Spirit of "---"

Last week I mentioned that one of my friends is involved in an activity which is common to the distraction of the Christian by evil and almost always ends with the Christian being mislead and ultimately defeated by that same evil.  The activity is Spiritual Warfare and how Christians get mislead is by seeing demons behind every yowling cat or flickering leaf.  Seeing evil becomes their focus - not the Sovereignty of God nor the Deity of Jesus - which we are told to concentrate on.

My dear sister Becka went to a Christian missions training camp back in the early 1980's, she was going to serve in the underground church in Albania.  She called me up so excited one night because she was learning about Spiritual Warfare and shared all.  Now, I had never heard of such a thing, but I knew what she shared was in direct opposition to what the Bible tells us: flee from evil!  This group was trying to hunt down Satan and make his efforts harder by turning people to God.  My Bible tells me that Satan is an Angel and as such much more powerful than man.  It would presume upon God to think He would back us up in attacking Satan, when we are told to flee from him in the first place!  Hmmmmmmm ...

As for Becka, well she was ultimately defeated seeing demons behind the steering wheel of every car which got in her way on the freeway!  She had taken her eyes off of God and literally was overcome by evil to such an extent that I was forced with her sister to institutionalize her and she is not "normal" to this day!  So, I am leery of anyone whom tells me of their success in Spiritual Warfare, I have seen the Christian casualties and those whom are truly successful have nothing to brag about because they know the cost at which it came.

Unfortunately, for a few years, against my will, I was dragged into Spiritual Warfare.  I do not care for it, I made all attempts to remain in-line Scripturally and I have to admit that there were some mighty odd encounters during that time frame which laid a very vivid foundation in me that evil is real, Satan is real and you had darn well better be drenched in Jesus blood if you expect to come out with your body, mind and soul intact!

I bang my drum against Western Theology and what America has done to destroy the Christian faith from the inside - corrupt Biblical teachers in its seminaries, publication of books for whom trees should have never died, all creating a shrinking Church because of the irrelevance of the Church today in the lives of the unbeliever (which includes most in a church service these days!).  And if the Church is irrelevant, so are your testimony and witness - because the Church has nothing to offer a lost world other than promises of materialism any longer or open acceptance of your sin.  Yeah, let us openly celebrate sin in the Church!

This is called the Spirit of Adultery.

The Church has left God and is following another doctrine, another god, another lover.  The vast majority of what is Christendom today will not fare well before God come judgment day I fear.

Anyone out there think they can turn an adulterous Church around?  Me either, but I can and do pray for God to raise up a revival - i just do not see it happening though and I worry as to why.  Is there no one gift of evangelism any longer?  Is the Holy Spirit no longer moving amongst us?

There are lots of "spirits" out there.  But the Bible covers what I just talked about - a corrupt people overcome by adultery to a false god (and boy do we have false gods by the handfuls these days!).  In fact it would seem that most of the Ten Commandments seem to have at their heart spirits or what we can call demons.

God is concerned about Himself and His relationship to us. (idolatry)
God is concerned that we appropriately respect His image He has built into each of us.  (murder, adultery, theft)
God is concerned when our focus is wrong. (pride, jealousy, envy, greed, coveting)
God is concerned that we respect marriage. (adultery)
God is concerned that we respect our bodies in purity of mind, thought and deed. (adultery)
God is concerned that we respect what is our neighbors. (adultery, theft, false testimony, coveting)

So you seeing the trend here?  What are the biggies of sin before God, all can have compelling, driving spiritual forces behind them!  But, you are not just suddenly afflicted out of the blue!  No you actually have to ask them for their help in dragging you down, which they will do willingly - fortunately, rare is the person whom would do this willingly!

Take lying.  I have known world class liars, they had NO ability not to lie, they were compelled to lie and could not understand why they always lied.  It was not until I became involved in a war against evil that I suddenly understood a few things:

My father was not a liar because he lied.
My father lied because he was a liar.
The spirit which drove him was one of lies, he never recognized this because he could not understand.
He had invited that spirit to help him lie because he wanted to lie and was willing to play evil's game.
In the end he never could see because he was blinded by this spirit.
And not being a Christian, could never have free himself (or be freed) from it.

Substitute your sin of choice in here and see how it reads out:

I was not an idolator became I was proud.
I was proud in my spirit because I was an idolator.
In being proud or participating willing in sin, I set myself up for oppression by evil, in this case pride. (idolatry)

(I have to use past tense here because that was shattered in my life in January.  And the one person I wish whom could understand and see this ... well I fear is past tense was well.  In fact, there is so little left of old me any longer ... )

What is important to understand here is that spiritual oppression, or possession, is the direct result of willingly falling into sin.  My fall was when my church turned on me and fired me as a pastor because I believed in the Holy Spirit (I refused to say the Holy Spirit was no longer active in the believer's life), my bride left me for my best friend, my friends at church abandoned me because I was in sin to had been disfellowshipped and my father believing me to be in idiot ordered me home and told me I was marrying a girl from the House of Burgundy!  No, sorry no lurid tales of sin here, I was in flat out rebellion to God because He had stripped me of everything.  I hated God.

And I had lots of future problems thanks to that period of "Good Bye to God".

I had to learn that there are consequences for every act of rebellion.  Nothing in my life did not affect those I cared for or whom surrounded me.  Sin always comes at a cost and one of them was my opening myself up to spiritual oppression.

So what to do?  You are suffering in this life trapped by a spirit of "---".  And not only are you not unaware of it but you have been lied to by Western Theology that you are strong enough to stand up to the very spirit which is oppressing you.  You probably have no idea if you are opposed or even what it is unless you can see yourself objectively.  And when you can, well, you need some Christian friends to help overcome this.

Your friends help, you are "freed", now what?

You had better be darn sure that you are now in right standing with God.
You had better be darn sure you renounce any and every sin you have ever thought of  or committed, and confessed all!
You had better have someone in place to be held accountable by!

These are not trivial matters, nor to be taken lightly.

I could write so much more, this is just the basics of a world that is not well defined for us and so much garbage you can read comes from the superstitions within the Roman Catholic Church, the corrupt Western Church and Hollywood.

Stay away from sin, if you can.
If you fall back into sin, you set yourself up for failure right off the bat.
Run if you are opposed.
Stand strong if you have to face the demonic world.
Understand that you have No authority or power over the spiritual world, only Jesus does.
Remember, demonic fate was sealed long ago.