You may have noticed at the beginning of the corporate prayer, I led people in a confession of faith. “Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Lord. I am redeemed by the blood of Jesus from every curse, every evil spirit, and all the power of sin. I belong to Jesus Christ.” This profession of faith helps position the person for deliverance. When the demon says: “she belongs to me”, it’s absolute nonsense, because the person has already confessed: “I belong to Jesus Christ”. Sometimes I will remind them: “she belongs to Jesus Christ”. So, we saw a major doorway of entry is through legal rights.
A second major doorway is through traumatic experiences, where a person has a painful experience, and it affects them emotionally, and hurts them deeply. Similar experiences can affect different people in different ways. We’ll come back to the trauma area a little later; but let us say this: that when a person has a traumatic experience, the shock can open the door for a spirit to come in. For example, during teenage years, many people have some extremely distressing experiences at school; and the mental pictures and the beliefs that formed often are open doors for demons to affect them.
Then we saw the third area was how people react to painful or traumatic experiences. We’ll come back to each of these a little later.
How is it then that people are set free? What is the basis for setting people free?
We saw first of all, we must know what Jesus has done. We looked at the work on the cross; and what Jesus has done legally for us. You need to know these things; able to quote them, able to speak to demons the Word of God.
Secondly, we looked at what the person’s responsibility is. We found they need to recognise, and take responsibility for their problem. They needed to repent and confess sin, they needed to release forgiveness, and usually to renounce any bondages or agreements that they’ve entered into with evil spirits; and then actually make a stand to resist the devil.
In James 4:7 it says – “Submit to God, or position your life in alignment with heaven. Resist the devil and he will flee from you”. Very clearly from that scripture, we are to position ourselves aligned with God. The word ‘submit yourself’ is the Greek word hupotasso. The word tasso is to position yourself. Hupo is the word beneath. So, hupotasso means literally ‘position yourself and the leadership of Jesus, so together you can get a victory. The word ‘hupotasso’ is a military term. It’s an alignment in God’s order, so that great victory can be won. It would be used of troops aligning for battle. You understand it? It’s not a subservient; it’s actually a functional word.
When it says for example, ‘wives submit to your husbands’, this is not a controlling, superior kind of thing. It’s about alignment for victory. ‘Submit to God’ means: align your life with God’s order. If there’s sin, repent. If there’s unforgiveness, forgive. If there’s bondage, renounce. So, submit. Position yourself you can get the victory.
The second word is the word ‘resist the devil’. That’s the word antitasso. ‘Anti’ means against; ‘Tasso’ means position yourself. You notice the use of the language is ‘position yourself under God, so you’re aligned for victory’; ‘position yourself against the devil, and he must flee or run away from you’. Now, when you look at that scripture, it’s quite clearly puts a responsibility for the person to align themselves and take a position in the battle. Remember that scripture - it’s a very powerful one to remember, when you’re preparing people for ministry. Your role is to help them align with God, and make a stand against the devil.