Now one of the things that we need to understand, is that the spirit world recognises all authority relationships, so the spirit world recognises the authority of a husband. Now I had a situation that vividly pointed this out. I had a deliverance situation, where there was a woman who'd been involved in the occult. What had happened was, she had been intensely involved, and through a number of perversions had entered into unlawful marriage relationship with a demon power. So years later she's in terrible bondage, and there's a problem in their marriage, so I got the husband to stand up as the head of the home, and I showed him how to pray. As he began to pray, this situation had been covered for 30 years, exposed itself; then when I tried to minister to her, she didn't want the husband to be there. I just allowed it to be for a little while, although I didn't feel quite right about it, and we got to a certain point when this demon was exposed, and was manifesting, and I couldn't get it out. It was very hard to get it out, just there was a resistance. I don't carry on. I've learnt that if it won't come out, it's got a ground to stay there; and if it's got a ground to stay there, you've got to get rid of the legal ground.
That's why it's not a matter of being delivered, you've got to walk in holiness. You've got to walk with God, otherwise demons come back again. So what happened was, I got the husband, I said: now listen, your wife doesn't seem to want you here, but I'm going to get you to come anyway. I'm the pastor, and you're the head that God has appointed over her. I want you to be there, so we're going to direct it. So I said: get in the next room and pray in tongues, and when I call you, this is what I want you to do. I want you to walk straight in behind me, I want you to come over, I want you to lay your hands on your wife's head, and I want you to speak very strongly and clearly to the demon in her, and say: as her lawful husband and the head of this marriage, I take authority over this unlawful marriage, and break it; and I command the demon afflicting my wife to go. So I said: now just do it when I tell you, so we got praying, and the woman manifested. I had another woman with me, and I told her: now you just keep praying for her, and keep that thing manifesting up near the surface for me, and I'll be back in a minute.
So she was lying on her face, with her feet to the door, her face away from the door, face down, so she couldn't see what was going on. Now I went out the door, got the husband, came back and as we walked through the door, and the woman - she can't even see what's going on - the demon yelled out. This is what he yelled out: what's he doing here! I thought ooh, I like that. [Laughter] I said: you'll find out in a moment. [Laughter] He went straight over, and he laid hands on her, he stood in his office as the head of the home, took dominion over the demon unlawfully connected to his wife, and I laid hands on top of him as the pastor - immediately it went out, just like that. I learnt something that day. I learnt that in the spirit world, this thing counts; and if it counts that much, then there's a big problem if men don't stand up, a big problem, because they recognise it.
Now let me tell you something else. Demons can discern the condition of a person, whether they have grounds to access them or not. Now you might think you're smart, and you can hide from me and from everyone around you, but you can't keep hidden from the spirit world, your heart condition. The Bible says in Ephesians 4:27, do not give a legal ground, or a foothold, for the devil to access your life. Don't do it. Now it wouldn't tell us that, if it wasn't possible; and it's in the context of people being angry with one another. Wow, He's got some things to say about anger, and how it unleashes demonic forces against the person you're angry against. In Matthew 5 (you can read that some other time). So it says: don't give place, or position. I want you to have a look with me quickly in Matthew 12:43-45. I want to show you a verse that makes it very clear, demons can discern when a person is open for them to come in. In other words, if you've created the right opportunities, they can get in.
Verse 43: When the unclean spirit's gone out of a man, he walks through dry places seeking rest, and doesn't find any. The demons are looking for a place. They're not looking for a place to lie down; for a demon, the place of rest is the place he feels comfortable in. That's a person, especially the sin area in their life. He says: I will return to my house, from where I came out, and when he has come, he finds it empty, swept and garnished, and he goes and he takes with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself. They enter in, and the last state of the man is worse than the first. I don't want to go through all of that, it's related specifically to deliverance, but let me just bring this out of that: that a demon knows people, because he goes back, and says: it was my house, I was there. It can come back, okay. If it can come back, it was there originally. It looks at the person, and this is what it can do: it can actually tell whether a person's open and exposed and vulnerable, or unprotected. It can tell, because it says: look to the house, so I'll go back in there. He says: I know what else I'll do, the demons can talk to one another. They work together. They can work together, to come in and invade a person and destroy their life, and through them destroy the marriage, destroy the family - if we give them opportunity. How about that?