occult realm, when people get involved and drawn into these things, they have no idea what the power is. They just know that there's power there, and many times people are drawn to the occult because of deep rejection or rebellion in their heart, and they look for power to try and compensate, and they find they're drawn. It's quite addictive, it's like a drug, that once people start down that track they get drawn further and further and further into it. So when we talk about the occult of course, we're aware that recently there's been just a huge interest in these things, like all the Harry Potter movies. They're all about the occult. They're about two kinds of occult; about divination, which is telling the future, various ways of finding the future, or trying to find out what will happen ahead of us; and the second is sorcery, which is the dimension of power, gaining power from hidden spirits, and of course Hollywood dresses it all up, so it all looks wonderful, and they say it's good against evil. But really in all of it, the power is never identified, and so occult areas will always open the realm of the spirit. People come into direct agreement with evil spirits.
Common ones are pendulum swinging, Ouija boards, just putting the Ouija board out. When a person puts the board out, and puts the letters down there, and starts to move the glass, they actually connect with a spirit, and it's the spirit gives the thing power. Now they're communicating with an evil spirit. God says this is detestable to Him, because He's made us for intimacy with Himself. It's like someone that you love going off and having another lover, and God grieves in His heart over this, and there are very serious consequences for occult involvement. So let's read in Deuteronomy 18, Verse 9; When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, don't learn the abominations of the nations. Then He lists them: there'll be not found among you who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire. The modern equivalent of that, passing a child through the fire was offering your children up to Molech, God of brass that was - they filled it up with fire and they put their children, living children, into this idol to kill them. The modern equivalent of that would be abortion.
There will not be found any among you who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire, anyone who practices witchcraft, a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, one who conjures spells, a medium, a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead, holds a séance, calls up the spirits of the dead, acts as a medium or a channel for the dead. We would call them today psychics, and you find again very commonly psychic hotlines and so on, so all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord. Nothing could be clearer. This is evil to do these things, and when you do it, you end up engaging evil spirits. Now when you get into different nations you'll find the further you get away from civilisation, the more occultism becomes very powerful. So in the areas of Indonesia we've come across major stuff with people who practice this demonic realm, and their power is very real, for example in the Bible the sorcerers in Egypt could change a stick into a snake, just like Moses did. Now that's scary. Have a think about that - someone throws a stick down, it turns into a snake. That's a major power dimension.
One of the challenges the church is facing, is the ability to arise without fear in the face of all of this, and learn how to move in the spirit, and bring heaven to earth, and confront the demonic realm. See, people are drawn there, because they see the church has no power. No matter how you dress it up, no matter how well it looks, or how well it's managed, people need the substance of God. They need to experience God's power in their life, and in the absence of that, they turn and turn into all these kinds of things, so there are whole ranges of aspects to this of course. All forms of fortune-telling bring people into connection with demons. Divination is seeking for hidden knowledge, hidden information, secret information. All forms of sorcery - sorcery's trying to gain power over people, cursing them, doing spells, magic, those kinds of things.
Idolatry is a significant part of this. Idolatry is the bowing down, and coming into, yielding into, spirits that lie behind the idol. In 1 Corinthians it tells us, the idol is nothing, but when you bow down and make offerings to it, you are coming into agreement to an evil spirit occupying the idol, and so wherever there is idolatry openly practised, you'll notice one, they bow down, a sign of reverence and yielding to the demon that's in that place, in that idol; secondly, they make an offering, which is a form of trading, I give you this offering in return for protection, or power, or provision of some kind. So always there's a form of trading goes on; I give you this, you give me something back, but when you deal with the devil, you always end up the loser. You always end up the loser. I remember a person that we ministered to up in Malaysia, and she'd got involved with demonic spirits to bless her business, and for a season her business prospered and she became immensely wealthy.
Then one day the demon manifested to her, and said it's time to pay. She said what do you want? He said I want your eldest son, and she could not believe - I mean she was just grief stricken. She tried every way that she could bargain, but she'd already received - she'd traded. She'd received the benefits, financially, of trading with the demon, and now she had to pay the price, so there was a tragic car accident. Her son was lost, and this happened to both her sons, so she was devastated and you can imagine that all the financial gain, through trading with the demon, was overtaken completely by the shock and the grief that she had lost her children, because she'd given her life into trading with a spirit. So there's always a price to pay, always a price to pay, and it's more than you think, always more than you think. Yeah, okay? So idolatry opens the doorway for demons. In the west of course, freemasonry's a big problem in that area, so when you look in the New Testament, you'll find there were encounters with people with sorcery and divination recorded in the Bible.
So in the area of occult involvement, the person has an agreement with an evil spirit. When you talk with anyone who has an agreement with an evil spirit, they must actually recognise what they've done, and renounce the agreement. To renounce means to speak words to cancel something, so wherever there's been an agreement with an idol, with a spirit of divination, any kind of demonic spirit, the person must renounce what they have done; in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I renounce every agreement I have made, every word that I have entered into agreement, I cancel it, every covenant I've made through sacrifice, I renounce and cancel it. The person needs to cancel, speak words to break what they have done, and renounce and speak off their life what they've done. Sometimes children when they're young, are dedicated to idols and so the child had no choice in it, they were dedicated to an idol, or dedicated to a temple. We would bring children in and dedicate them to the Lord. People dedicate them to the idol.
Now when a parent dedicates their child to an idol, or a temple, it gives a legal ground for the spirit to enter the child's life, because the parent is the legal guardian, so we have prayed for many people, and they were demonised from childhood because they were dedicated to an idol, a temple, or some false god. In the same way then, we should realise that infant dedication or child dedication in the church is a powerful spiritual transaction. It's not just a nice little thing you do in church. The reality is, you are invoking someone to come upon your child, you're calling for God to move, as you dedicate your child to Him. In the same way, the demonic realm recognises and seeks to gain the children, so there's always a battle for the minds and hearts of the children. Now just before we get off the occult involvement one, there are some other areas that you need to be aware of.
One area that's becoming an increasing problem now, is the area of role play fantasy games, and the internet, and this is becoming a huge issue. I was up in Singapore, and God spoke to me about this, and I had a young man come up for prayer. He was addicted to playing a role playing game called the World of Warcraft, and he played in that game a sorcerer. The deal was, he would get on the internet and he would go and begin to compete, and he would take on and use his powers that he had on the internet to destroy his enemies and grow in power until he become bigger and more powerful. So this is the nature of that thing, they all compete with one another. Now what happened was, because of imagination, he opened his life up to the demonic spirit, and it now entered his life and he'd become addicted to the game, and his whole identity started to change as he started to get more and more addicted to the game.
So when we recognised that, I said you will need to renounce the game, and to renounce the identity that you took on in that game, so he told me what the game was and the identity of the sorcerer, and I led him in a prayer to acknowledge Christ as his Lord, acknowledge ownership by Christ and then to renounce in Jesus' name, I renounce all playing of this game. I renounce all escaping from real life into this fantasy world, because that's what the root of the problem was. I renounce this identity, which is a false identity, which I took on, and he named it. The moment he did the demon manifested on his face, he fell on the ground, and there was a full manifestation of that spirit. Now this shocked the students. This is a student in a Bible College, so while he's given his life, and sacrificed to come and learn how to serve God, in his private life, he's engaging the occult realm, but didn't know it.
Now what happened then was we had more than 200 students come up, and there was a massive flow of deliverance, young Asian students addicted to these online games, becoming a growing problem in the next generation. It's deceptive. People don't understand what lies behind it. They think it's just harmless game playing. Now don't go in a big reaction, and then forbid all game playing. There's a discernment needed as to what kinds of things would actually become a problem, and I think that any game which is of a role playing nature, that also includes the occult, will eventually lead to the person opening their life, and being in agreement with, a demonic power. So rather than legalism, some wisdom and some management and boundaries are needed around that area, and if you've - because what you find is, often the behaviour of the children starts to change because of the occult and the violence in the games, it starts to affect them. What's happened is they've opened their life to a demon.
One of the scriptures the Lord spoke to me about was this, as I was thinking about it and sharing it with the students, I was just sharing what God was showing me about it. He said there's a scripture there, it says: if you look on a woman with lust in your heart, you've committed adultery with her. Now just think about that. He said if you look, or if you start to look, or use your imagination, and you look and begin to long after someone that's not your wife, then you've already committed adultery. So the sin of adultery is conceived in the heart, when the imagination and the heart are activated together, so He said in these games, people enter in with their imagination into the fantasy world, and then begin to long after the power. What happens is they conceive in their heart the whole thing of sorcery, and the demon then can get in, so these are areas to become very aware of.
There are other games that people get addicted to, and I don't even want to go there at all, but there's a whole range of games, and people who are in pain emotionally, substitute real relationships for a vast imaginary role playing game world, and often they can become addicted to that realm. They can't do without it, and so you know spirits are involved as well as soulish and addictive processes, so I needed to spend a bit on that because that is quite an issue. Other areas of the occult involve martial arts, and yoga, and some, some alternative medicine things. We just need to be aware that you can open your life to the demonic realm through these things.
Okay, next one, number four is sexual sin. We just look in - there's a whole number of scriptures on this of course. Remember in Luke, Chapter 4, we saw the man who had an unclean spirit - Verses 43, 44 - we found that there was a man there who had an unclean spirit. In Chapter 4 of Luke, Verses 33 to 36, he had an unclean demon, which is almost certainly a sexual demon that had come into his life. We discussed that last night. So God has set a law in place; when two people become intimate sexually, the two become one flesh. Remember, it's established in Genesis. They join together in sexual intimacy, the two become one. Now get this: if you become one with another person, one flesh, then whatever demons they've got, they belong to you as well. Think about that. Like if a person has got a sexual disease, and you have a sexual relationship with them, you are likely to receive what they have, and the consequences will go on and possibly affect children. The child maybe innocent, no guilt, yet affected.
So in the realm of sexual sin, God has created a law that two become one, so when people are sexually involved with one another, heavy petting right through to penetration and sexual relationship, then there is a soul tie formed between them. The two become one. That's the law that God set in place, and the way the law works is there is a bonding forms between them. Now that soul tie, or that bonding between the two people formed through sexual intimacy, it can either be Godly, or ungodly. A Godly one is where it's within the boundaries of a healthy relationship, and God's principles; an ungodly one is a sexual intimacy outside marriage, where we break God's laws, violate God's laws, are involved sexually outside marriage, then there is an ungodly soul tie or bonding. Now there are two impacts of that ungodly soul tie that I'm aware of. One impact is this, is that because it's an ungodly tie, demonic spirits can use it as a gateway into your life, spirits of lust, and all kinds of other spirits can enter your life through a legal gateway, a joining to another person.
It's like no matter how far you go through your life you're still joined to them, so if you have a number of sexual partners, now you've got all this baggage, these cords of sin, that go back to these relationships - it's like an invisible spiritual cord linking you to the person. The demonic realm can see it, and use it to gain access so that's one area, demonic spirits can enter. The second is this. I've observed in praying for people that - particularly with men but also with women - that the mental and emotional impact of the sexual relationship remains with them. The memories remain alive and it's like they cannot, even years later, get the memories to diminish. They are energised and alive, and so a couple can be having sexual intimacy as husband and wife, and then these powerful images are there of previous encounters, or the memories of previous encounters arise up when a person tries to worship.
In other words, there's some defilement is taking place, which seems to keep - there's an energising. Remember we talked how demons either hold people down, or energise sin inside them? Then this is what happens around this area; the person's got this energy around this that keeps tormenting, and won't ever seem to go away. They can't come to peace, and I've prayed for multitudes of people, and when we broke the soul tie, like it was an invisible cord, when we just cut the soul tie in the spirit, pictured taking the sword of the spirit, and just cutting that soul tie joining the person to someone else, then almost immediately there was a diminishing of the energy and power of these things in the person's soul, and they just started to find it quite manageable after that. So sexual intimacy was established by God as a way of two people being bonded together, and getting to know one another, becoming intimate with one another. God's purpose in forming the covenant of marriage is to protect your capacity to be intimate, so when people are intimate without a commitment for life, and then they break up, there are all kinds of hurts take place.
There's a rending apart of that soul tie, both men and women are affected. No matter what people say it's like, it isn't like that. It always ends up with pain, and grief, and sorrow, and so you find then there are reactions that people form; I'll never let any man near me like that again, or I wish I was dead, death wishes and inner vows start to - so sexual sin and sexual abuse create these huge problems inside people's lives, of soul ties, of inward reactions, of inner vows, that create an energy centre for demonic spirits to torment the person's life. So if a person has had a number of sexual relationships through their life, what they need is to actually become cleansed by Jesus Christ. We need to come to Him - He's willing to cleanse us, but we need to just front up, this is what it's been like, this is what I've done, this is what I've been involved in, this is what I've been exposed to, and then to just renounce all the agreements, renounce all the relationships, cut the soul ties, renounce the soul ties, and release forgiveness. Let go, where there's grief and pain and hurt.
Many young men that we're aware of have attempted suicide, or committed suicide, because of a break up in a relationship with a girl; many young women have been devastated because a relationship turned sexual, and they never really wanted it to be. They were looking for love and intimacy, so this is a whole area of challenge today, where people have lost God's boundaries and values. God's principle, related to marriage, is to protect intimacy, so you can become a whole person. It's not to stop you enjoying life, it's to protect you from destructive things. So people need to be delivered, and you'll find that many of people that you will work with, you'll find if you will check out where the problem is, often it's in this area; there's been sexual sin, it could go back many, many years, could have been a teenage thing, or even a younger thing that that, and the impact of it's so great, that it just leaves this energy going on inside them. So you're dealing then with soul ties, you're dealing with reactions, inner vows and bitter judgements against men or women, and often you're dealing with quite emotional trauma of what they've gone through.
We'll talk a little bit more about just ministering to that area. It is a major one. God wants people to be free, and we saw Jesus set the man free who'd been bound in that kind of sin. So I've put a list in your notes of various things that the Bible speaks explicitly about; fornication, homosexuality, pornography is not referred to directly, but it comes under the issue of lusting in your heart; habitual masturbation is not mentioned specifically in the Bible, so we should not place weight on it as a problem beyond what the Bible does say, and the Bible doesn't say much about it all. So one of the things I have noticed in praying and ministering to people, is that when people are involved in habitual masturbation, usually there are deep roots of rejection, and what they're doing is trying to comfort themselves, but it becomes addictive and connected with fantasy, and that's where the problems lie. So I never try to bring anyone under the law in this area, but we talk to them about the impact it has on them, and how to then get free. Sometimes you just need to break the soul tie the person's got to them self, and they often need to be set free of roots of rejection inside them, that are feeding and driving this area, then be taught how to actually stay clean, stay pure.
Another particular one that is referred to specifically, is the area of anal sex or sodomy. That is specifically referred to as an abomination to the Lord, and yet you'll find that there'll be some couples will practice sodomy in their marriage. You need to understand that God forbids this practice. It's unclean, it's a shameful practice associated with homosexuals, and it's not part - it's got no place in a Christian marriage, none whatsoever. If any of you are aware, if it's happening in your life, or happening in your situation, or you come across it, a woman needs to be free from any sense she needs to submit to her husband over this specific issue. The area of oral sex is not stated specifically in the Bible, so therefore we have to be careful what we say about something the Bible doesn't say anything about. The two general principles you use are one, that it's natural and doesn't violate natural law and two, that it doesn't violate the conscience of the person.
The area of prostitution isn't referred to in the Bible as being evil. Sexual molesting or rape, fantasy, incest, bestiality and adultery, all of these are referred to as creating major problems. Now here's an interesting thing, that all of those sins carried a death penalty. Get that - capital punishment. Capital punishment. Now we wrestle with capital punishment, even multiple murders, but capital punishment. Now I've looked at that, and thought about it, and I've come to the conclusion that since the law of God doesn't pass away, that wherever people are involved with that, they open the way for spirits of death to come around them. That means they become isolated, and disconnected, and shut down or numbed out emotionally, through these kinds of experiences in various degrees.
So lets just carry on and then we'll finish the list, then we'll take a break. Rejection is another area. If you're looking and dealing with a person's life, you'll find very often they have suffered deep rejection. In 2 Samuel 6, Verse 16, Michal, Saul's daughter, was deeply rejected by her father, and she becomes very bitter. In the day that should have been a day of celebration for her, she in fact was in great grief, and really reactionary against her husband, because there was bitterness against men in her heart, so bitterness comes out of being deeply rejected. You notice also that rejection - let me just make this clear - rejection is an experience people have, where they're not wanted, or they perceive they're not wanted. Rejection is an emotional trauma or pain that people experience, so it's an emotional trauma. Rejection is also a spirit that torments people, and rejection is also a belief, or a judgement formed in the heart, that no one's going to want me.
So when you're dealing with rejection you have to be aware of each of those aspects; is there a demonic spirit involved? Is there a judgement, and a bitter expectancy, that I'll be rejected? Is there some painful experience I need to face, and forgive the people involved? Of course there's a whole number of ways the spirit of rejection will come around people. When people have got rejection in their life, usually there's a deep mind set that they're unacceptable, they fear rejection, and they tend to reject themselves. So where does it come? Very simply, rejection in the womb, child's unwanted, unwanted pregnancy, or perhaps there was an attempt at abortion. I've noticed this, when there's been attempted abortion and the child survives, they will not bond with their mother. They actually won't breastfeed, they won't bond with their mother, they're called 'problem' children because, in their heart, they know already this woman tried to murder me. That's why you get the lack of bonding.
The contemporary culture tends to pass off a lie, this is not a person in the womb. Now if a woman believes this is not a person, the next step is to be able to get rid of it quite easily. The reality is, it is a person, and what we have found is that, in ministering to people who've had an abortion, we have found one of the things that's very crucial, is first to acknowledge that this is actually I've tried to, or attempted to, or have successfully destroyed a life, an eternal spirit being. That's the first thing to acknowledge. The second thing is to forgive the people that have been involved, including forgiving yourself, usually the man involved and the people who were involved as well. The third thing is, we've found it really helpful to ask the person to listen to their heart, and let God show them whether their child was a boy or a girl. Now at that point, it's like I've watched a person move from being almost unemotional, then suddenly when God showed them, this was a boy, it's now no longer a thing. The revelation is there, this is a real person, and often they break and weep quite deeply. You can cast out spirits of murder and abortion and death and so on, so it's a very, very powerful area.
Many times we've found that people have been deeply healed as they've seen the child in the Lord's hands, and they've realised that God has forgiven them, and they're free now to move on. It's a very, very powerful thing - so attempted abortion. A child is an unwanted female; in many places fathers expected the child to be a boy, and it's a girl, and the child feels rejected, and often strives to be - they become male-like and competitive. Early childhood experiences can lead to rejection, a child who's got some learning difficulties, a child who's got some physical co-ordination difficulties, can be very, very simple experiences they have. A family breaks up, that is a huge trauma for a child, and often that trauma leaves a child feeling deeply rejected and to blame. Family relational conflict or breakdown, emotional coldness or hardness or blocks in the family, the child interprets it as being rejected; unfavourable comparisons where one parent's continually why aren't you like your brother, why aren't you like your sister, why can't you do this? The child feels rejected. They are not like their brother and sister, they are them, so many times parents can create huge problems of rejection in a child by comparison.
Divorce or broken relationships; this creates a problem. A child interprets it through a child's eyes, and thinks they're to blame, and feels rejected. School experiences can create huge rejection, as well as - another thing that creates deep rejection in people is the experiences of broken relationship, where there was quite a deep intimacy, and then it breaks up. This is a huge issue that the person feels rejected, and often struggles with spirits of rejection. Another one, related to that which we'll touch on next, are when there's controlling relationships. When there's controlling relationships, the one who's under control always carries a spirit of rejection, always. Why? Because their needs, their longings, their desires, their person-hood was rejected by the controller, who just wanted to impose their will on them.
Okay, so there's a whole range of things there. Number six, controlling relationships, we just referred to those. Whenever there are controlling relationships, one person is imposing their will on another. Now we're not talking about Godly control, or management of a child, where you need to restrain them for their own safety. We're talking now ungodly control where one imposes their will, their wishes, their desires, and there's no hearing, or there's no connection to the heart, or who the person is, and what they want to do. The person is dominated. They can be dominated by verbal violence, by physical violence, by sexual violence, by emotional violence, whatever it is, the person's dominated or controlled by the other person. There's a deep root of rejection takes place, so control brings rejection and trauma, and usually deep fear into the person's life. When you are working with people, do look at the issue of trauma, particularly those associated with a controlling relationship, so when a person is under a controlling relationship, they lose all confidence, they have no sense of identity established, and demonic spirits come around and continually work against them: spirits of hate, spirits of witchcraft, spirits of rejection.
A seventh area or gateway of demons is this, it's trauma and accidents, or sustained stress. When a person goes through a trauma, if it's a physical trauma and you hit a person or they can be cut and bleed, but if it's an emotional trauma there's a bleeding within, in the sense the soul is impacted and shattered. We'll talk a bit more about dealing with that a little later - then what happens is, evil spirits use trauma as a gateway in. I was praying for a woman just a little while ago, and she had pains right through her hand and her wrist, and she couldn't move her hand properly. I said what's happened? She said I was involved in a motor vehicle accident. I said what happened? She said well they did the best they could, but I'm left numbed out, and I can't move my hand properly, so what I did was pray, and in Jesus' name, I break the soul tie, or bonding in connection to the trauma, and command the spirit of trauma and infirmity to go. The moment I did that, her hand freed up, and she started to feel again, and she started to have full use of it.
So she was soul tied to the traumatic experience, we broke that, and then commanded the spirit that was in her through that effect to go out, and immediately she was set free, immediately she's set free. So just be aware that if a person has a traumatic experience, one, that they are soul tied to it; two, that they have often extremely painful memories and pictures around it, and three, that there are spirits often have entered in to create a problem. Spirits of infirmity are the ones I've found most commonly associated with a traumatic experience. Another woman had had a car accident, she had pains right through her body, and we broke the spirit of trauma off her life, cut the soul tie to the experience, and she began to actually shake, as she started to remember it. Then the whole thing left her, and her back was healed and she was completely free straight away.
Another area of demonic oppression or doorways or gateways is ungodly beliefs. Satan is the father of lies. When you believe a lie, whether you have good reason to or not, you'll find that it'll open up and bring demonic spirits in. Now ungodly beliefs are always, or almost inevitably associated with, some painful experience, so a child growing up, well we've never got enough money. Perhaps the parents were going through financial difficulty, and the child learns we're poor, and there's never enough for me. So a child who gets a belief in their heart, there's not enough for me, it doesn't matter how much they have, you know what they'll believe? There's still not enough for me. They're often then driven to work hard, they can't find rest in their soul. Why? Because no matter how much they have, there's not enough for me, is the message that's played in the heart.
So an ungodly belief, is a belief of the heart that's not true. It's actually a lie, but it operates and drives the person's life. Ungodly beliefs, when we can identify them, usually are attached to some painful experience. We need to let Jesus come, and bring healing to that experience, and we need to break or renounce the agreement with the lie, and start to meditate and build the truth in our life.
Curses are another source of demonic spirits coming in. These are a consequence of breaking the laws of God. They can be word curses, or curses by authority figures. They could be self cursing where people speak words, negative words over themselves. Sometimes even there's witchcraft cursing, where particularly we've found people go into foreign lands, if they're not aware of the demonic realm, they can become subject to witchcraft cursing, and demonic spirits there. So again, if there is a curse, there's always a reason for it, and we need to track the reason, renounce it, cancel it, and release forgiveness, and believe God for freedom.
The last one I'll just mention to you here, is transference. Spirits can transfer. There are a whole number of ways they can transfer. They can transfer through soul ties. I've even known one person to get demonised watching a movie - had a woman ring me up one night. I said: what's the problem because it was quite late, said what's the problem? She said: something has happened to me. I said what's happened? She said: my husband made me look at a pornographic movie. I said what happened? She said: I suddenly felt someone, something come into my eyes. I said: how did it affect you? She said I feel numbed out, and I feel like I'm a piece of meat. I said: watching this thing, you've opened yourself to a demonic spirit. I said: I think it's a spirit of death, and so we broke the soul tie attaching her to this experience, we commanded the spirit of death to come out, and immediately she felt something leave her, just over the phone.
So certain movies, or things full of lust and violence, can open the door for spirits. Alcohol and drugs can do the same thing, touching dead bodies. I've known people to actually get demonised by touching a dead body, hoarding occult objects, and sometimes there are some things associated with culture as well. So these are some of the doorways that demons use. It helps if you are aware of them. I've known some people group them into two groups, some people group them into four groups. There's a whole lot of ways of looking at it, so some people deal with it as being either - if you deal it with four - there's a couple called - his name is Chester Kylstra I think it is, and they categorise all of these doorways in four groups; one, generational; two, sin patterns; three, trauma; and four, ungodly beliefs. They've found that's a helpful way of just thinking about the whole area of grouping these demonic doorways. Demonic doorways are opened through generational, through sin, through trauma, and through ungodly beliefs, so they deal with it like that.
Virkler runs a course called "Prayers That Heal the Heart", and they look at it - he handles it a little bit differently. He just looks at it straight from the heart condition, starting off with the generational curses, then the soul ties, the bitter expectancies or judgements that form in the heart, inner vows that form, sin patterns, and then the demonic spirits. Sargin and Jessie run a brilliant course on this, and it's extremely helpful. If you were thinking about going through a course I'd recommend that course for you to do, so that's another way of doing it. Other people deal with it just straight as legal rights, and trauma, and deal with it in two things, what are all the legal rights, and what are the trauma or painful experiences. So the general agreement around almost everyone who's operating around the deliverance area, is that the area of legal rights, and painful experiences, and the impacts they have in your heart, with reactions in the heart, these seem to be the things that create the doorways for demons to come in.
Different deliverance ministers have different ways of doing it. There's no one right way, there's lots of ways. But if you can understand the basics, and the principles, and have a plan of how you would approach it, then you can start to minister reasonably successfully to people. I do not think that we can set people free without dealing with the heart. My experience over years now, is whatever's in the heart will show up in the life. You can cast out the demons, but if you don't shift the heart, what people believe and how they function in their heart, then they don't have lasting change. So of all the materials that I have seen around, probably the course by Mark Virkler, Prayers That Heal the Heart, would be the one that I would recommend, as containing good insight and good process for the deliverance ministry.
Perhaps I'll just finish with one last thing and then we'll get on and have a break. How would you know what demons do, or how do demons oppress people? Let's just finish with that for this session. How do demons oppress people? In Luke 13, Verse 11, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity 18 years and could not raise herself up, so here's a woman, has a spirit, and it's affecting her body. A spirit of infirmity for example, the word infirmity means weakness or without strength - a spirit of infirmity, when it comes into a body, you have aches and pains. They just move around, or they're located in the back, the neck, the shoulders and whatever. You can't seem to get of them. Spirits of infirmity can create problems with deafness, spirits of infirmity can be the cause of many sicknesses, spirits of infirmity can also create learning difficulties as well.
When demons come into people's lives - I've listed some of the things they do. Number one, they hinder the person coming to Christ. They just create blocks around the thinking, so the person doesn't understand. Two, they afflict and torment people, they remind them, and bring them into torment and pain; three, they bring people into bondage, particularly addictions; four, they bring drive into people's lives, and compel them to do things, so they feel like they can't stop; six, they deceive, or create a deception around a person's mind. They don't realise what's really happening; seven, they accuse and speak condemning words, and number eight, they obstruct us. They create difficulties, for example when we try to do these seminars we often have trouble with mechanical gear, issues and difficulties and problems. It's always the week we do the seminar, so we've just got used to it all.
So when spirits come in they'll affect a person's body with sicknesses, pains, unexpected pains. When I went to Taiwan for example, every day I had to have a new interpreter, because they would get sick. They just got sick day after day after day after day. The first three visits I made to Taiwan, I got sick every time, then afterwards I broke through it, and I've never been sick since. It was just witchcraft spirits trying to impart this thing onto me, and I had to learn how to step up, and make sure I didn't come under it. So demonic spirits can affect your body, they can affect the soul by tormenting thoughts, emotions and desires. They can afflict a person's will, so they become very passive, and they can create experiences in people's life that torment them.
So how are we going to find out? Well let's go look at the next session. We're going to talk about curses, and what they are, and how to deal with them, then we're going to look at some aspects of how to minister to people. Let's have a break.
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Keywords: Generational iniquity, soul tie, curses, renounce, foothold, doorways, occult, captive, sin patterns, sexual sin, ouija board, spirit of death, transference, ungodly beliefs, twistedness, crooked bent, sins of parents, negative family trait, pornography,addictions, aches and pains, tormenting thoughts, emotional trauma, rejection