We need you. We can't live this life, Holy Spirit, without you. Father, we thank you for
the gift that you've given to us. We honor the Holy Spirit. We honor the Spirit's work
among us and in us, to us, through us. We honor you in Jesus' name. Lord, open our minds and
our eyes and our hearts by your Spirit. Open us tonight to see and understand what you want
us to see and understand and grasp. Help us, Lord, to hear you corporately here as we talk
about these things, but hear you individually as what you want to say to us about our personal
life. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. My booklets made it. I didn't know if they were going to
make it or not. Glad you didn't get stuck in our yard. Yeah, go ahead and do that. I had to
come over to church and move the snow over here, and she was planned to come and make these
booklets for us. And I thought, well, hope she gets in and out, okay. Not much I can do about it.
So, the first booklet we did was Spiritual Warfare Basics, and it dwelt mostly on what I would
call the principles of self-deliverance, whether it's your personal temple you're living in,
or it's your home, or whatever the situation is. It laid down some basic things on that. For
those of you that are joining us by livestream, welcome. Thank you for joining us. That booklet
should be up with the messages someplace. Tonight, there's going to be a new booklet. It looks
kind of like that. It's called Holding Our Land, and Holding Our Land and Temple, and I'll explain
that in a bit. Well, let's explain it right now. Maybe let's just jump right in. One of the
things I noticed early on is it's a whole lot easier to get people delivered from demons
than it is to keep them delivered. You can just cast them out. I mean, they have to go. It's not
rocket science to figure out how to get them out. But people get re-invaded so quickly, so fast,
and it's like, and when they get re-invaded, it's always worse. It's not better, it's worse.
So I was praying about it for years, saying, Lord, you've got to show me a way
that is simple to understand to help people grasp what this looks like. The New Testament doesn't
say a lot about it. So there's got to be a way. And he did. He showed me a pattern that
comes out of the Old Testament in a few places. So I will explain that to you because the ability to
keep ourself free from demonic aggravation, harassment, torment, whatever you want to call it.
I don't know if everybody, while it's laying in front of me, I don't know if everybody has
one of these. If you didn't, this was the last book that we went through. If you need one, they're
up here. But it's extremely important for Christians to live free. Not just be set free,
but live free. It's kind of like getting healed. It's extremely important we get healed, but
sometimes it's easier to get the healing than it is to hang onto it. So there's, of course,
God's words got everything covered from A to Z. It's all in there. You just got to find it. And
he showed me a principle on the Old Testament children of Israel going into the Promised Land.
The Promised Land, according to that whole journey, that whole thing, according to 1 Corinthians 10,
what happened with them in the physical and how they lived that out is examples for us
in our life so that we don't make the same mistakes they did. So that's where I caught it.
It's like, you know, you're reading along and all of a sudden it jumps off the patient. It's like,
so their examples does. How are they examples thus? They had physical land that's that and the
other. So I started asking about it and doing a little study on it. And you've heard me say
this before. They had a physical nation land that a physical nation was promised and they
needed to move into and occupy. Each one of us live in our own dirt land. It's the temple.
It's the house we live in. This is not me. This is the house I live in. And when
this house time is done, I will leave and this house will go back to dirt because it's made out
of dirt. Okay. So the principle, the concept that started brewing in me was,
well, the examples that we can see with them and the mistakes they made and the things they did
right. And all this, that and the other, we're supposed to apply to us living in our flesh.
So I started studying it. And you know, it started amazing me. It's like, wow,
there's a lot of similarities here. So taking the concept and saying, okay, we got flesh,
we've got land, we've got to occupy it, we've got to conquer it, we've got to deal with it,
promised land had enemies that needed to be gotten out. They are the perfect picture of the
demonic realm. Perfect picture. So we're going to take some time and we're going to show that
to you and give some basics on how do we hold our freedom spiritually from demons.
To get it's not good enough. You have to hold it. And in fact, that was one of the things,
you know, and whether we agree with them or disagree with his way, it's how God uses him.
But it's one of the things that, that Bob Larson has voiced that he struggles with,
because that's his whole ministry is trying to get people free. He says you get them free
in a year later. It's a mess. They are too immature to hold their freedom.
And he says, but the problem is they're so bound, it's a struggle to try to get
them to mature at all before you set them free. But then you set them free
and they can't occupy the land. And it doesn't take but a few months and they're in trouble again
spiritually. So then they want deliverance again. And he too said it's not supposed to work that
way. It's that's not, we're supposed to hang on to our freedom. And so that's what this booklet
is all about is page one. We'll start right there. And if you want to join us online
by bringing one up on your device, or they will probably follow us on the screen. It's not as good,
but it's not bad either. This booklet deals with another vital issue, staying free from the
demonic problems. This book dealt with how do we get free? What do we have to do to get free?
And it just laid it out. You do this, you do this, you pray this. Depending upon what the situation
is, it laid it out very plainly on how you get free. This booklet is, okay, so now how do we stay
free? I was not planning to hit either one of these two first. In my mind, these two were to be
last. And we teach about all kinds of demonic stuff. And like, for instance, the first thing I
want to deal with is what are demons? Most people don't know what our demons, where they come from,
where they start, and start real basic and build until we would get to the place of,
okay, now we understand how the whole thing looks and works. Now let's get free.
And then the last thing we were going to look at is, and let's learn how to stay free.
And it didn't turn out that way. God totally reversed the order. He said,
no, you're going to deal with these two first. And then we'll talk about the other stuff and
so forth. So the scriptural pictures of the process of learning to hold the land
are found in the two basic pictures we're going to look at are Exodus and Deuteronomy.
And then Jesus talks about them a little from a little different perspective in the New Testament.
What we're doing is we're comparing the Old Testament Israelites to getting into the
Promised Land, getting the enemies out, and then holding that land to us doing that with
our physical bodies, our temple, the land we live in. Again, the overall emphasis of this
booklet is self-deliverance. Now, don't misunderstand me. We can and we should pray
over people for deliverance. This is not forbidden. Let's say it that way. Even Christians,
I mean, if they're a young Christian, they're an immature Christian, they may not have the
wherewithal yet to beat some things themselves. So then we come alongside and we help them.
As they grow, they should be holding their own land. The key is they've got to have a little
movement or room to grow. So the biggest self-deliverance process there is is called
sanctification. It's the biggest. Because God will lay his finger on something by the Holy Spirit
and say, I want you to deal with this in your life. And then as we go after it, we will automatically
do James 4-7. Sanctification automatically does James 4-7. Remember what James 4-7 says?
Submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee. It is the foundation for deliverance.
Well, when you're being sanctified and he puts his finger on, he says, I want you to change this.
You have to decide if you're going to submit to God. If you do the right decision and you go,
okay, God, let's work on this. You have now submitted yourself to him. The thing you're
working on is probably not from God's kingdom. It's probably from the other kingdom. So you're
going to start taking a stand against it and everything it represents. So now you're resisting
the devil. So sanctification, all by itself, if people will be serious about it, it's
self-deliverance. Just a couple pieces of review here. As I stated in the first booklet,
from my perspective, one of the reasons we don't hear of much about believers being delivered
or needing deliverance after the beginning of the church is because they knew how to grow in
God. They were, let's say it this way, once you decide to make Jesus your savior and you know the
consequences of if that news gets out, you're going to be hunted to be killed, like an animal.
You have a whole different approach to living your spiritual life for God
than in America, where it's just a little side thing we do on Sunday morning,
occasionally sometimes. You know, it's not even all the time. There's a lot of people who,
like I've said, if we could get all the people here on one Sunday who say word of life is their
church, we wouldn't fit them in. They just, it's the American way. It's the American culture.
Serving God is a side thing. For these people, serving God was literally life or death,
physically. And it didn't take long. The Romans made sure it was death because everybody who
was called a Christian got thrown in the arena and animals and everything else went after them.
So when they said, okay, we are going to make Jesus our savior, they had a whole
different mindset than the American church. They were not in this to play games, get a,
pick up a get out of hell free card, pick up some fire insurance so you don't have to go to hell and
we'll just live the way we want to because now we're saved by grace and it doesn't make any
difference what we do. And that was not in their head at all. This was life or death. So
they were so serious about living for God. I don't think they had any demonic issues.
They got, they just, they just submitted and resisted and live for God because they were living
in a whole different realm. And we're going to talk about that in depth here as we get into this.
So I'm going to real briefly begin by referring to some things that are in. We're going to
have possibly two more, for sure one more booklet coming, possibly two more. I have a
a smaller one than this that deals with the strong man concept and some of those things.
That might be a separate booklet. But then as we're going through this, I'm reworking the one we have
that's called demonic infestation and manifestation. It's kind of like the master booklet to the
whole thing. I'm reworking that as we go and that'll be available at the end. But there's
some things that are talked about in there that I'm going to briefly hit here in the next
couple three pages. I want you to see the bottom line on page one. I will be stating
demonic or demons most of the time in the statements. I am including fallen angels in
with that because they have to be cast out the same way. But for sake of words, I'm not
always going to say when a demon slash fallen angel, when a demon slash fall, I'll just
call it demonic. So anyway, page two. A couple of brief review things.
Demons don't live in our spirit or soul. They live in our body or our temple like we do.
We are a spirit that lives in this body. The brain becomes what the interaction part,
the part that connects the spirit realm to the physical realm. And I'll find out for sure
when I get there. But according to the way Moses described it in Genesis, when God created man,
he made the body out of dirt. And then he breathed that word breath as Ruach. It comes from
spirit. The word spirit literally means to blow or wind breath. That's the word spirit.
So when we're talking about demonic spirits, literal translation of the word spirit,
it's demonic breath or wind. That's what the word spirit means. So when God breathed into the
dirt body, he imparted spirit into it. The spirit is life. Without the spirit,
the body can't live, James says. So the spirit is what brings life. And as he blew in,
man became, it says, a living soul. The spirit started, the body came to life. The spirit started
interacting with the body through the brain, mind, will, emotions, thinking, reasoning,
laughing, feeling, soul. So we'll find out when we get there. But I think the basic
chunk of the soul is wrapped up in the interface, the brain. We are spirit in this
temple. And we have a soul or we have an interface that gives us the ability to work with our
brother, Caseman calls it an earth suit. So it gives us the ability to interact in the
physical realm. Otherwise, we'd be like all the other spirits in this room right now.
You wouldn't see me. You wouldn't hear me.
But they're all here. But they don't have an earth suit. I have one, you have one. So demons don't
live in our spirit or our soul. They are their own spirit. But since this is a house, multiple
spirits can live in a house. It acts as a tabernacle. Paul called it a temple, or Paul
also called it a house. It's as, before we're born again, if we don't have any demon critters
living with us, there's one spirit living in this house. Then I got saved and a second spirit
came and lived in this house, the Holy Spirit. And he became the deposit of my salvation,
according to Ephesians 1. So we know scripturally more than one spirit can live in a house.
Now, of course, Jesus dealt with the big one, of course, is always Legion, which is like 6,000
demons. Did I just go away? Am I okay? Were you messing with me? Okay.
If I go away too often, I'll switch mics or something.
Where Legion is referring to like 6,000. So spirits don't need a lot of space.
Because you had one man who had 6,000 different entities in him, besides himself.
So they can be very compact, small. They size is not an issue to spirit. Spirit can be the
largest. Spirit can be small, whatever. It's not limited, but our bodies are not limited
just to one. That's the point I want you to see. Letter B. This is just a little review.
It's gone over very thoroughly in the Strongman booklet, and it'll be in the other one too.
But the whole concept of more than one spirit being able to live in the body,
there was one deliverance session early on when I was learning this.
And it was that night that I explained where we had a whole group of us there.
And they, the spirit in the person saw the big angels and they called them the mighty ones and
so forth. I shared that story the first night. Well, that night, one of the people who was there
said, ask, how do demons even get in bodies? How do they, why? Can they? What is this?
How can they live there? Of course, we're green as grass, so we're just shooting for information.
Now, the one thing that happened that night is the particular spirit that we were talking to
and we'll talk about this later, but it fits in with the story.
Not all spirits live on the same wavelength as far as maturity, intellect, and abilities.
Now, of course, we see that with God's side. You've got Michael who lives on a whole different
wavelength, runs whole different abilities than a lot of other spirits. Gabriel also,
there's, they're not, they're spirits like you and us. And from my understanding, they grow and
develop just like you and I do. It's not where, poof, you got an angel or you got a demon and
they're fully loaded with everything they're ever going to know for the rest of their
existence for eternity. God doesn't work that way. God is progressive. Everybody has to grow.
Here a little, there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept, and that seems to be across
all of creation, including it applies to God because God himself is still growing
or he couldn't be called infinite. He'd be finite. If he reached his full, he'd be finite.
But he's not finite. He's described as infinite, which means he's ever becoming more and
expanding more. So this particular spirit that was talking out of this girl that night
seemed more like to reason than the level of a child. So once I came through this and
things settled down enough, I could do some research. It is amazing how that when you get
into materials from the demonic side where they express and explain how the kingdom of
darkness works, they know all this. It's we Christians who are kind of
they know all this. For instance, nymphs and imps and so forth, the little creatures,
they come from the perspective of these are little creatures who are still growing,
still developing. They're like children. Well, we had one of those. And
it gave us a bunch of information that I found out later the average demon won't give you.
It was very what I would call naive, very innocent.
It almost made you feel sorry for it because it was trapped in a realm it didn't want to be.
And it did not know how to get out.
So one of the things that we asked was, what gives you the right to live in this girl?
And it tried to put it in words. It said the best to make a long story short. What it said
is what the book says here, we look for a live hole. What in the world is a live hole?
A live hole is a place in the physical realm, the physical body
that either is a spot of darkness in the person because it's something that's not submitted to
God. Jesus made an interesting statement. He said, if the light that is in you be darkness.
How great is that darkness?
So in other words, and this we learned later too, if you were to see me from a spirit realm
side, I would be glowing. And so would you. The new age and so forth call it an aura.
We all have an aura. Now, I call it the glory. We all are emanating the glory of God because
the spirit now lives in us and our spirit has been made new. And in our original condition,
we were clothed with glory before we sinned and fell short of the glory.
So there is a glow that goes on, some more intense, some less.
From my understanding, some Christians look like it just a barely a flicker in the night
where other Christians are blinding.
To where literally when when demons come up in a person and they look at you,
I've watched them go. I can't see.
Why can't you see? It's too bright. When I look at that person, it's just painful. I can't look
at them. It's too bright. I can look at that one. It's not a problem. And it makes you go.
Why are some brighter and why are some darker?
Well, it goes with, you know, we have a term that, you know, I suppose it kind of explains it.
Some people are more on fire than others.
Some people got a few embers. There's light in there, but it's not a lot.
And some people are just ablaze for God. Well, see, they see all that.
And in our physical body, there's spots of darker or darkness where we are not submitted
to God. The glory doesn't shine through our body in those spots. Paul refers to that in 1 Corinthians 11
when he says that man is the glory of God. So the glory of God shines on man. It's supposed
to shine through man and woman is the glory of man. And where the problem comes in is if man
is not submitted to God, the light that's coming in doesn't reflect off into the woman and she
becomes more dark in the relationship because the glory comes to him and on to her. It's the
same concept here. When they're looking at us, if we have areas that are unsubmitted to God,
they're darkness. There are the darkness in us that God says, Jesus said, there's light in you,
but there's also darkness in you. How great is that darkness? They see the spot and that's
where they go to live, the dark hole. Depending upon how big of our, it depends upon how poorly
we're living for God because if we're really doing a really a poor job,
we have lots of darkness. Even though the light of God is in there, he's just kind of flickering.
Our spirit is just kind of flickering. Everything that has the life of God has light, everything.
That's why many times people say, well, I saw a demon at night. I said, how did you know
it was a demon? You've all heard this. You can see their eyes glow. Even though they're lost in sin,
they are sustained by the word, the life of Jesus. He, everything that he created, he
sustains and keeps it going. They are an eternal or immortal being, not eternal. Eternal goes
both ways and mortal goes future. Demonic spirits will never die because they have the life of God
in them. Same way you and I do. Our spirit has the life of God in us. Life always has a little
bit of light. Always. And if you study the concept of light through the New Testament,
you'll be amazed how light and God are almost synonymous.
In him was the life and the life was the light. It's almost synonymous. It's just amazing.
But anyway, so they look for dark holes. I'm getting excited, director. They look for dark
holes in us. They call them live holes or this being called them live holes. They said,
we either help the person to create one or we look for one and that's where we move in,
in the physical body. So I didn't add the scripture here because the full explanation
of it is in the next booklet. But I thought if this is God, this has got to be in the word.
And I found it. It's in Ephesians 4.27. In fact, let's have a little fun
in case we're not having fun yet. I know we won't get through this book tonight. So it's
no reason to panic. Ephesians 4.27, if you've got your Bibles with gold there with me,
if you would please, I want to show you something that once I saw this, I thought,
well, look at there. That's exactly what this being was talking about.
If you read it in, you can read it in whatever, if you read it in the new international version,
if you start, Paul is giving all kinds of things we need to do here to grow.
Verse 25, stop lying. Put off falsehood. Start speaking truthfully. Verse 26,
in your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.
And do not give the devil a foothold. Then verse 28, he who has been stealing must
steal no more, etc. That's how the NIV reads it. The amplified reads it.
When angry, do not sin. Do not ever let your wrath, your exasperation, your fury,
your indignation last until the sun goes down. Leave no such room or foothold for the devil.
Give no opportunity to him. The New King James says, do not let the sun go down on your wrath,
nor give place to the devil. So, different commentators disagree on
is the anger what gives place to the devil, or was that just another point that Paul was making?
Some say yes, because the way he worded it. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath,
nor give place to the devil is how the King James reads it. The amplified says,
leave no room or foothold for the devil. So, you're going to have to figure that out yourself.
Is anger the only thing that gives place to the devil? The NIV is not always the most accurate.
So, just keep that in mind. Do not let the sun go down where you're still angry,
and do not give the devil a foothold. And could be, well, you're angry,
so now you're giving him a foothold, or and could be, and by the way,
I've got another point to make. So, I'm not sure which one. But if you look at,
do not give the devil a foothold. The King James, I believe, says the word place.
The word place in the Greek, listen to this, do not give the devil a place.
It's a spot, general in space. Now put this to a human body. And what I just told you,
a live hole, or a dark spot. A place is a spot, general in space, could be anywhere,
but limited by occupancy. So, it's not, it's got limits to it.
It is a location, like a position, or a home. It's an opportunity. It's a license.
It's a room. Looking for a hole, a spot.
Don't give the devil a hole. Don't give him a spot. Don't give him room.
Don't give him a location as a position, or a home.
See, this is my home. Don't let them move in with you, home.
Don't give them an opportunity. The word place means opportunity. Don't give an opportunity.
Don't give a place. Don't give a room. Diablos is the word for devil there.
It means a traducer, especially Satan, a false accuser, a slanderer.
Diablos, don't give Diablos a spot in your temple.
Now, if you tie it to the previous verse, like some commentators do, they say,
well, letting the sun go down in your anger is what gives Diablos the ability to come
and move into your temple. He is a slanderer. He's a traducer. He's a deceiver.
Now, this part I think is interesting, and it's one of the reasons I kind of tie him
together. But it could stand on its own where Paul is just saying,
just plain don't give the devil a spot, and we're going to talk about how we could do that as
we go on. But I find this interesting, letting the sun go down on your anger.
So you're upset about something. You're angry about something.
I give people the benefit of the doubt. Let's give them 24 hours, because if somebody gets
angry about something after the sunset like now, well, they can stew on that for almost 24 hours
for the sunsets again. Or if I get angry at three in the afternoon in the winter, I really
got to deal with this quickly, because the sun's going to set early. So I kind of come from the
angle of 24 hours. However it works, before the sun, you know, if you can deal with it
quickly, so be it. But you better not go longer than a 24 hour cycle of the sun rising and setting.
Now, something that's interesting is this, going with that scripture. If you're angry
with someone about something, it's usually someone about something. If you're angry,
and you don't deal with that, and you go to sleep, your perception of that person and
the situation will hugely change by morning. And it doesn't change for the better.
You start getting negative thoughts about them. You start getting all kinds of questions.
Well, maybe they've been doing this all the time, and I just haven't been seeing it.
What gives them the right? I mean, and you get all this exactly the description
of Diablos. You get all this accusation, false accusations, slandering and producing,
going inside of you. And if you let this brew two, three days, the whole concept of
you know what? I am upset. I'm angry. And I'm just not dealing with this.
If you let this go, it will totally change you.
Treduce means, the Diablos is called a traducer, to expose, to shame or blame,
by means of falsehood and misrepresentation.
So, when you go to sleep, angry, you haven't started to resolve this yet.
You just go to sleep and you're mad. By morning, your thoughts and feelings
towards the person and the situation will be blame, and there will be falsehood
and misrepresentation that will have taken hold of you. You will be believing lies already.
And the longer you let it go, the more lies you'll believe, because that's what Diablos does.
And you gave him access to you by not dealing with your anger before the sun went down.
Or in other words, you went to sleep on it. He works when we're sleeping.
What does he look for? Well, evidently, unresolved anger is a black hole. It's a spot.
We're not in righteousness. And he slips right into that spot and starts whispering to us,
from inside the temple, and starts talking to us. And everything he's saying
is going to be to blame the other person, to slander the other person, to bring falsehood
about the other person on and on and on. I think they're tied together, but they may not be.
It might be a standalone statement of you just don't give place to the devil and going
to sleep in your anger is a way of doing it, but there's other ways of doing it too.
Go to page three. So if they can get in, does that mean if they get into a Christian that
they now own us, we're possessed? This is a question that comes up so often. Can a Christian
be demon possessed? When a demon has access to our temple, do they now possess us? Absolutely
not. No, possession means ownership. As Christians were bought by the blood, we are owned by our
Heavenly Father. We are not our own. We are His. So if a Christian is struggling with a demon,
they are not possessed. You can't be owned by two owners at the same time. You can't
have God owning you by the blood of Jesus and the devil owning you. Can't be done.
God redeemed us or bought us back from the kingdom of darkness, the devil. So we're now His bought
by the blood, not with silver or gold or perishable things, but by the blood of Jesus.
Well, when you buy something back, the other person no longer owns it.
So if you, if a person is struggling with having some issues, they're not possessed. Possessed and
speaks of ownership and it gives a number of reasons there and so forth. Jump over to page four.
However, Christians, I believe, can be demonized, letter B or letter C. We can give place or
we can give a spot to the devil in our physical body, like it says in C there and there it
says Ephesians 4, 27 doesn't open it up like it will in the next booklet, but it states it.
Demonized is found in the gospels. It's found two or three times in Acts. And what it means is when
people would come to Jesus with a demon, they would, the scripture calls them demonized.
Uses the word possessed, but it's actually demonized is the actual Greek word.
Demonized is a word that has a range from like one to ten. It's like you have blue food coloring in a
cake. You can have a little bit, just one drop, and it barely, you can see the blue, or you can
just squirt that in there and you got a ten. This, this cake, I mean this baby is blue.
That's demonized. You can be very mildly affected all the way over to severely affected, according
to that word. They are in there harassing you, trying to hold you in bondage, etc. And or you
can give place to the devil. That's how they get into our temple. And we'll go more into
this, but there is the scriptural, from my understanding, the scriptural basis. Now, yes,
I understand that demonized is used mostly in the gospels. It was used twice in acts,
one dealing with twice that I'm thinking of. I think it was three times, but twice I'm thinking
of. One is with the girl of divination who was following Paul, and these are men of God,
she was demonized. And then there's a scripture where Philip is out ministering. Philip was
an evangelist. And as he was ministering, he was dealing with people who were demonized and
were casting out demons. So does that mean they were saved? And then the demons manifested,
or were they manifesting before they were saved? We don't know. But it speaks of demonized,
and in that particular case, it could be referring to Christians. So if someone is
struggling with demons, we either gave place to them and let them in, or some kind of demonization
thing happened where they gained access, whether it be generational sins, sins of the fathers.
Demonized can also be talking about giving place. But there are, what my whole point is,
is there are references to people who can have demons in the New Testament without being owned,
without being truly owned by the devil. So let's move on. Do Christians need ongoing deliverance?
This has become an issue, and I spend I think 10 pages on it here. Quite a few. Six, seven,
whatever. By ongoing deliverance, I'm referring to being prayed over by others and having
someone cast something cast out on an ongoing basis. In other words, every, every week, every
other week, every third week, they got to have something cast out. Do Christians need this?
Absolutely not. It is not scriptural. You cannot find it in the word. It's just not there.
Do we need ongoing sanctification? Absolutely.
We need to, I mean, this is going to be a lifetime job. We got to grow. We got to change.
As we make the correct choices concerning our lives and sin, if there are demons there,
they'll leave. What happens with the, the, what I saw happen right out of the gates early on,
and of course I'm, I'm dumb as a rock and, and I'm seeing stuff I don't like and I don't
know what to do with, because I don't know what the Bible says about it and
et cetera. So I'm just flying by the seat of my pants. But it became an attention
getting thing for certain people. Some people like to get attention.
And negative attention is better than no attention at all.
So they were always having demon problems.
Oh pastor, I don't know what to do. If you prayed over me and I was just great for about
three days, and then it felt like it came back and what do I do? Do we need to get it
out again? And, and then you run into the people who like to fake manifestations.
And you feel in your gut and it's like, knock it off. This is not real.
But it's attention. You know, I had one lady just never forget. She would get in this. It's
like she could open her mouth like, wow. And she would claim that demons were manifesting.
And she'd open her mouth and put her head back and kind of groan. And it's like,
I went with it long enough to know, you know what, this ain't real.
You're drumming something up here. So I found out that if you get into casting things out
too readily, the people with a weakness towards that will just line up on a continual basis.
Well, I had some freedom and I lost it or I'm feeling better. Maybe another round would help me
and you just goes on and goes on and goes on. Problem is it's not in the Bible.
And when we start doing stuff that's not in the Bible, that's when it gets weird
and you get into false doctrine. And then it gets destructive, gets dangerous.
A2, we should be living free from the kingdom of darkness. Scripturally sin and the kingdom of
darkness have no authority over us. We don't need ongoing deliverance. We need to mature and take
our stand in Christ. Letter B, however, if we continue living in a way that is not in
submission to God, we can have ongoing problems. It's not that some of these Christians don't have
real problems, but the fix is not casting the spirit out. The fix is making them grow up.
That's the whole job of the five-fold ministry, by the way, in Ephesians
to mature the saints. He says it three times. It's the whole purpose for the five-fold
ministries to get us to grow up. And casting demons out doesn't make people grow.
It's kind of like driving through McDonald's and getting your quick order up and let's get
this fixed so I can go on in life. We need to grow. I talked there. Letter C, it's not found
in Scripture. There's a couple of indicators that it could happen, but it's just really,
really not found in Scripture that Christians need ongoing deliverance.
So page six at the top, I give my opinion. I can't speak around the world about the world
because I haven't been around the world. But in my opinion, in the United States,
I believe there's way too many believers that are half-hearted in their life for God,
their lukewarm, uncommitted, lazy, complacent, undisciplined, living, undisciplined
Christians' lives. There's many Christians who openly live in both kingdoms at the same time. Now,
whether they're still in God's kingdom or not is not for me to judge. But they do what the world
does and they live the way the world lives and they're Christians, quote unquote.
We've been taught a cheap grace that says we can live and do whatever we want and we're
still saved. And I believe this is a lie and a deception. It's entered the church
and this is what gives place to people who may be saved because they're not submitting themselves to
God's kingdom. They're actually submitting themselves to the other kingdom. Then it talks about
spiritual, some growth there, soul growth, spiritual growth, whatever you want to call it.
It's a natural progression. When we get born again, we're believers. The first thing Jesus
will do is he says, lay down your life and follow me. You've lost 90% or more of the American
Christians right there because American Christians don't want to lay down anything to follow Jesus.
They want to get to heaven, but they want to live their life their way. And to be a follower,
he says, you're going to be a follower of me. You have to pick up your cross. Cross speaks
of death to self. So there's some things that have to start happening. We have to start learning to obey
and then discipleship is a follower like on steroids. It just takes it to a whole new level.
A follower, Jesus says, and there's scriptures on page seven that lay out the basic qualifications
of a follower and a disciple, but a follower is told they have to sever some relationships.
A disciple is told you have to kill certain relationships. You can't just
sever them. They have to end. They have to be over if you're going to be a disciple.
The problem is the American church has gotten into making believers and not disciples.
And I think that's our problem. Why we have so much demonic stuff going on
in American Christians, because we got them saved. And if we can just keep them coming to church and
bringing their kids, we're happy. And the whole thing of let's disciple them.
What is God working on you right now that he's asking you to die to? He wants it out of your
life. Knock it off. Oh, that's a really negative message. That's the gospel.
Because as we die to it, we live more. That's the gospel. Death brings life, Roman 6.
The American church doesn't like that message. Don't tell me what I have to do to be saved.
Well, apparently to be saved all you do is ask Jesus to forgive your sins, believe in your heart,
he rose from the dead and confess it with your mouth. You're in now. You're a believer.
But I can tell you what you have to do to be a follower and disciple. And those scriptures
are on the next page. It lays it out really plainly. And I think the lack of that is what's
causing the church in America. You wouldn't believe the number of people who are Christians,
who are tormented by demonic spirits somehow in America. They see them at night. They hear them.
They smell them. They're trying to do things to women. I could just go on with stories and
stories. And they're Christians. And I'm trying to live for God. And why can they do this?
And well, the reason is you haven't grown sufficiently. To begin with, I thought, well,
we just got to cast them out. We just got to get rid of this. And it's just,
it's like a revolving door. You kick them out and they come back in. You kick them out.
There's worse. You kick them out, they come back in. And it's like, I'm missing something here.
Finally, I realized they're not holding their ground. You're getting them out,
but they're not keeping them out because they're not mature enough to keep them out.
They're not submitted enough to God to keep them out. They're not serious enough about
living their Christian life to keep them out. It's just kind of a half-hearted living for
God. And as a result, their physical body literally becomes a revolving door.
Page 8, the top. Deliverance is not the key to overcoming sin in our lives.
Obedience is. Sanctification is. Number two, it's the growth and maturity that brings us
to a point where we're not struggling to overcome sin and the demonic. First, John 2
talks about the child, the young man who's learning how to overcome the evil or the wicked
one and the father. There's a growth pattern there. We're not supposed to remain children,
nor are we supposed to remain young men. We're all supposed to become mature, be perfect or
mature, complete like your heavenly father is, Jesus said. And there's a growth process there
that we need to do. In the American church, we have settled on the end goal of making believers,
letter I. And I give characteristics of what I see the typical American church to be.
They're not very flattering, but they really line up with five of the seven churches in
Revelation. It's amazing when you just take these characteristics and go home and read through
the first three chapters of the book of Revelation, the last day's characteristics of the church,
seven different churches. You'd be amazed how many of these characteristics are just there.
He said it there. Jesus was not thrilled with the last day's church. And I think he's
really less thrilled with the American church. You know, I heard not long go of, because we have
missionaries coming to evangelize America now. And I heard one, he came from Africa,
he was a black man. He was coming for the first time in American church and asked him to come
and speak. He said, while I'm flying across the Atlantic, the Holy Spirit started speaking
to me. And he said, don't pick up what the American church is like.
He said, I'm sending you there to bring something different.
Don't cater to what they want. Bring what I'm telling you to bring.
And he said, well, give it to me. And he said a bunch of things. But when he
was sharing it, he said, I summed it up in one thing. He said, I could sum up everything
the Holy Spirit was telling me about the American church. American church is very selfish,
very selfish, very immature. That's the American church. We're not committed to much of anything.
10 to 15 percent of the people do all the work and they're just happy if other people show up
because we're content with making believers, not disciples. It should be 85 to 90 percent of
the people are involved doing something, serving God and the 10, 15 percent are just the new babies
who are just learning this thing. But it's the opposite because the American church is very lazy.
We're very selfish. We're very immature and we're kind of, we think life still revolves
around us. When we go check out a church, we're looking to see how it will serve us.
How old is that? Where all life revolves around me. We don't go to church to see
is this where you want me God? I could plug in and I could serve. I could minister here. They
got a weakness in that area. That area doesn't look like they're doing it at all and over here
they're not doing anything. I could help these people. I could minister. Is that how people
go church shopping? No. They want to know how good the band is. They want to know what the
children department is like. Does the nursery measure up to their standards? Were they greeted
when they walked in there? It's a bunch of immature babies. It's all about me, me, me, me, me. Meet my
needs, pamper me, take care of me. I want the best for me or I'll drive down the road and find
something that's better for me. Very selfish, very immature. That's why we have so much
demonic activity in the American church. We're not grown up enough to hold our own ground.
That covers that to page 11. This is where it actually starts in dealing with the land
and so forth. So we laid down the introduction.
Let me just say one thing here on occupying your land. I'll end our session for tonight.
We'll go into questions and answers if we have any. If we don't, I can go a little longer,
but go to page 12 with me at the bottom. It's all in capital letters, letter D.
So this is talking about holding your land and explaining a little bit on legal right and so
forth. I want to point... I feel like I'm supposed to point this out. If during the war
time of overcoming something in your life, and it is a battle, it is a war, it's a fight of faith,
if when you're struggling with something, you're trying to grow past something, you sense
that something has gained access to your body or your flesh again. In other words, a demon,
a spirit, and you can feel it living in your body.
Do self-deliverance and get rid of it. You get rid of it. Cast it out.
Hold your land.
And that you wouldn't believe how many people will come to me and say, I think I've got demons.
What do you think you got demons? I can feel them. What do they feel like? And then they'll
describe it to me. And by the time they're done, it's like, maybe you probably do have something.
It's not God. Whatever your feeling is not God. This is nasty. This is unclean. This is...
You know, I had one person not that long ago say to me, it's like something stirs inside my...
It doesn't feel like gas. It feels like electricity. It's like something stirs inside of me.
And I can feel it move. And it doesn't take just 30 seconds. And I will have the most dirty,
vile sexual thoughts. Just... Pastor, if I explain it to you, your face will turn red.
It's just nasty stuff. I said, well, it probably is not God.
No, I think I've got a demon. I think so too. See, they can literally feel them.
But what are you doing about it? American church?
Well, I don't know. I wouldn't know what to do about it.
Yeah, because we're all a bunch of big babies. Something is living in your temple with you.
It is affecting you. It is affecting your thinking. And you're not going, get out of here.
I don't want you in me. You've never said that?
Well, no, I thought a minister had to cast it out. See, that's how immature we are.
That thing should have been gone the first time you felt it.
We have to learn how to not only take our land, but hold our land.
And if it doesn't go, well, what, you know, we learned in the last booklet,
if it doesn't go, what do you have to do? What's got legal right?
You got to ask the Holy Spirit, why is it here? Now, I'll give you a hint.
The acorn doesn't fall too far from the tree.
If it's stirring like in this guy, it's stirring sexual weird, ungodly,
sexual desire and thoughts, feelings. It's probably a sexual demon.
Took a genius figure that one out, didn't it? It's doing what it is. It's job.
So the question is, what have you done sexually that opened the door to let this thing come in?
You're probably going to have to go back and confess that, repent of it, close that door.
Now you can kick it out and it'll stay out.
And I have one guy say to me, he enjoyed visiting strip clubs.
Christian, enjoyed visiting strip clubs.
And I said, this doesn't bother you. Here was his explanation.
It's like art.
I'm just enjoying the beauty that God created.
Never heard that one before. That's good. I don't know if you came up with that
or something. Drop that in your head.
I said, so it never causes you any kind of desires or feelings or hey, he wouldn't own that.
You know, so you come out of a strip club. You're a single guy. You come out of a strip club.
You still look at women as very wholesome Lee and your thinking and
sister in the Lord, mother in the Lord. I highly doubt it.
So there's an example of, now these were two different guys, but there's an example of the guy who said,
well, I feel it stirring in me and when it does, and I get all these nasty sexual
pictures and thoughts and all kinds of stuff. If it would have been the same guy, I'd have
said, I would start by repenting of the strip club thing and quit it. Knock it off.
If you want to get this out, you're going to have to deal with that. That's where I'd start.
That might not be the whole thing, but that one's pretty obvious. That's where I think I'd start.
But see now we're back to why the American church person is so immature
because we make every excuse site we can for all the sin we like.
Well, I don't see any problem with doing this and I know other Christians who do this
and blah, blah, blah, blah, and you know, it just, you can't judge me, pastor.
You can't tell me what I can do and can't do. I'm in grace. And Paul said,
everything's legal for me. He said that in Corinthians. Well, read the rest of the
section. Paul never condones sin. Well, he said, all things are awful for me.
So I can do whatever I want. See it's, that's the American church mentality.
And that's why churches like this one and TBO and Calvin Woods and I could name a number of others
who smack sin are not the biggest churches.
The biggest churches are the ones who stroke sin.
And keep people babies. They are not making disciples to keep making believers.
So to get free, you have to take the initiative. It's you who's going to do this.
It's you who gets to repent and confess your sin. It's you who makes the life choices
to live differently than what let the thing in. It's all on you. Now you can get help and we'll
be glad to help you. But don't come whining to me when we cast something out in a week later.
You come back and say, it's back pastor. I don't think you did a very good job. No,
it's not me who needs to hold your ground. You're the one who has to hold your ground.
I can't do it for you. You've got to learn how to take the stand and resist.
So we'll start showing that picture out of Exodus next week. This was kind of just
a bunch of groundwork that I felt needed to be laid because...
Well, let's just say it this way.
I want to take a survey now. Let's just say it this way.
How many people here, because we've got people coming from all kinds of backgrounds
for church, how many people here have gone to a church where they teach the congregation
in a forum that's a Bible study or a during a service or whatever,
how to deal with demons, deal with your sin, get your sin out so you can live free?
Yeah. Oh, here. Here don't count. Anything besides here.
See, Calvin does. I know he does because he talked to me about it. I don't go to his church, but...
So we've got one person who's been to another church who's addressed this stuff
to people who's addressed this stuff publicly from in a service. I'm not talking
about in counseling, talking about in a service.
Classes, that works. Classes of service. Something that's open to the public. Yeah.
Where counseling in my mind is when you and you can have two, three people in counseling,
but it's a closed private thing that that's different. I'm talking something open to the
public. We're exposing the body of Christ to the fact we're in a war and demons need to
be dealt with and they're locked into our sin and we can't live this life the way we want
to. We have got to learn to live this life the way he's asking us to. Or we're going to have
spiritual trouble. See now, of course, I came from a denomination that taught
Christians can't have demons. So they didn't teach us anything in Bible college or nothing
about this. I mean, I never heard it growing up. I never was taught anything in Bible college.
I went to the ministry believing what I had been taught, which is if somebody's got demons
to cure, always get them saved. So once the Holy Spirit moves in, demons can't be there.
So that's what I believed. That's what I thought. And I was shocked when it didn't
always pan out that way. So I didn't hear anything for the first 22, 23 years of my life.
I heard nothing that would point me in the direction of people need help.
Now, interestingly, my mother knew it, even though the church taught against it. She didn't
believe it. She said, I think the church is wrong on this one. I think we got it wrong.
I said, why? She said, I'll give you two examples. One you never saw.
And it was her father. He had an extreme temper. I mean, when he lost it, he lost it big time.
He had an extreme temper. Very committed man to God. I mean, absolutely very committed,
baptized in the Holy Spirit. He didn't know how to read. He learned how to read by reading
the Bible. And from my understanding, he never read much else. And you could bring up any story.
As he was older, you could bring up any story or any verse and he could get you into the
chapter, if not the verse itself. Well, that's in 2 Kings 3. I mean, he spent time in it.
She said, but his witness was lost because he couldn't control his temper.
And she talked to him one time. She said, dad, why? What happens with you? Because I've seen it and
you become like a raving lunatic. What happens with you? And he said, if I can feel it coming on,
he said, it's like something comes on and I end up sliding back inside myself.
And something else comes to the front. He said, if I can feel it coming on and catch it and stop it,
he said, I can maintain it. He said, but if I don't catch it early, he said, it's like something
slides me out of the way and I'm watching what's happening through my body.
The poor guy had demons that he never was able to get rid of. And after he described it to her,
she said, that's demonic. She said, I just know it. I have no reason to be able to prove it in the
word or anything, but that's demonic. That is not God's kingdom. And then she pointed one other
person out that I knew. And she said, have you ever seen that man angry? I said, well, kind of.
And I was in high school by this point. I said, well, yeah, from a distance, so to speak.
She says, next time he gets really angry, find a way to get up close to him and look him in the
eye. She said, what's looking out of him is not him. What's looking out of him is not human.
So I did. Mom gave me permission. So I waited for it. It wasn't often, but occasionally,
there'd be a, he'd get very angry. And I never talked to him or anything, but I kind of just,
he was ranting and raving, chewing somebody out. And I, holy cow. I don't know what that is,
but that ain't that man. The hate that would permeate you in, you look in the eye, it's
just like, I wouldn't trust, he wouldn't kill me right now if he, by what's looking out.
She said, that's not that man. She says, that's a demon.
Have any of you ever seen that in somebody? Yeah, a few of us. Yeah, to where they just,
and sometimes they'll, they won't remember what they said. They won't remember what they did.
They, they, it's like, I never did that. They will deny it. And I'm convinced it's like,
in my grandpa's case, he could remember everything that happened. He said,
sometimes it was like a fog, but he could remember it. But there's people who get angry,
who do things that later you confront them on it, and they will just flat out deny it.
I never said that. I never did that. I don't know who or what you're talking about,
but that was not me. I have no memory of that whatsoever.
Well, they were blacked out. The demon had totally taken over.
This is in the church. This is in the church.
And it's more prevalent than you'd guess,
because we live in America and we want to feel good gospel. We don't want a discipleship
gospel. We don't want to talk about what we're talking about right here. We want to
talk about all God's good things for us and how he wants to make us so happy and wonderful,
and he's going to take care of us, and all those things are true. But you need to flip the coin
over and look at some of the other side of what God has to say about life.
So that's why I think we're in the condition we're in. But we're going to learn how to
hold our own land, not only get free, but how to hold it and maintain it,
and then we'll be able to help others.