The pressure can come through family, to agree with what they want, and how they want it. Why? So that you can be accepted, and they'll be happy with you. It can come through Christians, or believers who don't believe the same as you. You may be in another area of truth or whatever, and they can pressure you to make you, or cause you, to feel like you have to conform. It can come financially through situations. It can come in your business and workplace. This can come anywhere, but it always is a spirit operating, and it operates through people. Once you understand it's a spirit, and it operates through people, you'll realise you have to: one, engage it at a heart and spirit level; and two, at a relationship level.
You've got to learn to recognise this. Once we learn to recognise it, oh my how things change then! See? So notice - I want to share with you another scripture now. You notice here in Galatians 5 - since we're in Galatians lets go down into here in Galatians 5, Verse 19. Now the works of the flesh are evident. This is not demons. Demons can help it happen, and push on you to make it happen, but actually this is not demons. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions - and so there's a whole list of things there. Right in the middle of it is witchcraft. Witchcraft is connected - they've got the word sorcery there, but it's the word witchcraft in the original language; idolatry, sorcery, hatred, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred - Verse 20. So witchcraft, notice they've got it in between idolatry - having an image of God, worshipping something that's not really God - and hatred, having bad attitudes in your heart, wrong attitudes of hate, not love, in your heart. There it is right in the middle is witchcraft.
Notice it says: it's a work of the flesh; so how does it operate? This is the bit when you understand how it operates, so we've seen the occultic dimension, and what it does to people. Now I want to look just at when a person is not in the occult; they may be a good Christian person, may be a nice person, someone that you know, someone you're connecting with; and yet they can operate - when they're not flowing with the Holy Spirit, they can operate out of witchcraft. So witchcraft literally means to use a spiritual power to pressure or manipulate someone, so your will is done, no matter what they're wanting to do. I'll say it again: witchcraft is imposing your will upon another, against their will. Now I'm not talking about this in relationship to parents and children, where parents have to insist on their will over the will of the child. That's a different deal. I just wanted to stick with - although it applies in there, but I want to just stick with the more sinister side, where God has given you a free will to make decisions with your life, and someone brings pressure to make you, or push you, to change and accommodate them, and what they want. It's within that context that witchcraft operates.
When witchcraft is in relationships, it's either: very direct; or it's very subtle. If it's very direct, it comes like this - SHOUTING! Yelling! Anger! Banging doors! That's pretty obvious when it's like that. That is nothing more than the flesh manifesting anger, and it's designed to intimidate you, and to manipulate you, to co-operate and do what you may not necessarily want to do; or it can be more subtle. It can be emotional, but what happens is - you feel it. You feel the pressure. It can be a demand, the manipulation of emotions: oh, well you don't love me. If you loved me, you'd do this - and as you're listening to the person talk, even if they never say what they want, you know exactly what they want. Maybe they never said it - are you meaning this? No, no, no, I never said that - and they never did. But what they did is try to pressure you from within.
Now how does that work? Well the Bible tells us that we're designed spirit, soul and body. I won't go into all of it, but in a number of things it says - in Proverbs 4:23 it says: out of your heart flows the issues of life. So when it's talking about your heart, it's talking about your spirit, your inner man. So here is what you need to understand - there's a lot to be discovered in this. Whatever is in your heart, creates a river, a flow from your spirit, that goes outside your body, and influences people and environment. Your spirit flows, out of your heart flows. If you have bitterness in your heart, then bitterness will defile everyone around you. If you have love in your heart, people feel loved. If there's anger in your heart, people feel what's there.