The School Of The Spirit - Session 6

Demonic spirits are real and they're not something that we need to be afraid of, but we need to be aware.

We need to be aware, we need to be wise and we need to understand how to deal with these types of things.

When I was traveling on the New Life Drama Company, we went to Humboldt, tennessee.

Does anybody know where Humboldt Tennessee is?

You all do so.

It's way out west north of Memphis, and we visited a church there and the pastor I could tell from the moment that we met him.

He was stressed out, he was trying to lead this church by himself, didn't have a team around him, and the people that he was ministering to were dealing with a lot of very heavy things.

So he asked us to go with him to pray for some people in his congregation, and the first people that we visited the gentleman, the young man, had been in a car accident and he was his.

Mentally, he had been affected by that, and so we had a chance to encourage the mom who was his, the caregiver mostly the caregiver for him and to pray for this young man as well.

And so the next stop, we get up to the house and he turns.

He puts the car in park.

He turns it off and he says I should probably say something before we go in there and in.

From my experience, that's not usually good.

Right, something bad is about ready to follow this.

This isn't like you're going to walk in here and they're going to give you $1,000.

This is going to be something different than that.

And so he told us that there was a lady that lived in this home that had been tormented by demons to the point to where she would.

She actually thought that she was a jaguar, the cat, you know, the wild cat, a jaguar, and she would.

She would get into these trans, just, and would like claw at herself, claw at her children, her husband, and she also would begin to talk to.

She didn't know Spanish, but she would begin to speak in Spanish.

By the way, god's not the only one that can cause people to speak in tongues.

Satan knows the languages of this world and he can speak through people as well.

Right, so this woman would call out for somebody named Antonio in just this deep, dark place.

She would snap out of it from time to time and then go back into it.

So we, he's telling us all of this and he's like, if there's anything you can do to help, please help.

And I'm thinking, oh Lord, why is it always me?

Why do I?

You know?

So, anyway, when the Lord calls you to do something, you do it Right.

So we went in there, we began to pray for the lady.

The pastor was leading the prayer.

She began to manifest harmonically.

Her hands turned into like she was not literal claws, but she looked like she was holding a.

You know that she had a Jaguar hand.

She was calling out to this Spanish, whatever it was, antonio, antonio.

And the pastor God love him took his Bible.

Can I practice?

Can I pretend this is a Bible?

Real quick, ruthie.

So he took his Bible and he was just praying.

Yeah, he was hoping I don't know if he, if he, no, I won't do that but he was hoping somehow that the contact with the Bible would cause some kind of help.

What it did was it made things intensely worse Because the demons aware, the demons ever in that woman were very well aware of what the Bible is.

And so it didn't make the demon happy that the pastor was laying the Bible on this young lady, but not knowing what else to do.

And so I just said humbly to the pastor, is it okay if we just take a minute and pray for her?

And so he said, sure.

Actually he looked very relieved at that moment.

He backed away and we just came around this girl.

We prayed first of all for protection.

We prayed that the blood of Jesus would cover over her and us.

We prayed that she would be ready to receive her freedom.

And then we laid our hands on her and we said, in the name of Jesus Christ, stop harassing her and come out.

In Jesus' name, she let out a big yell that demon, or demons, came out of her, and then we commanded them to get out of the house and to never come back on the property again.

So that was our Wednesday, and that night we were having a church service at the church.

And we get there and we are wiped out.

I don't know if you've ever wrestled with demons, but it does make you, it tends to make you tired.

And so we went to that service that night.

I was the one leading the service.

I didn't feel like I was going anywhere.

This was a little country church.

There were probably 20 people in the crowd.

I'm trying to give it my all.

We're doing skits in between, you know, and about halfway through this man stands up and he starts running to the front and he says I need Jesus.

And I'm thinking I was so spiritually minded, bill.

I said to myself it's not time yet.

We've got some more to do and then we can give you a chance to respond.

But he didn't seem to care, he just ran down front and so all I knew to do he's kind of slid in on his knees to the front.

I found myself on my knees, I just began to pray with him and he accepted the Lord.

And then he looked back at his family and he said come on and his whole family gets up.

And, by the way, the young lady was sitting in the church.

Completely well, because after she got free from the demonic spirits she got born again in her house, totally transformed, totally changed, brand new person.

The most interesting person in the room that night was a white haired lady.

I just call her grandma.

Grandma, eyes filled with tears, comes up to us after the service and says you have no idea what just happened here.

And we said well, tell us, explain it to us.

She said for 40 years I have prayed and fasted and asked God to deliver my family and to bring them to know Jesus, and tonight my whole family got saved.

That's that's what Jesus does.

That's what he does.

He sets the captives free as a sign of who he is, who he is Now.

I could go on and on with different experiences.

I don't want you to be misinformed, though it's not like this.

Thankfully, this doesn't happen every single day, like I don't walk into Walgreens and all of a sudden, somebody's slithering like a snake on the ground.

Lord, I really don't want that to happen unless it's needed, it's really needed.

But anyway, so and I'm not.

It wasn't anything about me other than I believed with all of my heart that God wanted to set those people free.

Ok, now we are surrounded by people continuously who are affected either positively by the Holy Spirit and angels, or who are affected negatively by Satan and by demons.

We need to be able to discern the difference and we need to know how to help people who find themselves in that place.

Is that interesting?

All right, so let's go there.

First of all, what are angels?

Anybody?

What's an angel?

Judah, servants of God?

Excellent.

What else?

Something in the sky?

It can be in the sky.

Sure, messengers of God?

Yeah, awesome.

So let's look at it.

They're created beings.

They're not eternal in the same way that the Father, son and Holy Spirit are.

The angels were created by God and they are often referred to like the hosts of heaven, the joyful assembly, the mighty ones.

The Bible talks about cherubim and seraphim.

It talks about lots of some of them having lots of wings and lots of eyes.

I mean, it's like you think Stephen Spielberg has an imagination.

Read the book of Revelation.

It's very interesting the way that these different angels are described.

The Bible talks about thrones and powers and authorities, different rankings of angels.

So let me give you a few things that Scripture teaches about angels.

Number one angels worship God in heaven.

If you could see heaven right now, you could picture it for just 30 seconds.

The thing that you would be blown away by, I believe.

Besides, obviously, if we were able to see Jesus, that would be the first thing, but the second thing, the sensory overload that I think that you would experience in picturing heaven, is the volume of sound as people worship God from all of history, all of time.

Those who have been followers of Jesus Christ that populate heaven now all day and all night, all time they worship.

They spend their time gladly worshiping God, and the Bible says specifically that the angels gather around the throne and they encircle the throne and every time they come around, it's like they see another aspect of who Jesus is, and so they cry out Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, god Almighty, who was, who is and who is to come.

Worthy is the Lamb of God.

Every time around the throne it's like another, like a beautiful piece of jewelry and you turn it in the light and you see a different part of it, a different sparkle, a different way of observing its beauty.

The angels of heaven never grow weary of worshiping God.

Number two they serve, as somebody said this, messengers for God.

Who's the famous messenger in Scripture, gabriel?

What messages did he deliver?

Just a few.

Jesus' birth, gonna have a baby, right, yeah, lots of different examples like that that we find.

He spoke to Joseph as well.

Right Appeared to Joseph, to Mary.

So they serve as messengers for God.

Do you remember the story of Abraham and Sarah?

The angel arrived to tell them that they were gonna have a child in their old age.

What did Sarah do?

She laughed.

She laughed.

Then Abraham was like we probably should make them dinner or something, if they did actually come from heaven.

We should show some hospitality.

We know that the promise that the angel brought the messenger brought came true, didn't it?

Yes?

Number three they make war against Satan and his demons.

The angelic hosts of heaven make war, and who is the commander of the army of the Lord Michael?

Well, obviously Jesus.

But then there's an angel named Michael who is the warlord.

He is the one who orchestrates, coordinates and helps to supply what's needed to come against the enemies of God, and he is very good at what he does.

He's very good at what he does.

Lots of examples of his action in the scriptures.

Number four angels offer special protection to God's people.

This is something that you can pray over your life.

You don't need to pray like.

You don't need to talk to angels.

I'm not saying that If they speak to you, then you can test the spirits, make sure that they're from Jesus, right, but basically, god has given his angels.

In Psalm 347 it says the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers them, and he delivers them.

How many of you have stories of times where you should have been in a car accident and all of a sudden, something changed?

And the only way you can describe it was like you were in a bubble or something.

You know.

There was something that was placed in between you and the oncoming traffic.

You can't explain it so many times that maybe we've faced things that could have been very detrimental and yet we were protected and preserved from that.

Anybody experienced that.

If you haven't, you will, because you're going to know about it now and you're going to be looking for it.

Okay, we're not supposed to worship angels.

We're not supposed to worship them.

They are God's workers, his workers.

Okay, we know of lots of times in the Bible where there were deliverance that came through angels.

Lot was attacked and sought him.

Remember, the angels were sent.

When Daniel was thrown in the lion's den, the angel closed the mouth of the lions so they wouldn't harm him.

When Peter was thrown in prison in Acts 12, an angel came and set him free.

So lots of examples of angelic work.

Now, that was such a quick history or definition of angels, but we needed to know that side of things.

So now we can talk for a few minutes about what scripture teaches about demons.

Okay, so who are demons?

If you had to just give a simple answer demons are fallen angels.

They're fallen angels.

Remember, in the passage that we read at the very beginning, jesus said I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

What was he referring to there?

He got kicked out.

Yes, he got kicked out because he had convinced himself and one third of the angelic hosts that he was going to make himself like the most high.

How many of you know?

There's no need for two most highs.

And so God determined that he would judge Lucifer and all of those angels that had followed him, and he cast them out of heaven with one word.

You see, my friends, god has no problems with having power over demonic spirits.

We're the ones that can become fearful, which is totally normal reaction.

We can become fearful when we see things or experience something that we haven't experienced before, and that's the whole point.

Okay, so the next time we see Satan in the scriptures, where do we see him?

In the Garden of Eden, right?

Remember what he told Eve and Adam.

Both he said God's holding out on you.

He knows that if you eat of this tree, listen to what he said you will be like him.

Does that sound familiar?

It's a very thing that got him kicked out of heaven, and misery loves company, and so Satan has tried and will continue to try in any way possible to deceive people into believing that they are actually God themselves, and we have a whole world that's living in that false reality, right?

So demons are fallen angels.

By the way, satan's position before he was kicked out of heaven, he was a praise and worship leader of heaven.

He was adorned with all kinds of jewels that were built into him, musical instruments he was.

He was the one who led the choir, the heavenly choir.

Wow, how far he has fallen from that.

If you want to read more about that, you can write down Isaiah 1412 through 14.

So, where?

Where are Satan's headquarters?

If you had to locate him, to send a small package, what would you?

What would you?

Where would you locate him?

Most likely, huh?

Did you say hell?

Hello for you?

No, you said Cal.

You can't say that out loud.

We love everyone who's from California, and so does God.

Just in case somebody's listening to this later, we could say hell, but hell is, is a final resting place for Satan, Right?

So where does he now?

Where is he active?

He's loose in the earth and above the earth, right?

So in this atmosphere, in this area, he that's where he can be found and that's where demonic spirits are.

Okay, now we know there are some scriptures that talk about him talking to God, god talking to him.

So it seems like he has a little bit of a past as far as where he can travel and what he can do.

Right, but he's still limited.

He's still very limited.

Really, the only power that he has is the power of you believing a lie.

If he can convince you to believe a lie about God and about yourself, then he can keep you from enjoying the truth and living in the truth.

Right, okay, are you with me?

Sorry, I'm rushing, but we have to get feel like we need to get through this.

So demons have only one purpose Know what it is To further Satan's evil work in the world.

Their number one purpose is to further the work of Satan in this world, whatever they can do to accomplish his purposes.

Just like angels do whatever they can do to accomplish the purposes of heaven, demons do whatever they can do to carry out Satan's handy work.

They are unholy, they hate Jesus Christ, they hate him, they hate God, they hate the Bible, they are disobedient, they are arrogant, they are liars.

They come to steal, kill and destroy and, like Satan, they work through the world and the flesh to tempt us to do wrong.

They don't always appear as the pitchforked red-suited guy.

Most of the time they appear as a click on your cell phone or they appear as a temptation to be angry with somebody.

That's how they appear, A lot more than you see them appear as they truly are.

So we must understand that this world and our flesh have a part in this, because sometimes people make decisions that have consequences and it's outside of the demonic realm.

It's just your flesh.

You see something and you want it, and so you do it.

But Satan is the one who tempts us.

If you think about Jesus, after he was baptized and received the Holy Spirit, he was led immediately by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and the devil hit him.

It was a low blow, the first one.

He had been fasting 40 days and 40 nights and Satan says to him if you are the Son of God, command these stones to be turned into bread.

I think it's so cool that Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes later.

Just like to say, yeah, I got this, but at that moment in time it was a temptation.

It was a test and we could go through all of the different temptations that Jesus encountered.

Most of what the Bible says about demons comes from the gospels, the life of Jesus.

They did not like Jesus and he did not like them, and that hasn't changed.

Time and again, jesus encountered men and women who had somehow fallen under the control of demonic spirits.

It's a real thing.

My friends, it's not something to play with.

Some of you I'm just feeling this Some of you have been dabbling in wicking and witchcraft stuff, just scratching the surface, and I'm here to tell you tonight do not play with a poisonous snake.

Satan will use anything, including something that seems powerful, that supposedly helps people, but I am telling you it is false, it's a lie, it's deception.

Do not give in to the temptation.

Some of you are having a hard time listening right now because of the fact that you're being influenced by darkness, and I'm saying, in the name of Jesus, that tonight you will go free.

You will walk in freedom from this night forward.

Some of the terrible afflictions that we see in the Gospels blindness, deafness, loss of speech, paralysis, insanity, seizures and suicidal tendencies are tied to in scripture demonic activity.

Now, I'm not saying that every person who has an illness has a demon.

Please don't hear me say that we are not.

Jesus said what did he say?

Don't celebrate the fact that demons are subject to your name.

Celebrate the fact that your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, that you are a believer, that you've been saved, that you're not under Satan's rule any longer.

Right, so it's going to be.

It's really important that we focus, keep focused on the right things.

There are some of these illnesses and diseases that can have demonic activity attached to them.

I remember one time praying for somebody that was very sick, near death, and the Lord gave me a word of knowledge and I said to them please forgive and I don't remember if it was the dad or what it was, but please forgive.

And the person chose to forgive and God raised them up because there was a demonic spirit that was working through that unforgiveness to try to manipulate and really to try to kill this person.

And it wasn't my powerful prayer that saved them.

It was the word of God you can be free, you can walk in truth and walk away from this.

Luke 8, 26 through 39, and I won't read the whole passage, but write it down and read it later.

Meditate on this One of my favorite passages, where Jesus goes to the garrisons and he steps out on the land.

And there was a man that met him from the city who had demons.

For a long time he had worn no clothes let's just listen to this description.

He had not lived in a house, but among the tombs.

When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice what have you to do with me?

Jesus, son of the most high God, I beg you, do not torment me Now.

Did this man know Jesus?

As far as we know, this is the first time that Jesus had visited this town or this area.

He had to get in a boat and go away from Galilee to this place.

I've actually been there, stepped onto that ground where this probably happened.

It's amazing.

The Bible is true, my friends.

It's not only true from the standpoint of us believing that what it says is true, but it is historically accurate as well.

You can go to the very places Some of you have been to Israel.

You can go to the very places that these things occurred and stand in the footprints, figuratively, of Jesus and these great stories that we read.

So the demon was the one that was crying out through the man what have you to do with us?

Jesus, son of the most high, I beg you, do not torment me, for he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.

For many a time it had seized him.

He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.

Jesus then asked him what is your name?

And he said Legion, for many demons had entered him, and they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss.

They didn't want to be sent.

One thing about demons they do not have the same power as Father, son and Spirit of being able to be in multiple places at one time.

They are kept in one place at one time, and so for Jesus to send them somewhere deep, far away, where no people were, was not with something that they wanted.

They wanted to.

Demons are lazy.

I'm just being honest.

Demons are lazy.

They're persistent, but they're lazy.

They look for the easiest target.

It's like a lion that is looking at a you know gazelles, and they're looking for the one that's at the back of the pack that is limping along, because that's the easy target, right, and so we must be vigilant and be watchful.

He said Legion, for many demons had entered him and they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss.

Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside and they begged him to let them enter these, so he gave them permission.

The demons came out of the man and entered the pigs and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.

Demons are not for your benefit.

The proof of what they want to do is what they did to the pigs they ran them off the cliff and drowned them in the sea.

That's their, their disposition.

That's how they operate.

I was going to say a joke, but I'm not going to.

I'm going to move on.

The herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.

When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it.

In the city and in the country, people went out to see what had happened and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

They weren't afraid of the demons anymore.

Now they were afraid of the man who spoke to the demons and made this man completely whole.

Wow.

So they basically said Jesus, you need to leave.

You've had your time here, thank you.

Time to go.

The man from that had the demons wanted to come with Jesus, and it's interesting, jesus said to him go back to your home and declare how much God has done for you.

Wonder what grandma was praying for this young man that needed to see him clothed and in his right mind.

God cares, my friends, not just in the, for those who are affected by demonic activity, but he cares about us as we pray and beseech God for freedom for people.

He wants us to see the results of his work.

All right, so let's let me give you a few classifications here for demons.

Number one demons like to have expression.

They are not.

They like to be expressive.

They like they are demonstrative.

They are.

They like to be outspoken and outlandish.

They are.

I mean, you can see it just by watching television.

Honestly, you see a lot of the things that are in our culture that are hugely strange and out of bounds.

That's how demons operate, right, they are the antithesis, the exact opposite of angels and of Jesus and Father and Spirit.

Their number one tactic in operating through people, animals or objects, is to cause fear.

To cause fear.

There have been many times.

I used to deliver the mail, I delivered pizzas, I delivered phone books.

I was in the deliverance ministry Little joke, yeah, I got a light in the light in the middle a little bit.

But there were so many times when, I believe, there were demonic dogs chasing after me and the only one that ever got me was the one that I didn't pay any attention to.

It was about that tall and it ran out and it grabbed ahold of my ankle and it would not let go.

And I'm looking at the lady and I'm saying I'm thinking it's not my dog.

You know, can you take your dog?

And so she, she, she didn't.

She didn't call the dog, she didn't.

Oh yeah, he's just playing.

And I'm like, yeah, that doesn't feel like playing.

So I gave the pizza, they gave me the money.

The dog's still holding on, there's no tip.

So I had a choice in the moment and I chose the fleshly route.

I gave the dog a boot back into the house and then I went back and typed a little sentence in the computer that says do not deliver to this address rabid dog.

Right, so that's just a just to lighten the mood a little bit.

But seriously, I have been preaching the gospel to people and their pets go wild, crazy for no reason.

I have been in rooms witnessing to somebody who was near death and their grandchildren begin to act out just in crazy, not not normal, abnormal ways.

Satan hates to see God's kingdom advance, but guess what?

He can't stop it.

He can't stop it.

It's going to continue to grow and advance.

Number two an unbeliever, an unbeliever in Jesus Christ, can be possessed by demons.

What does that mean?

It means that a demon could actually move into their vessel, into their body, into their soul and live Right.

Can you imagine?

There was a lady one time that came to our church and she had migraine headaches all of the time.

And as we were praying for her, the Lord actually gave us a vision where we could see the demon and it looked like it wasn't a monkey, but it looked like a monkey Kind of.

It was a strange creature that had its arms wrapped around her head and was just squeezing and whispering in her ear, squeezing her head and whispering in her ear.

This woman was so tormented and we spoke to that demon and commanded it to go, and she never had that problem again.

Again, this is, this is the kingdom of God.

Now, we don't talk about this a lot in our culture, although you wouldn't know it, because every show now is paranormal, it's.

You know what do you call the thing with the teeth?

The things with the teeth, that's demonic, that's it Like Dracula, it's vampires, and now and then you have zombie vampires.

And then you, my friends, there's nothing new.

These are all.

These are all caricatures of demonic spirits, and so that's why it's so important for us to be careful.

What we pay attention to, what we allow into our homes, what we encourage by listening, listening to and looking at.

Okay, I'm trying to save you from trouble.

The third thing is that believers can be demonically oppressed or depressed.

What's the difference between oppression and depression?

Anybody ever felt like the weight of the world was on your shoulders, like for an extended period of time?

That's oppression.

It's like something.

I'm not going to push hard because I know, is this the shoulder that?

I don't think that's not the one.

This is the bad one.

Okay, so you know, if I were to just constantly apply pressure to his shoulder.

He may not say anything right away, but five minutes in, what is he going to do?

He's probably going to use that elbow somehow or something to remove me from oppressing him, to push down, to hold back, to oppress.

Okay, believers in Jesus can experience that.

It does not mean that your spirit has been infiltrated by demons, because when you are a true Christian, a follower of Jesus, what happens on the inside of you?

Jesus moves in.

And here's the clue Jesus and demons aren't going to occupy the same place.

Jesus isn't the one leaving, the demons are the ones leaving.

But we can be oppressed.

And then what is depression?

That's pressure on the inside, on the inside, that nagging feeling, that thing where you just can't even lift your head up, the thing that keeps you awake at night, the thing that causes you to be overly sorrowful about something Demons can do, that they can cause that, they can attempt.

They can attempt to cause that in our lives.

We need to be aware.

Okay, now here's the good news.

Are you ready for the good news?

Number four Jesus has been given all authority over demons and he gave that authority to us.

There's not one demon spirit.

I don't care how much he's been working out, I don't care how tall he is, how ugly he is, what kind of weaponry he's carrying, he cannot and will not defeat Jesus Christ, and that's good news.

And in this passage we read at the beginning behold, I've given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.

We, as believers in Jesus, when we're serving God and keeping ourselves in the right place not perfection, but we're keeping ourselves in a place of holiness we are given a special grace to walk, even amongst demons.

We could walk through a whole.

You know, I've been in Haiti where we literally were staying right next to the witch doctor's house hut and he's doing his chance and all of the stuff and we're just sitting there enjoying the presence of God and he literally would come up to the property line and look over at us and like, try to intimidate us and things like that.

But man, all we did was just raise up our hands and worship Jesus and before long he was going back inside hiding somewhere.

And it's not that I wanted him to be punished, I want him to be saved.

But he's also not going to cause us to be afraid so that we don't do the work of God where we're at.

Mark 16, 15 also says go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.

Whoever does not believe will be condemned.

And these signs will accompany those who believe In my name they will cast out demons.

Seems like that's not really spoken about a lot, is it?

They will speak in new tongues.

They will pick up serpents with their hands.

Now, don't get crazy.

We've talked about this before.

This isn't like as a pastime.

It's saying if you're doing the work of God and a serpent lurches at you, god can protect you from whatever poison or virus or whatever it is that might try to harm you.

If they drink any deadly poison, same thing, it will not hurt them.

They will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover.

So, number five we should keep our eyes focused on Jesus, not on demons.

There are some people that every time you talk to them, they talk to you about how they're being attacked by Satan.

I'm under attack, I'm under assault, and that can be true.

But, my friends, don't exalt that, don't glorify that.

Give your exaltation, your worship and your praise to the only one who can do anything about it, who is Jesus Christ.

Focus on him.

And number six we need to keep our lives in check so that we don't put ourselves in a place of danger.

What other idols do we allow in our hearts a place in our hearts?

We need to be careful with that.

We need to be careful and be sure that we're quick to forgive and quick to repent.

The thing about following Jesus it's not a walk of perfection.

His was, and because his walk was perfect, we've received the benefit of his perfect walk.

So it's not that we have to be perfect, but we should be striving, pursuing, seeking after the Lord and his face so that we might be changed by him, to become yes, you're going to hear it to become more like him, because Satan can only pervert something that God intended all along.

Satan has no creative ability.

He only has the ability to take something that's already been done and twist it and try to get you to believe something that's a lie based on the twisting of it.

Keep your eyes focused on Jesus, not on demons.

And the last one we need to keep our lives in check.

I said that so we don't put ourselves in a place of danger.

There was a family that we visited and the children were having nightmares every night, all the time, and they asked us to come and pray.

And so we went to the house and we began to pray.

The children were playing areas in the basement and they were playing in the basement and they were doing magic tricks.

Now, I'm not going to get no need to get religious, but they were doing.

They were dabbling in magic and in witchcraft Wasn't just play stuff, it was like more than that.

And so my dad said to the family children need to stop playing with magic and we're going to pray over that.

They need to repent of that and throw away anything that's associated with that.

And then we're going to pray around the house and around this property and command the spirits who were oppressing and attempting to keep these children from being able to rest at night.

And so they did that and the children agreed and everybody repented.

We began to pray around the property.

We went outside and there were two grain containers that were under the ground.

They also used them as shelters, you know, like air raid shelters back in the day.

And so we began to pray around those areas and these high pitched screams started coming from within those caverns I have no way to describe it other than the worst eerie sound that you can imagine and we began to speak to those spirits, just as Jesus spoke to spirits and commanded them to go, and they left.

And the report from that family was and this isn't just the next day, weeks and months later, their kids were completely free and were able to sleep through the night peacefully without being tormented.

Okay, that's what Jesus does.

He sets people free.

I know that I'm saying a lot of stuff tonight that is deep and hard to swallow, because it's like it's a fire hose.

Right, I'm not trying to intimidate you or to make you feel strange, but I think it's important, especially in the time that we're living in, that we recognize that there truly is something beyond Star Wars that's real Good versus evil, god versus Satan, and we find ourselves in allegiance and alignment with one side or the other at all times.

At all times.

And some of you who are being tormented and this is me being in my life, I have been tormented so many times you don't have to be.

You can be free.

It's a process.

It takes time sometimes, but you can be free, and that's what Jesus came to pay the price for Scott.

And the good news about being filled with the Holy Spirit is he convicts us.

So if we're watching something, if we're playing something, if we're doing something, and you just feel that check on the inside, just repent and put it away and don't do it anymore.

Now, I'm not trying to minimize the fact that some people, myself included, have dealt with different areas for a long period of time, and so it's not just as easy as just putting it away.

I understand that.

I understand that.

But, especially in the infancy stage, if you can begin to recognize Satan's attempts to try to get to you, that's the time to deal with it, not after he's already, you know, sprucing up the place to find out where he's going to sleep.

Right, he wouldn't spurs it out, by the way, he would make it as nasty as he could be.

He loves to live in filthy places.

He's a filthy, sick being.

So let's practice now.

Yeah, a horoscope can open the door.

Sure, little things like that.

All of them can be entry points.

So we have to be careful.

Okay, now do not obsess about this.

Like if you kick a rock in your yard and you stub your toe.

Don't say a demon made me do that.

Okay, that's not a demon.

More than likely Now, if a rock falls on you, that may be anyway, I don't know.

So I'm going to lead you through a practice right now.

Okay.

So this is how we're going to end tonight.

We're going to practice how to deal with demonic activity in your life or in the life of other people.

Okay, and it's very easy.

It's found in the Scriptures.

So James, chapter 4, verses 7 through 10.

James 4:7–10

We're going to just take this step by step and we're going to do it right now, together, okay.

So the first one is submit yourself to God in every area of your life.

Okay, so I want you just to take a minute between you and God, and if there are areas in your life that you're aware of that you are not submitted to God, now what does submission mean?

It's not something evil, it's something good.

It means that there's an area in your life that you are not recognizing Him as the master of that area in your life.

That's what it means, okay, and it could be anything.

It could literally be anything.

So just take a minute between you and the Lord and just ask Him to forgive you for allowing that area in your life to take rulership over you instead of Him being the leader and the ruler of your life, and then just ask Him by His Holy Spirit to help you to submit to the Lord in a new way tonight.

Thank you Lord, just take a minute and do that.

Thank you, father.

Okay, for the next step, if we can, let's stand up.

And this step again, we're following Scripture.

Okay, this step is the step where we use our authority that we've been given by God.

The Bible says submit yourself to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

You and I, as followers of Jesus Christ, have been given the authority that was given to Jesus to resist the enemy, but it's not going to happen just on its own, magically.

We are given a responsibility to take charge in this way.

Okay, to take ownership, I should say All right.

So what I want you to do is imagine that there were, imagine that there was a murderer running from one of our houses to the next house and running through our houses.

How would we deal with that individual?

Now, some of you, please be careful.

I know how some of you would deal with him, but would you be just kind and gentle, mr Murderer.

I just really, I just want to live.

You know, if you I made some fresh cookies, would you like a cookie?

And I could pour some milk for you as well?

I mean, god can do anything.

So I'm not limiting him, I'm saying you would be aggressive more than likely, especially if your family was at stake, if there was a murderer that was loose in your house.

So that's what Satan is Now.

Satan himself is not at any one of our houses.

He spends time in much bigger houses, governmental houses, in places where he can influence millions of people in one place.

That's what he does.

Hopefully not, but we're not going to locate him tonight.

I don't think, but Not going to locate him tonight.

So we're dealing with demons, and mostly low-level demons, and what I mean by that?

They're like pawns in the game of chess, very limited ability, right, but they do have their place.

They do have their place.

And so what we're going to do, I'm going to ask you to use your outside voice, right, and we're going to resist the devil together.

I'm going to say something and have you repeat it.

If you don't feel comfortable doing this, it's fine.

There's no, this is not like Actually, yeah, this is not a trinity.

I should give a little disclaimer, maybe, but I do want to help you.

I do want to help you tonight.

So we're going to say some things, declare it.

If we're going to declare some things, according to the Word of God, and I want you to speak to whatever it is that you're dealing with right now in your life.

If it's worry, speak to worry.

If it's fear, if it's anxiety, if it is, you're not able to sleep.

If it is that you are, you're dealing with consistent illness over and over and over again.

If it's Maybe you're dealing with lustful thinking or you're angry with somebody and you can't let it go, whatever, that is okay, and we're going to address what's behind that and take authority over it, which we have been given, and command it to stop, to leave and to not come back, okay.

So again, please don't be afraid.

It's nothing to be afraid of, but fear itself, right.

So just pray after me and let's use some authority here, okay, whatever you feel comfortable with.

So, father God, in Jesus' name, I believe that every word that you have spoken is true, and your word says that, if I submit myself to you and resist the devil, that he will flee from me.

So, in the name of Jesus Christ, I take authority over every demonic spirit, every oppression, every form of depression, any kind of influence in my life, and I command you, in the name of Jesus Christ, to loose me and let me go right now, in the name of Jesus, go from me and never return.

In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, thank you Lord, thank you, father, thank you Lord.

Now, father, we just pray.

We ask, lord, that in the place of that, that you would release your Holy Spirit to fill every place, every thought, every concern, every anxiety, every fear.

Lord Jesus, in the name of Jesus.

Yep, that's okay, it's all right.

Hey, just let her deal with the Lord.

Okay, she's okay, she's okay.

Yeah, yep, it's all right.

The Lord's here and he's working.

Okay, don't be afraid.

Thank you Lord.

So, lord, we worship you now.

We turn our attention to you.

Just now, just between you and the Lord, begin to exalt him.

Thank you, lord, that you set me free from worry, anxiety, fear, depression, lust, witchcraft.

Thank you, lord, for setting my mind free, for setting my heart free, setting my will free.

Thank you, lord, for forgiving me, for unforgiveness.

Thank you, lord, for giving me a new life, a new way of living in the name of Jesus.

Thank you, lord.

This is something that you can do anytime that you experience any form of demonic activity in your life.

You can do that, all right, thank you, lord.

All right, let's pray here.

The final thing is humble yourself before the Lord and he will lift you up.

What a promise.

God does not want to harm you, hurt you, keep you down, push you down, push you back or away.

He wants to welcome you in, and this is the chance that we were given every single day.

Right?

Is everybody good?

I'm going to stay for a few minutes.

If anybody has questions or concerns, please come see me.

I'll be glad to talk to you about it.

I would have been disappointed if nothing happened tonight.

Right, and so let's walk in this freedom.

Let's practice what Scripture teaches us, because it is powerful.

We don't have to be ripped off any longer.

Amen, all right, lord, we pray that you go with us, that you keep us safe, you cover us and protect us from any further attack or assignment from the enemy, and we thank you, lord, that the name of Jesus is greater than any other name, and we give you glory and honor and power and praise for what you're doing here this night.

In Jesus' name, amen, let's keep praying.

Can we wait till next summer for part two?

I don't know.

Love you guys.