So soul ties, also these bonding create a ground through which spirits come in and manipulate. We have had many people become free of terrible tormenting unclean thoughts when soul ties to sexual partners were broken. The power of the thing seemed to dissipate and yes, they could remember, but it's not the driving energy tormenting their mind and emotions, so demonic spirits use these. They also use ungodly beliefs. What you believe the Bible says: as man thinks in his heart, or believes in his heart, that's how he is. If you believe a lie, you are in agreement with the demon already, if you believe a lie. The Bible says: the devil's the father of lies, so if I believe a lie, for example I believe a lie that I'm a failure, everything I do will fail, then now I have got an expectation in my heart that whatever I do is not going to work out. The more I fail, the more hurt I get and bitter I get, until my whole life is surrounded by an atmosphere of expectation, I will fail or be rejected.
Let me give you an example of that. Have you ever had an experience where someone's talked with you, and there's something about them you just can't wait to get away? You just don't want to be there, and you just kind of want to get away. It can even be a small child, and there's something about them, they're so demanding or something, and it's almost like you just want to get away from the child. Usually what's happening there is there's a spirit around the child's life of rejection, and a deep expectation they'll be rejected, and it's almost like they project it out. You feel, you get defiled by that thing, and so ungodly beliefs or lies in our heart create a great platform for spirits to affect our relationships immensely. Okay, another one is vows, whether they be external or inner vows. A vow, you make a commitment or a pledge or a promise, it can be ancestral vows of course that people make. Personal vows open up the door for demons. Many times they take the form of an inner vow.
Inner vows are vows formed in the times of pain or very difficult experiences, like a person who's abused by a man, she may say: well I'll never let any man near me, or I'll never let any person or any male get near me and have access to me like that. So an inner vow creates - it's a vow rooted in bitterness and judgement. Now that creates a legal ground for a spirit to enter. I prayed for one woman who continually miscarried baby boys, and she had made an inner vow I'll never carry a male child, and it outworked in her body, and her body rejected every child that she had that was a male. So inner vows are very, very powerful things, and people form them when they're hurt, or a person who goes through for example their family is very financially hard up, so they perhaps are having to wear second hand clothes, and they don't have the things at school that everyone else has. They go through a humiliating experience at school. They can often make a different kind of inner vow: well when I grow up I'll always have enough money. So their life becomes driven by this bitterness inside, and this inner vow, and it's driven, but there's never enough, because at the same time they believe in their heart there's never enough for me.
So they're driven by the believe there's never enough for me, and driven by an inner vow, I'll make sure I've got enough, and their whole life gets into a pressure to get money, and it can never be solved because no matter what they've got, it's never enough. I can remember one particular couple now, eventually their marriage broke up, but he was worth millions, but he was still driven, totally driven. His heart was shut down, and it went right back to his childhood where he'd suffered a great loss and made these inner vows, well I'll never lack, and I will do this. Of course those inner vows become demonically energised, and the person becomes driven. A rational person will look and say: you've got everything you need, why are you still working like that 24/7? Why are you doing that? They can't explain it, and their explanation's not rational, it's spiritual. A spirit has gained access, and has authority in their life, and is driving the behaviour, so you need to be aware of this in your own life as well as in the area of ministering to others. These things, in order for the person to be healed, they've got to actually go back and remember, and let the Holy Spirit show them where these vows were formed, and renounce the vow, because it will control your life through demonic empowerment.
Another area that is common for demonic spirits to afflict people are word curses. A curse is words spoken over a person's life, for example words spoken by a father have great potential to empower a child, or to curse them. I can remember one girl we prayed for - it was heartbreaking. I got so upset when I heard it - but her father, she was a teenager, and she was just experimenting with dress, and trying to get attention and stuff, so she'd dress a little bit promiscuously. Her father called her a slut, and he literally labelled her that more than once, and she thought well if that's what I am, I'll go be that. Now she had actually no intention of being promiscuous whatsoever, but the father's words over her became like a cursing on her, when she accepted them, and then she acted out or lived out what had been spoken over her. So I have found many people have had curses put over them, either cursed themselves: I'm a failure, I'll never get anywhere in life, those kinds of things, or a common kind of cursing is a death wish: I just wish I was dead. I just hate my life, I wish I was dead. Those kinds of things can be spoken out in an emotional time as a teenager, and then open the way for a spirit to come in and bring bondage.