So if you make an inner vow - so a woman's been hurt by a man, she says I'll never trust a man. I'll never open my life to a man. That's an inner vow - or a man might say: I'll never trust a woman. I'll never let a woman know what's going on in my life. I'll never let anyone get near me. I'll never let any pastor get the better of me. I'll never let any church do this to me. I'll never let any person in authority treat me this way. When a person makes that, what's happening is, they're in pain, and they're making a vow, out of their pain, to manage and control their life.
What happens when they do that is they give a demonic spirit the power to energize that, and literally it continues to outwork all your life, so you may have made the inner vow when you were 15 and went through some bad deal; 24, you're married, but that same inner vow is now operating in your marriage, and eventually you find, initially you're drawn and attracted, then you've got what's called a wall or a block, and you can't figure out how to break free of it. It's like there's no flow, from inside your spirit, to the spirit of the other person, because in your soul, there's this inner vow. There's this vow, no one's getting into me like that. I'm not going to open up.
If you make that kind of inner vow - I'll never let any man near me - well then the one person you most want to come near you, can't get near you. They feel walled out, and they are walled out, by the wall in your heart. You've got to renounce those inner vows, you know? Break the inner vows, break your agreement with that, and open your life to be free, see?
Another area, that's a very common area, is where people make bitter judgements. Bitter judgements are horrendous things really. It's a judgment, or a decree, or a decision, made out of hurt and pain and offence, and that's why it's called a bitter judgment. It's usually made because the person is bitter and they come to conclusions, and the conclusion is not correct. It's usually a generalization, usually takes the form of well, you can never trust any men, never trust a woman, and it's like a generalized thing, or people have bitter judgements of themselves. You know, I'm no good. I'll never amount to anything. That's a bitter judgment against yourself - or I'm unacceptable. Who told you that?
Isn't it interesting? Adam and Eve hid from God, and God said: where are you? It's a relational question. It's like, you know, where are you? Where are you hiding? Adam's hiding. Now listen, God knew where he was. God just wanted to connect with him. Where are you is a relational question. He said, well I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. Notice what He says; who told you that you were naked? Who have you been listening to? Who's been speaking into your heart and judging you? Who have you come into agreement with?
So what happens is we make a judgment based on partial information, or just a perspective, so for example, a child may see the parent's marriage break up, and they come to the conclusion: marriages are never going to work, see? Never get married - that's an inner vow - because marriages don't work out, or don't have kids because it's going to cause a lot of pain. See, that's a bitter judgment. What'll happen is, years later, you've forgotten and tried to move on, but now it outworks in your life. Let me give you an example of it.
I went to pray for a woman one day, and I was a bit distressed going to pray for her, because she was having her fifth miscarriage, and she'd come and she'd asked for prayer. We'd prayed for her, and now I was going because they're having the miscarriage, husband and wife asked me if I'd come out to just be with them. So I went out, and I'm going out there, I'm thinking oh God, what do I do? We'd been praying, you know. What's the story? Help me Lord. Just help me - and then the Lord dropped two things into my mind. First one He said, well this is a boy. Every one of the children she's lost is a boy. I said: really? Immediately as He said that, I knew she'd got an issue with men, and then He said one more thing. He said to me: get her father to pray for her. Tell her to ask her father to pray for her. So I went there and comforted them both as a couple, and then I said look, you know, tell me what you think the child is? She said I think it's a boy, and she said: actually, I think all of the ones I've miscarried are boys.