Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. This is the day the Lord has made, and we will rejoice and be glad in it.
And like the song that was just playing, Holy Spirit, we welcome you.
Specific application. We can do nothing without you, including it's through your power that demons are driven out and removed.
You're the one who does it.
And we honor you in the position you've been given.
You're also our teacher, our counselor, our guide.
I pray you lead and guide and direct tonight. Give wisdom.
Help us to talk about the things that are necessary and to avoid the things that are not.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. You may be seated.
Public service announcement next week. There won't be any nursery.
So if you bring a little one next week is that we've been having nursery each evening.
And next week there will not be any nursery.
And we will also be doing questions and answers starting about eight o'clock.
Thereabouts. And that's when we will lose you who are watching us by live stream.
We want to be able to have the ability to edit the question and answer time.
It will go up eventually with tonight what we're saying.
The message, but we'll lose you during the question and answer time.
If you have questions and answers, please text them or e-mail them in.
You go to our website. There's church e-mail there. You can send them there or they'll get to me.
And send them in. And thank you for joining us that way tonight.
And thank you for joining us this way tonight.
In person is always nice. It's helpful to me.
So I was planning to start tonight with kind of the basic things to make sure we're all on the same page,
building on the same foundation.
Basic I mean starting really basic like what is a demon? What is a fallen angel?
What is a generational curse? Things like that.
How do demons and or fallen angels gain access to a person?
How can you tell if you or someone has a problem with any of those things
and kind of just lay a basic foundation?
But apparently the Lord didn't want us starting there.
He wants us starting in a little further and then we'll come back and we'll pick all that up.
So we're going to start by talking specifically about deliverance, specifically self-deliverance.
This is the main deliverance that takes place or should take place.
So we're going to start there and because of we're not starting at the beginning,
I may refer to some things that we haven't had a chance to talk about yet.
Bring them up during question and answer time. I can answer them there.
And or I guess you wait until we go back and redo it and start from what I considered the beginning.
So evidently from my perspective, I don't know why the Lord changes plans and does things,
but from my perspective evidently there's people who are wanting some freedom or needing some freedom.
So he's saying the first thing you do is show them how to get that.
And then we'll go back and talk about the details and fill in the cracks and so forth.
So let me start. We do have questions that came in.
So we'll answer them the beginning of the question and answer session
and then we'll go into any questions we have pertaining to tonight
because obviously the questions came in had to do with last week.
But I want to hit something right from the beginning that seems to be a misunderstanding to some people.
So let's get it out of the way right from the beginning.
It is not a sign of spirituality to always be under demonic attack.
You are not more spiritual if you're always under demonic attack
or always struggling with demons.
It's actually a sign of spiritual weakness, not spiritual strength.
And I'll show you why here in just a second.
So the concept of, well, the devil's been after me all week.
Oh, wow, you must be so spiritual.
Why is he after you and you're not after him?
Why are you running?
Turn around and fight. Kick him out. He'll quit chasing you.
Or them.
To always, like we had one person, this was years ago,
make the statement during a service that
they had been wrestling with demons all night.
Well, that can happen.
But it's not a sign of spiritual strength when that happens.
That's a sign of spiritual weakness.
Jesus never wrestled with demons all night.
We know of.
He dealt with them and it was over.
So it's not a sign of spiritual strength.
So, another public service announcement.
Could we get all the lights up all the way
so that people can take notes and it's easy for them to write and etc.
So the reason I say that is this.
The disciples, is there any sign in scripture, any place that we can find
that the disciples were continually under spiritual attack
and they were continually in warfare?
There's none.
And of course, if you go to our supreme examples, Jesus,
there is no place where Jesus was continually under spiritual attack.
Now, he was tempted.
He had attacks.
But the thing of, well, I'm so spiritual that the demonic realm is always after me
and I'm always having to deal with the demonic realm.
That's actually because there's an area that's weak in us,
that that happens.
If it was strong, it wouldn't happen.
So I kind of want that cleared up from the beginning.
Jesus, I mean, they couldn't touch Jesus.
No one, including the devil, could take Jesus' life.
Why?
Anybody know right offhand why Jesus said?
John 14, I'll give you a hint.
He was sinless.
What did you say?
He was sinless.
Kingdom darkness had no hold on him.
Death is of the kingdom of darkness.
Here's what was just referred to.
He was guilty of no sin, the speaking of Jesus.
Neither was deceit or guile ever found on his lips.
So now with that concept in mind, let's go to what Jesus had to say about it.
I will not talk with you much more for the prince, the evil genius,
the ruler of this world is coming.
So that's the devil.
He has no claim on me.
He has nothing in common with me.
That's huge.
There is nothing in me that belongs to him.
That's huge.
And he has no power over me.
So now just stop and think about those three statements.
He has nothing in common with me.
There was nothing that the devil's kingdom operated in that Jesus operated in.
Hate, unforgiveness,
evil speaking,
getting drunk.
Should I keep on listening?
Those things are all from the devil's kingdom.
Once we are doing what the devil's kingdom is doing, we have something common
that gives them authority in us.
It gives them power in us.
Jesus said, He has nothing in common with me.
We are on two different airplanes going two different directions.
There is nothing in me that belongs to Him.
Jesus, like what Mary was referring to in prayer a couple of Sundays ago,
Jesus didn't have any treaties with the demonic realm.
He had no agreements with the demonic realm.
There was nothing in Jesus that was of the demonic kingdom.
Therefore, they couldn't touch Him.
And He has no power over me, which goes along with the whole thing.
Once you are submitted to it, now it has power over you
because in Matthews, in Romans 6 and Romans 8,
it says whatever we submit ourselves to,
whether righteousness or unrighteousness, we become slaves to it.
So that's where willful sin comes in.
If we submit ourselves to doing things or not doing things,
sins of commission, sins of omission,
if we submit ourselves to it knowingly, willingly,
and we live that way, now we're under its power, spiritually speaking.
And when you're under the power, it's very difficult to do anything
like deliverance or anything like that.
So I have it listed later. I'll throw it in here because it just fits so well.
One of the things that we don't do here
is we don't, as a church, acknowledge Halloween whatsoever.
That started in a deliverance session.
That was not something that I just dreamt up.
Now, it came into fruition.
We've got some little booklets out in the literature stand,
if you want to look at kind of the story behind it
and what Halloween is about, et cetera.
And that kind of starts when we were in Colorado.
It's where that booklist starts.
Where the thing changed in me and since Halloween's next week.
Let's talk about it a little bit.
I grew up celebrating Halloween.
My parents took me to town.
I went trick-or-treating.
I mean, it was like normal, common place.
You go to churches, you find skeletons and ghosts and stuff.
They're decorating for Halloween.
It has become very normal in Christians or in Christianity
to celebrate Halloween.
If you know anything about Halloween,
if you've studied it at all,
you already know this is one of Satan's high holidays.
There is nothing godly in the holiday.
It is all built around what the kingdom of darkness is
and represents.
And if you don't, if you never studied it,
grab one of those, it's got a little oint cover on it.
I think it just says Halloween on it.
Read that through, it'll give you a real brief, quick education in it.
But anyway, so this was years ago
when I was still caught in that period of time
that I talked about last week
where it seems like every demon that manifested in everybody
did the whole full meal deal.
They took the body over and the person blacked out
and they were talking through them and this, that and the other.
So there was a situation that,
and this happened around this time of year.
And again, I was in the parsonage
and I was trying to help somebody
and I can just, the picture is welded in my mind
because of the accusation that went with it
is they were sitting on a chair in front of me
and the person had been taken over by a demon
and I was trying to get the demon out
and the demon wasn't cooperating,
he didn't want to leave and this, that and the other.
So I finally asked the question
and sometimes if you,
most of the time when a demon speaks,
it's not accurate.
They are of the father of lies
and truth is kind of a vague concept to them.
So most of the time you're wasting your breath
but if you get them riled up in their pride
they sometimes give you nuggets
because they're going to prove to you
they've got the right to stay
and then they'll reveal why they've got the right to stay.
So I'm dealing with this one
and I must have got them riled up.
You know, we're kind of arguing.
That's how the sessions would go.
And I'm arguing scripture
and they're telling me why God is dead
and why the God I serve is stupid
and he has no power
and you know, they hit your faith.
They just attack your faith.
Attack your faith so that
you don't have the faith to deal with them.
And he got all riled up
and then he made this statement.
Will you serve the same God I do?
You have no authority over me.
A kingdom divided against itself can't stand.
He called a scripture to me
and I'm going,
what?
I serve Jesus, the Father,
heavenly Father,
not the Father of lies, heavenly Father.
I have the Holy Spirit in me.
I do not serve
your Father.
Yes, you do.
I do not.
He said, I see you
and all your people you hang around with
do it all the time.
I said, what?
You celebrate Halloween
with the rest of us.
Well, no, I was kind of...
it's true.
I said, well, that doesn't mean
I can't cast you out.
He said it sure does.
Kingdom divided against itself.
You're participating.
I'll go back to this scripture.
Top one there.
You have something in common with me.
There's something in me
that belonged to that darkness
which I submitted myself to it willingly
so they had power over me.
So literally what he was saying
is you can't cast me out
because you celebrate Halloween.
So end the subject. I'm staying.
And see, this is where
the grace of God is so good.
I said, well,
I've never really thought about it.
Because I hadn't.
You know, the church would throw parties on Halloween
to keep the kids off the street.
And it's like, I ever thought of that?
I said, well,
I haven't really thought about that.
But let's just, for the sake of going there,
let's say you're right.
That's the reason I can't get you out.
Heavenly Father,
if I've been wrong
in doing this,
I confess it is sin
and he started yelling
and screaming,
shut your mouth.
No, no, do not.
Your father will not forgive you.
He will not. He is not a loving father.
And just started, again, hitting my faith.
Father,
I'm sorry. Forgive me.
A repent of it.
I will look into this.
And if I'm wrong, we'll make the adjustments.
The thing in the person's body
had gotten up out of the chair
and was kind of posturing.
And once I finished my prayer,
just like a defeated enemy,
it flopped back down in the chair.
This isn't fair.
Because it just lost all its power.
This isn't fair.
I'll go.
So it really, in that instance,
had nothing to do with the person's life
I was trying to help.
It had to do with my life.
So that one made a huge impression on me.
And it goes right with that verse.
Jesus had nothing in common with them.
There was nothing in Jesus that belonged to them.
So there was nothing.
He submitted his life to that kingdom
so they had no power over him.
So, read on.
But Satan is coming
and I do as the Father has commanded me
so that the world may be convinced that I love the Father
and that I only do what the Father has instructed me to do.
I act in full agreement with his orders.
Rise, let us go away from here.
So now we're going to be going to the garden
and we're going to end up getting killed.
The whole scheme, Paul tells us,
had the kingdom of darkness known,
what they were doing by killing Jesus,
they would have never done it.
Paul said that in Corinthians.
They didn't know.
So when Jesus said,
well, he's coming to kill me,
he said, but he's got nothing in me.
He can't touch me.
That's why
John 10,
for this reason the Father loves me
because I lay down my own life
to take it back again.
No one took Jesus' life.
He willfully offered it as a sacrifice.
No one takes it away from me.
On the contrary, I lay it down voluntarily.
I put it from myself.
So in other words,
my physical life, I just put it away.
I am authorized and have power to lay it down
to resign it.
And I'm authorized and have power to take it back again.
These are the instructions of the orders
which I have received
as my charge from my Father.
So no one, including the devil,
could take Jesus' life.
Why?
Those three reasons he listed.
They had nothing in him.
So,
two applications here.
One is going back to what we already said,
but let me hit the other one first.
When you're
in a position
of
helping someone get free from the demonic,
you really better make sure
your life is clean first.
Because if it's not, and it's easy to do,
I just showed you how to do it.
You confess your sin, you repent of your sin,
you ask forgiveness for it and say,
God, you know,
wherever I'm off,
I'm willing to get on.
And it's just that fast.
And to that kingdom, it isn't fair.
But to our kingdom, it's awesome.
You're forgiven. It's over. You're under grace.
You move on.
But
so to enter into casting things out,
we have to be prepared.
Or if we're of their kingdom
or like their kingdom, they won't obey us.
Number one. Number two,
application of what we were just talking about.
There is a sign of spiritual strength,
but it's not continually being under attack
and not continually the devil's messing with my life.
And it just seems like from the time I woke up this morning,
all day long, it's like he had his hand in everything
and he's messing with everything.
And that is not a sign of spiritual strength and maturity.
That's a sign of spiritual weakness.
So now don't do what the church typically does.
We put our face that we think everybody wants to see
to make us look good and behind the mask,
we're probably still living like
everything's falling apart in our life,
but we're not going to show anybody now
because we don't want anybody to think we're spiritually weak.
That, by the way, is pride and it will also cause problems.
We've got to be honest. We just got to put it out there.
I'm just going after the concept
that if demons are affecting us
and we're continually fighting with them,
that's not God's best.
We're supposed to walk free in this world.
In fact, what God will do,
you want to know God's opinion on the whole thing?
He will sit us down
and put a spread, the scripture says
He'll put a table before us
in the middle of our enemies.
Isn't that what it says in Psalms?
Right in the middle of our enemies.
Well, they're going to steal all our food.
No, that's not a sign of spiritual strength.
He wants us to become so strong
we can have 15 demons surrounding us
that they can't touch us.
So now there's one more point
I want you to get out of the scripture
where he said Satan's coming to take my life
but he has nothing in me.
So they couldn't touch Jesus
because he had nothing in common with him.
He wasn't submitted to him.
He wasn't participating with that kingdom.
Flip that coin.
It's like Brother Hagin used to say
you can learn as much from scripture
what it doesn't say is what it does say.
So if it says he has nothing in you
he can't touch you.
Flip the coin.
It's saying if he has in you
he can touch you.
Jesus said the reason he can't touch me
is because he's got nothing in me.
What if he had something in Jesus?
Well, he could have touched him.
There are people who die
they couldn't touch Jesus.
They couldn't take his life. He had to lay it down.
There are people who die in
fashions and in times they're not supposed to
because they have things
in common with the kingdom of darkness.
They're submitted in some areas to the kingdom.
Oh, they're Christians. They'll probably go to heaven.
I'm not a judge of that.
They're saved by faith through grace.
It's a free gift.
But some place they opened their life
and he got in and took them out.
That can happen.
There is the scripture for it.
So, not always when someone dies
is it their time.
Just saying.
So, I could send you home with that
and you could chew on that all week.
There is a reason God wants us to live a life.
What did Paul say over and over?
Live a life worthy of your calling.
First calling is calling a salvation.
Calling to be in his family.
Live a life worthy of that.
And then Paul would usually talk about
and you know all these other things?
Don't do them. Stay out of them.
They're not of our kingdom. Get rid of that.
You used to do that when you were unsaved.
Quit doing it now that you're saved.
Live a life worthy.
Well, there's numerous reasons for that.
That's one of them.
One other point that I want to clarify
and I've been using it on purpose
and I'm going to try not to use it.
It's kind of a Christianese habit thing.
For most of us, the devil is not concerned
about us whatsoever, period.
He doesn't care.
Because he's not omnipresent.
He is a single being
locked in one place at one time.
And he's got bigger fish to fry than us.
He's trying to work on governments
and government leaders
because if he can get them going in a certain direction
the whole nation goes that direction.
Why would he come and spend a whole night with you?
When he can spend a whole night working on somebody
that will affect countries or regions.
So when we say, well, it's the devil.
The devil is doing this in my life.
I know what you're saying.
I know what I'm saying.
I was taught the same thing.
We mean the kingdom of darkness
and demons this, that and the other.
But some people actually believe it's the devil.
He's not going to waste his time
in low-lifes like us.
He doesn't have time to waste on us.
He's got way bigger priorities than us.
So you say, well, what is it?
Well, it's demons most of the time.
Now they're of his kingdom in there.
Eventually some place indirectly under his orders.
But it's demons.
It's not the devil.
So I'm going to try to make sure we make that differentiation.
And we'll be talking about demons, not the devil.
Because the devil for the average person isn't our concern.
It's the demons or the fallen angels of his kingdom.
So tonight I want to talk about self-deliverance.
And I know a question is going to come up on this.
So I might as well answer it right away.
And I'll explain why I'm going to start with what I call self-deliverance.
This is the question.
If there is such a thing as self-deliverance,
why don't we see it in Scripture?
Somebody's going to come up with that sooner or later.
So I'm going to answer that eventually here,
but I'm going to answer it with a question.
But actually Scripture does talk about it,
and I'll show you that in a bit.
But let me answer that question with another question.
Why do recorded instances in Scripture of deliverance
almost entirely stop at Acts 1?
Acts, Romans, Corinthians, on and on, all the way through Revelation.
How many instances are there of the disciples casting anything out?
You can count them on one hand and have fingers left over.
Why is that?
Maybe deliverance isn't scriptural.
I'm just trying to...
I don't want to say everything.
I get you to actually think a little bit too.
So let me ask...
There's another question that goes with it.
Why are there no recorded instances of believers
after Acts chapter 1?
Day of Pentecost, the churches formed.
The church is now in existence.
New Covenant, New Era, New Testament.
Why are there no recorded instances of believers needing
or getting deliverance after the church began?
There are none.
Where a Christian ever needed deliverance
in the New Testament church.
Now remember, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are under the Old Testament.
Jesus was wrapping up the Old Testament there
and showing us what the New Testament is going to go like
by example and by showing us the Father.
Then he died, rose from the dead,
ascended to heaven, the Holy Spirit came,
and when the Holy Spirit came, that was the birth of the church.
From that point forward, you have nothing in Scripture
that ever indicates a Christian needed a demon cast out.
Why?
Christians can't get demons, exactly.
So we talked about last week, my story,
and that's part of where the reasoning came from on that.
Well, they can't get them, that's why you don't have to cast them out.
Then what was, you know, what was showing up in my life?
What shows up in prayer lines? We have it show up very consistently.
Here, TBO, whatever, you go down a prayer line,
it's very consistently demon show up.
In Christians, tongue-talking, Bible believing, Christians.
Well, why doesn't the Scripture talk about it then?
I don't know for sure, but here is an opinion.
And let me say this before I give my thoughts on that.
When it comes to this subject, I want to stay very, very scriptural.
Because there's so much goofiness that takes place around deliverance.
I want to stay very scriptural.
But the thing you have to remember is the Bible isn't big enough
to give you every scenario that can take place in deliverance.
Towards an example of, well, this could happen and that could happen, this could happen,
and you might have to do it this way, you might have to do it that way.
It just leaves it silent and leaves it up to the Holy Spirit, like we said last week.
The same way, the Bible doesn't tell us every way you might have to approach some disease or sickness to get healing.
Whether you're for someone else or for yourself.
It doesn't give us examples.
Well, sometimes you have to pray in fast.
Sometimes you have to, you know, speak to it.
Sometimes you have to cast out a demon.
It doesn't give us examples.
We see some things with Jesus,
but there's not books giving us scenarios of all the different things that can happen
and how we may have to approach healing.
That, again, is by the Holy Spirit.
He'll teach us.
So there's things we talk about that.
Well, where do you find that in Scripture?
You're going to find the basic principle that supports it and I want to see that.
Now, how the Holy Spirit builds off of that, He might build differently.
But I always want to see the basic principle of Scripture.
We're building this on and why we're building this and why we believe this.
Because if we don't do that, it can go awry really quickly and really bad.
So I'm going to try to keep us very scriptural.
But, those two questions I just gave you, to my understanding, there's no answer for either one.
Now, the question I started with is,
well, why doesn't the Bible talk about self-deliverance?
Well, it does.
I'll give you that in a bit.
But the other two, it doesn't talk about it at all.
So we know that deliverance didn't stop when the church started.
It's still going on.
And we know that sometimes believers need some help.
That's still going on, but there's no recorded instance of it in Scripture.
My opinion, the reason why is the goal we're supposed to be simply after is this.
Live our Christian lives in a sincere manner.
And the whole demon thing takes care of itself, won't be a problem.
Now, there's a couple exceptions to that, so I can hear the good gears winding up.
What about this, Pastor?
I'll give you a couple exceptions in my mind.
But I want this to soak in first.
One of the reasons, my opinion,
we have more problem with demons in the church today
than is ever recorded in the New Testament church from axon through revelation
is because, and I haven't traveled the world, so I can only speak of America.
It's the only place I've lived in, etc.
So in America is because we don't take our Christian life seriously enough.
In America, we want to know how much we can do and get away with and still make heaven.
Versus, I don't want anything to do with the kingdom of darkness.
I want to walk clean.
There is a huge difference there.
Because once you start saying, well, I don't see where it's a problem.
You're telling me your reasoning comes from the direction of
I like things in the kingdom of darkness.
I'm going to submit myself to them.
I'm going to have things in common with them.
And I can still go to heaven that way.
Well, you might be able to.
But I'll give you this.
You're going to be really powerless on the trip.
On the trip to heaven.
You're going to be really powerless.
There are going to be all kinds of bad things happening in your life.
It seems like you have no authority over at all.
Because in America, we tend to look at Christianity as something we add to our life.
And it's convenient to go to church on Sunday to make sure our health insurance policy remains intact.
And the rest of the week, we're just kind of going to live the way we want to live.
And we don't care what God thinks.
That's why we have demonic problems.
That's why they can touch believers.
It goes back to the same principle Jesus gave.
They can't touch me because they got nothing in common with me.
I'm not living their life.
But there's a lot of Christians.
If you look at their life, they look no different than the world.
They got a lot in common with them.
With demons.
With the kingdom of darkness.
So that's my position on that.
Why scripture, it deviates a bit from scripture.
I have, I'll be honest with you.
My experience, very limited.
Just a crack in the wall that I've looked through when dealing with the kingdom of darkness.
So I don't by any means think I know everything.
I've just seen a sliver of crack at this.
And some of what I've seen through the wall makes no sense to me.
But at the same token, I will say this.
When someone begins to really go after God, it seems like all hell breaks loose in their life.
The refrigerator breaks. The car breaks down.
They lose their job.
I mean, it's just like bam, bam, bam.
It's just like everything starts falling apart.
Why?
Well, he can touch them.
They still have things in common with him.
And the demons are reaching in and they're saying,
you're not going to get serious about God.
We're going to slap you around and distract you enough that you back away from this stupid idea
of getting serious about serving God.
And most people do.
They back away.
I don't know. I tried this God thing.
And we went to church every Sunday for about two months.
And I put everything into it.
And it's like everything in my life fell apart.
All that's telling you is how much axis the kingdom of darkness already has to your life.
And all of a sudden they see you running away from their kingdom
and they're going, no, you're not, they're going to bring you back.
You have to grow through that.
And in that period of time, and for those of you who are the first ones out,
what I mean by the first ones out is you can't remember anybody in your heritage,
your lineage that's saved before you.
You've got an extra war.
Because you got all the baggage you're saying no to.
Not going to do it that way anymore.
So it's going to be a little tougher for you than for the average person
who's been raised in a Christian home like me.
I have blessings that have been passed down to me from my grandparents,
from my parents and on back from there.
Because there was a lineage.
When you're the first one out,
there might be people back there someplace,
but they're kind of removed from you.
So the things nearest to you is you've got the blessings of the ancestors
and you've got the curses.
The things nearest to you are all the curses.
And you're the one who's saying no to them.
So there's going to be some conflict there.
But when you hit that section of time where,
okay, I'm going to go after God and everything falls apart,
that's where you have to deal with the demonic realm.
And that's why we're starting with this
and it might take us a couple of three weeks
to get through this first self-deliverance part.
Because I'm going to make sure you know that you know that you know how to do this.
If you don't get through that and you back away,
again, you may make heaven,
but you're not going to amount to much on this earth as a Christian.
Because every time you step in to get serious with God,
all they do is shake your life and you step back.
So you're going to stay very lukewarm, uncommitted.
Now, I'll go back to the original statement I was going to make.
For believers,
the people who are stepping in and saying,
I want to be wholeheartedly God's,
they will typically go through a section of time
where they have to overcome the power of the evil one,
like it says in 1 John chapter 2.
You've got children, young men, fathers.
The young man's stage is where you learn to overcome the power of the evil one.
There's going to be some more there.
If they will stick to it and go through it,
that's sometimes when you have to have things,
someone agreeing with you in prayer,
get it cast out, get it out of your house,
get it, whatever.
But once they've come through it
and now they're hot after God
and there's just a few minor distractions
that try to hit them from time to time
and they just kind of shove them out of the way
and keep going after God,
I've never seen a demon manifest in that kind of person again.
Once they've made that chunk of time
and they're past it
and they've won the war,
so to speak, that 2 John chapter 2,
that war with overcoming the evil one.
Once they've won that war,
demons are not an issue in their life.
I've never seen it.
It doesn't mean they don't ever get attacked.
It doesn't mean they never show up to see
if they can get back in.
But they're not an issue.
You just tell them to go to hell where they belong
and they leave because they've got nothing in you.
It's the ones who play with this
who continually have issues in their life.
So it behooves us to walk a life worthy.
So there's two main things that cause the problem
when it comes to why Christians don't get free.
One is they don't know their authority.
And the second one is they're involved in willful sin.
It can be either or a combination of both.
Either one will get you in trouble.
A combination of both will get you in trouble.
So let's look at the willful sin thing here just for a bit.
First John chapter 3 verse number 8.
But he who commits sin, who practices evil doing.
And I took the amplified specifically
because it's not if you go out and make a mistake
now you're going to catch a demon.
No, it's the person who practices evil doing
is of the devil.
Takes his character from the evil one.
For the devil has sinned, violated the divine law
from the beginning.
The reason the Son of God was manifest, made visible
was to undo, destroy, loosen, and dissolve
the works the devil has done.
Well, what's the works he's done?
Well, he listed one huge one right from the beginning.
He who commits sin keeps practicing evil doing
is of the devil.
It's one of the works the devil does.
He's a sinner.
So one thing Jesus came
was to dissolve that grip of sin over us
to get rid of it.
That's why Romans 6, 7, and 8, Paul just harps on it.
Don't obey it.
Don't give yourself over to it.
You're dead to it.
You've, you died.
You were buried in Christ.
Now you've risen to a new life.
You have an obligation
and it's not to the sinful nature.
It's to the spirit and Paul just harps on it.
Why?
Because Jesus came to destroy the power of sin over us.
And the only power sin has over us is what we let it have.
Other than that, a believer is set free.
Not a believer not yet, but a believer is set free.
So the willful sin part, look at this scripture.
He was casting out a demon and it was mute.
So it was when the demon had gone out
that the mute spoke and the multitudes marbled.
But some of them said he cast out demons by the Elizabeth,
the ruler of demons.
Others testing him sought him, sought a sign from him
or sought from him a sign from heaven.
But he knowing their thought said to them,
here it is.
Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation.
A house divided against itself falls.
So I can't be casting demons out under demonic power.
Because the kingdoms don't work that way.
The same way we can't be involved in sin under God's power.
The kingdoms don't work that way.
They will self destruct.
A kingdom can't work against itself and survive.
Sin is of Satan's kingdom.
Righteousness is of God's kingdom.
We can't be willfully living in sin
and still use the authority of God's kingdom
to cast out demons.
Willfully go back to the scripture.
Let me back it up.
Not that one, the previous one.
Here's where I come willfully from.
He who commits sin, who practices evil doing.
You know what you're doing.
You know God's not pleased with you.
But you've convinced yourself somehow it's okay.
You're under grace.
Other Christians do it.
I don't know.
Whatever you did to convince yourself,
you're convinced that even though if you search
deep in your heart, yeah, I probably,
I shouldn't, but I'm under grace.
God forgives.
And you don't even go there.
That is willful sin.
That will put you in the position where
they were accusing Jesus of and he said,
no, no, it doesn't work that way, guys.
You can't be willfully in the kingdom of darkness
and operate in the kingdom of light.
Well, I'll do it through the power
of the kingdom of darkness.
Well, that don't work.
He won't work against himself.
So if we're willfully living in sin,
what we've got is the fruit of that kingdom
and the power of that kingdom.
My opinion, here is why so many churches
and basically denominations feel that
the things of the supernatural have passed away
because they can't make them work.
And we're talking about casting out demons.
So let's just talk about demons.
They can't get demons out.
It doesn't work.
So what they do is ignore there's a problem.
They can't get people healed.
So what they do is say it's no longer for today.
They can't see any miracles.
They don't see any miracles.
So we pray, if it be thy will.
Oh, sovereign God, you choose what you want to do.
Here's what we're asking for.
If you choose not to do it, that's fine.
But the word says it's ours.
Well, God's sovereign, you know?
You can't always go by what the word says.
Sometimes God just chooses.
Well, then God's confused
because he said that's what he wants.
But see, they can't make it operate.
Why can't they make it operate?
Because they're living divided against themselves.
They've got one foot in the kingdom of darkness
and are living that.
And they got the other foot while I'm saved.
And it don't work.
So let's just come up with new beliefs and new doctrines
so that we can keep living like we're living.
Heaven forbid we're going to change.
No, that's those crazy charismatic that think that.
My parents lived like this all their life.
My grandparents lived like this all their life.
And I'm going to live like this and I'm saved.
Well, have that.
See how that works out for you.
Once you get tired of it, maybe you'll come back to
you can't have a foot in each kingdom
and be powerful in God.
It doesn't work.
God's kingdom operates in righteousness.
Romans 14, 17.
It's the kingdom of God comes in righteousness
is the first thing he lists.
If it begins operating in sin,
it's going to divide against itself.
It will destroy itself.
Once we know our authority
and here's John 16.
This is the three things the Holy Spirit is here to do.
You want to reduce the Holy Spirit's work down to
a nutshell. Here it is.
Speaking of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is talking.
He says, when he has come, he will convict or convince.
The word convince is the same definition.
The world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.
And I didn't touch sin and righteousness.
I just touch judgment because of how I want to play.
A place this.
Of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.
And who did Jesus say was a prince of power of the air
and the ruler of this world?
Before he got judged.
It was Satan.
But Jesus is calling this by faith.
He hadn't died and rose from the dead yet.
That first took place when he died and rose from the dead
and he took the keys back.
Then the ruler of this world was judged.
We have to know the ruler of the world is judged.
Unless we give him authority, he has no authority in our life.
Unless we give them demons authority, they have no authority in our life.
Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions
and over all the power of the enemy.
And if you read in context, the disciples just came back and said,
Oh, Jesus, this is awesome.
Even the demons are subject to us under your name.
And he said, well, don't get all excited about that.
Get excited that your name is written in heaven.
Behold, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions.
Of course, serpent can be a type of Satan
because of what happened in the Garden of Eden.
But he could be listing deadly physical things on this earth
and throwing them right into the basket with all the power of the enemy.
What was the power that they were just amazed at?
Demons were subject to him.
He said, well, I give you authority over all the power of the enemy
and nothing spiritual or physical shall by any means hurt you.
If that's not happening in our life, we need to be concerned.
We're missing something.
Because there is God's standard how he wants us to live.
If we understand that and exercise that authority,
everything takes care of itself, including demons,
including fallen angels, including generational curses, etc.
Since I've learned that
and the whole thing of people have to deal with their own life,
they have to understand a bit of their own authority.
Since I've learned that, I approach deliverance differently.
To begin with, I didn't know that.
And I was just watching Jesus.
And Jesus was under a different covenant, under a different era.
It wasn't where the Holy Spirit was living in everybody.
Holy Spirit wasn't living in anybody.
And Jesus was God.
Last I checked, I'm not.
And he just approached this thing different.
And he just did it all for everybody.
In the New Testament, it's better if you don't do it that way.
And I'm going to explain why it's better to have self-deliverance
than me cast it out of you.
And I don't think I'll get that whole explanation tonight.
So I'll just give you a nutshell because we only have a few minutes left.
I learned that unless someone begins resisting from their end,
it'd be better to not do a deliverance session with them.
I learned that the hard way.
I didn't know.
I didn't get them fighting from the inside
as I fought with them from the outside.
I just did all the fighting from the outside.
I didn't know.
After the church, New Testament church started,
I don't see it in Scripture that Peter, Paul, John, any of them
went around casting demons out of people, especially believers.
Now, there are a couple exceptions to it.
If someone is taken over and they're kind of blacked out
and the only thing you've got speaking through the body of the person
is a demon, well, then you've got to help them.
Jump in and help get rid of that long enough
so they can come back and start doing some things.
And kind of a sub point under that, if something manifests
in a prayer line, you've got to deal with it.
There's a reason the Holy Spirit's bringing it to the surface.
But if you just come to me and say, I want deliverance,
I'm going to start questioning you five ways.
Why do you want deliverance? What makes you think you need deliverance?
The biggest question I'm going to ask is,
what word are you standing on for your deliverance?
What has the Holy Spirit shown you? Are you saved?
Are you not saved? Oh, yeah, I'm saved.
Then what is he showing you about your deliverance?
I'll give you the Scripture on that here just in a second.
But my goal is going to be to teach you
and to come alongside you and help disciple you
as you do it for yourself.
And again, there's a few reasons for that.
You don't see the other thing in the Gospels.
After the Gospels, I mean, it's Gospels and Previous.
After the Gospels, you don't see it.
You say, why don't you see it from Acts 1 forward?
Because now we all have been given the same Holy Spirit,
the same promises, the same authority.
We're expected to live in it and use it individually.
I as a minister do not have more authority than you.
You have as much authority to deal with demons as I do.
I don't have any more authority than you do.
So why am I responsible to fight your war for you?
Once you're saved, the Holy Spirit has come lived inside of you.
If you need more octane in the gas, because you need more power,
now you need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.
And now you're running on nitro.
Hit that switch, man. It just goes...
1st John 2, I referred to it already.
I don't overcome the evil one for you in the young man's stage.
You have to overcome the evil one for yourself in the young man's stage.
Now it doesn't directly say it, but there's one that talks about
well, if you got trouble with the devil, get free of them.
If you got trouble with demons, get free of them.
You overcome them.
But we have the same promises, the same authority.
If you're not living in what's offered to you and I cast something out,
you probably won't be able to maintain the ground that was given to you.
And we're going to give you a huge scriptural principle in that in the weeks coming.
We have to be mature enough and spiritually strong enough to hold our own ground.
This is our ground.
We're made of dirt.
This is our ground and we're supposed to rule it.
It's not supposed to rule us.
And the principle is he's not going to chase everything out all at once
because you won't have the ability to hold your ground.
He's going to give you pieces at a time so you can grow and mature into that
and hold your ground.
So many times we're doing a disservice to people if we clean them up too much too quick
because they're not spiritually mature enough to hold their own ground
and I can't go in.
That's one of those things I would have liked to talk before we got to this
but we'll get back to it.
They can't maintain their freedom.
So I want you fighting harder than I'm fighting
if we're going to do deliverance stuff.
And I said this last week, you have to understand this.
Satan's power and authority has been completely removed and destroyed
against believers.
The power of sin has been completely removed and canceled against believers
if you're under grace.
Now sin can mess with you if you step out from underneath grace
because then you actually get back in under law
because there's only grace in law
and if you slide out from underneath grace
they're going to hammer you
because they've got access to you because you're
out from underneath grace, the best way to say it.
So here's the main scripture for self deliverance.
Submit who?
There it is.
Submit yourself to God.
You resist the devil and he will flee from you.
So we're going to get into what it means to submit.
We're going to get into what it means to resist.
We'll hit that right away next week and we'll just go on from there.
We're going to teach you how to do this.
What to say?
How to posture yourself.
Because the greatest warrior to get you free in your life
is not me, it's not Mary, it's not anybody outside of you.
You are the greatest warrior to get yourself free.
Now if you need someone to come alongside and walk with you,
that's called discipleship.
That's cool. There's nothing wrong with that.
But once the counselor is working harder than the counselor,
we have a problem.
The counselor's life usually never changes
if the counselor is working harder than they are.
We have to submit ourselves.
We have to resist if we want out from underneath.
No matter what it is.
Demons, fallen angels, curses, no matter what it is.
And curses are approached a little bit differently.
We'll go through all that. We'll get into all that.
Let me say this before our hour is up
and we go to questions and answers.
This booklet is online with this message.
If you need a hard copy, we'll have to do that differently.
But the PDF version is online.
It's titled Getting Rooded Demons.
This comes back from 2010, I think, is when I put this together.
It hits a lot of the basics, like we talked about tonight,
only in far more depth.
It's right there with the message from today.
It separates the kingdom of light from the kingdom of darkness.
How does the devil and God's kingdom
operate differently because they can't, you know,
kingdom divided itself against itself, can't stand.
It talks about sin, what we're expected to do.
And this even goes a little further ahead.
Some basic principles.
If you really want to live free of demonic power,
number one, you've got to be saved.
You're not going to live free of demonic power
if you don't have the Holy Spirit inside.
It just isn't going to work.
It's way easier if you're baptized in the Holy Spirit
because it's the finger of God who is the Holy Spirit
that drives them out.
That's why most mainline denominations
don't cast out demons.
They're saved, but they're not baptized in the Holy Spirit.
And they will give you every reason under the sun
why they don't have to and demons aren't in America.
I had one guy tell me,
Americans have been educated to the point
demons can no longer mess with us.
They're in Africa and these other places.
It's like, okay, that's a fantasy land.
But anyway, it's...
Baptizing the Holy Spirit is really good
if you want to go into spiritual warfare.
Number three, you need to be clean of willful sin.
And it just goes on and lists some things.
And then it goes into...
It talks about binding and loosing some.
And then it goes into actually how do you deal with
inside of you to get free?
How do you deal with your house?
What do you do with your house?
People come all the time and say,
I think we got demons in the house.
Whoa, what makes you think?
I go into the question.
I'm going to hit you five ways.
Well, I think we got demons in the house.
What makes you think you got demons in the house?
Well, they'll give me their stories.
Yeah, things floating around the middle of the night.
That seems odd.
Okay, I'll go with you.
So what are you doing about it?
Well, I just get in bed and put the covers over my head.
Say Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
I'm feeling convicted.
I said, how's that working for you?
That'll be the next thing I'll say.
How's that working for you?
Well, not very good.
That's why I'm talking to you.
I need you to come and deal with this.
No, I need to teach you how to deal with this.
And I'll come and help you.
But you have as much authority as I have.
Well, I don't know what to do.
I'll help you with that.
It goes through...
Well, if you feel like you've got demonic stuff going on inside of you,
what do you do with it?
If you feel you've got stuff going on in your house,
in your apartment, what do you do with it?
See, you submit yourself to God and resist the devil.
He'll flee.
Okay.
Shout me down here with amens.
Yes, amen.
And my job is to come alongside and help you.
It talks about regional demons.
What do we do with regional demons or demons over cities
or demons over countries?
It talks about the authority of Christ,
gives you a lot more scripture than I gave tonight.
So, it talks about cleansing items.
Acts chapter, is it 19?
I believe verse number 12 in the early church,
when people got saved, they would have times
when they would bring all their demonic laden stuff.
You say like what?
Books, pictures, I'm putting it in an arbrenacular.
CDs, record albums, Harry Potter books.
Stuff.
See, because believe it or not,
this was well known back in the 70s and 80s.
Lately it's like, I don't think anybody even talks about it anymore.
But, Colvans and the Satanic Church
and those who are in that realm
put curses on items.
And when you bring the item into your life,
the curse or the demon attached to it comes into your life.
You have to cleanse that and get that out.
Sometimes you got to get rid of the stuff.
There was one situation.
I'll give you this story and we're done for the night.
So those of you live streaming, we're after the one hour,
but you're going to get in on this story
before we go to questions and answers.
There was one situation where I was working with a teenager
and this demon was just plain obnoxious.
Just foul mouthed and mean and just plain obnoxious.
And not making any headway.
So I got it to go down.
What means its consciousness left the brain
and the person's consciousness came back to the brain.
So the person could speak with me.
And I said, have you gotten anything?
Because sometimes when they're on the inside,
they can hear the thoughts of what the other entity is saying.
Like you can hear the Holy Spirit.
Have you gotten anything?
They said, I know, I think I know what this is attached to,
but I don't want to tell you.
I said, why?
It's attached to one of my favorite record albums.
Now I don't remember for sure,
I might be off on this point,
but it really doesn't make any difference.
But one like, for instance, one of the bands
that used to send demons out with their records
was Black Sabbath.
I mean, they were Satan worshipers.
They were open say.
I mean, people knew they were Satan worshipers.
And they actively worked for their kingdom.
So they would send demons out with their,
and I can't remember if this was a Black Sabbath album
or whatever.
Anyway, I said, where's the record?
Well, it's in the bedroom.
They started crying.
They didn't want to get rid of that record.
I said, we're going to get rid of that record
if you want to get free.
Because this thing is drawing its power from
go back to what we read.
You have something in common with the kingdom of darkness
and you've actually submitted yourself to it.
You want it more than you want your freedom.
You're going to have to renounce it.
We got to get rid of it.
Okay, so I went and got the record
and had somebody stay with the person.
I said, I'm going to take it outside and burn it.
Just so you know.
It was middle of the winter.
There was lots of snow.
So I went outside.
Ripped the cover and the paper jacket it was in
and broke the album and put it there in a little pile.
Took a lighter.
Not a match, a lighter.
Nothing.
Thing wouldn't burn.
Well, fine.
I can fix that.
So I went and got lighter fluid.
I doused it.
It was just running all over.
Hit it with the lighter.
Nothing.
That baby wouldn't burn.
And finally the thought crossed my mind.
I was starting to hear the Holy Spirit at this point.
And he said, break the power over it.
That item is under demonic power.
So I'm...
It's funny.
I bet you God laughs.
He's watching us learn as kids.
So I got the lighter going.
It's like it's one of these.
You click it and it just keeps...
It wasn't just the flame, it's the thrower.
So I'm standing there.
In the name of Jesus, I command,
whatever is keeping this from burning,
get off of it.
It's renounced by the person.
It has to burn. We want it gone.
Woof! That thing lit up.
It could have took my hair off.
It's like woof!
I know I bet you God's going,
guys get somebody in there
because he's about to start himself on fire.
Because he's not really taking serious
that when it breaks,
all that lighter fluid is going to go...
I'll bet there's times he just goes,
watch this.
It's going to be good.
But anyway, we burnt the record.
Went back in, this thing was livid with me.
How dare you?
Live it with me.
And I said, well, your power is gone now.
I know.
So why are you here?
Well, send me out.
Just as compliant as can be.
Before that record was destroyed,
that thing was going nowhere
and it was announcing it.
I'm going nowhere.
You can't make me go.
We can't be living in common
with the kingdom of darkness.
And...
get rid of it.