So 2 Timothy, Chapter 2. So notice here that there's the person who's trapped and the person who's trapped, notice it says that they are taken captive. That means taken a prisoner of war. A prisoner of war is a person who's engaged in a battle but now they've been captured and neutralised. Many Christians have been neutralised. They're not on the aggressive or advancing the kingdom. They've actually been taken prisoner of war. A prisoner of war's got a limited amount of freedom, but actually they're still inside a camp and they're still locked up and they can't get out and they can't really go out and make their mark in the world. They've got limitations around their life. They live in limitations all the time - been taken captive by the devil to do his will. We talked about that, how evil spirits, when they've got a doorway into your life energise areas or issues in your life, energise sin, energise areas of brokenness. They create turmoil and increase the pressure and you feel you can't break through or can't get free, so that's what they do. They do that.
Notice how it says there's a process here where the person is taught and it says if God grants them repentance to acknowledge the truth, so here is core foundations to getting free. We have to come to repentance and acknowledging the truth, see? It's very clear and that's something that God gives you. It's something comes from the spirit of God touching a heart that's hungry and you begin to see oh my! What have I done? I just so hate that sin I've been involved in. I'm just turning from that with all my heart. Lord, I am so distressed at what's happened in my life and what's happened in my relationship with you. God, I want out of that thing and I acknowledge the truth now about this thing - so repentance and acknowledging truth are the keys out of this thing. So I'll break it down and just give you it in some steps, some simple things that are a part of what that looks like.
Notice it says if God grants him repentance to acknowledge the truth and they come to their senses. Now that word in the original Greek means they sober up again. It's like a person who's been drunk. A person who's drunk is under the influence of alcohol, under the influence of drugs or they're under the influence of some kind of a thing and so they don't think right and they don't have proper judgement. They don't have proper balance in their life. Their life is out of control because of what influences them in their life and it's saying here that when a person comes to repentance and acknowledging the truth, they break out of that influence of the demonic spirit and now see clearly and have a different perspective and judgements in their life. Getting the idea? So freedom is not about just us commanding demons and whatever. Freedom is actually about there being a turnaround from what you've been involved in, breaking free of the demonic and starting to walk with a changed life so your head's clear. You say man! I'm never going to go back into that again. That's no where I live! This is who I am, see? So let me just break it down into some parts to what that might look like and I have found this is quite easy to remember this, but let me just give it to you really quite simply and here it is.
Number one, we need to recognise and take responsibility for problems in our life. We need to recognise and take responsibility for issues in our life, so if you don't recognise you've got a problem it's unlikely any freedom will take place. We need to recognise - actually I've got an issue. I've got something going wrong in my life. There's stuff here, there's a place I'm not free. I've got this thing that's in turmoil. I've got these oppressing thoughts. I seem to be struggling with this - just can't - see normally we think that's just me. Actually no, there's none of this depression in heaven so why should I accept it here on earth? ... [Applause] ... There's none of this torment in heaven. As it is in heaven, let it be done in my life - so we need to recognise actually I've got an issue or problem that I need freedom in and we need to take responsibility, it's my problem.
A lot of people want to blame someone - blame this one. I blame my father, I blame my mother, blame this one, blame that - but God always holds you responsible for what's going on in your life. You say well it was the church! Yeah, maybe the church or maybe someone did something to you, but you are responsible for what's inside you. It's your issue. It's not theirs and often deep unforgiveness, deep bitterness in people's hearts can keep them locked into something that happened years ago and their mental and emotional focus is what someone else did to me and the bitterness and the hurt and anger and all that goes with that - and they can't realise actually what they did happened a long time ago.