So you've got to learn to step up against it and halleluiah, [prays in tongues] you know? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and arise inside, and let us speak the word of God over your circumstances! Make it back down, see? Got to learn to do that, get some toughness inside you. [Laughs] However it also helps if you close down some of the gates of your past and again, this is not a deliverance conference but it doesn't hurt that we talk about these things, because we will teach on deliverance at a later time in the year at another seminar. So to close the spiritual gates, very simply a gate is a portal through which something goes. A gate gives you entrance from one place to another, one room to another, and there are spiritual gates, places where demons can move from the spirit world and manifest in the natural world. So we can have gates - I don't know whether you realise it, but you are a gate.
You're a gate for God to enter this world. Think about that. The first revelation that Jacob had was: this is the house of God, this is the gate to heaven, so the house of God is a gate, so you are a gate through which the blessing of God can reach people.
But also there can be gates in our life through which demonic spirits enter and access, and of course you wouldn't necessarily be aware of it. You would just think that this is me, I've always been like this, and when you get into fellowship with spirit-filled people, then pretty soon you start to become aware of those areas that you've got some problems. So there are a number of them, I'm not going to teach on all of them. I just want to just highlight them, but there are a number of common gates that spirits use to come in and to oppress people. Wherever there's a legal ground or right exists, spirits can come in and operate against you, and bring pressure on your life. Here are some of the common gates that spirits deploy or use. Now remember, it's a legal ground, so it's something that someone has said or done, that created a right or an opportunity for a spirit to use it, to come in and out. Jesus taught that demons come in and out of people because they have a right or an access to do so.
So here they are, some of you will be very aware of these, some of you these may be some new things, but they're listed there with a little bit of explanation. They're not entirely a full list, but there are some major ones; number one, generational sins and curses. Some of the gateways to spirits and problems in our life began in our family with our parents or grandparents, great-grandparents or beyond that, and this is a major source of problems. So you can be born into this life already with demonic access points into your life, and they may start from very young, or they may manifest as you grow or come into adulthood. Some curses can be passed down three to four generations; some can be passed down - sexual sins - over 10 generations, so every one of us is connected in our DNA to the generation that went before, and spiritually we're also connected to the generation that went before. Anything that gained access say through idolatry, or spiritism, or sexual sin, or various things that people have done, if it's gained access into the family line, it will come down generation after generation.
Some family lines are terribly weakened because of a pattern of sin that's been there over years, patterns of alcoholism or gambling or lust or sexual perversion. These things, once they get into a family can affect - one of the most dramatic cases that - and I've seen lots of them over the years, but I'll just tell you this one. I prayed for a lady in a city in New Zealand, and she's a Christian worker. She said I am tormented with these problems of unclean images and pictures. I'm tormented in my mind all the time. I said how long has it been like that, and she said all my life. I said to her well have you been molested or exposed to anything that would have created a trauma in your life? No, she said none of those. So I thought well it has to be generational, so I said what's in your life has come obviously from the previous generation, so I asked about the background.
Her grandparents were missionaries in China in the '30s and they had a son and a daughter and they'd taken their family to live in China. They were missionaries in a particular province of China, and the son and the daughter went to school in another province of China. The girl and the boy were somewhere around about 10, 11, 12, about that age group as far as I remember, but the Japanese invaded China, that part of China and took over and conquered that province, and took the kids into custody. Over a period of time the girl was quite badly sexually abused by Japanese soldiers. Eventually the kids were released and went back to their parents, but already the damage had been done, and so the family I think maybe returned back to New Zealand. The young girl and her brother grew up; the girl married, and the girl who married was this woman's mother, and the marriage didn't last. The marriage broke up, and so eventually this girl who'd been born, grew up and served the Lord, and she'd come to me for this help.