Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 190
TRANSCRIPT
How many of you were taught that if you leave demons alone, they would leave you alone? Or maybe you were taught that real Christians did not have to battle with demons? Some are even taught that demons do not exist. The truth is that demons really do exist and their purpose is to mess up your life. The good news is that we, as believers, have authority over them. In this week’s and next week’s podcasts, I am going to look at some of the methods of spiritual warfare we have available to us for protecting ourselves from the schemes of the enemy.
I’m Lee Whitman from Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom podcast. My first experience with deliverance from the demonic was terrifying. I was raised in a church that did not believe in demons, or if demons existed, if you left them alone, they would leave you alone. So, I had no experience with or understanding of deliverance. I went to work at a charismatic church while I was attending seminary, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which also did not believe in demons. One of the older ministers on staff invited me to join him in a deliverance session to give me some experience with deliverance. We were ministering to a 50-year-old 90 pound woman who had been deeply involved with the occult. She may have actually been a witch, but at that time in my life, I didn’t think witches were real. I thought they were cartoon figures who rode around on brooms. We spent a good hour talking to her and then we began praying over her. When the minister put his hand on her shoulder and began commanding the demon to leave, this little 90-pound woman got angry, and her face contorted into something you would see on a horror movie, and she literally threw this 190-pound man across the room. I was beyond terrified for two reasons. First, I had seen a demon manifest right before my eyes for the very first time. Remember, I was taught that they didn’t exist, and if they did exist, that if you left them alone, they would leave you alone. I learned in that one event that demons did exist, and they were out to kill us. Secondly, I thought she was going to attack me next, and I didn’t have any way to spiritually protect myself. I made a decision following that experience that I never wanted to have anything to do with deliverance ever again. Kind of funny how God works. Cindi and I are now the Executive Directors of a deliverance ministry, Restoring the Foundations. In RTF, we don’t see those kinds of manifestations that I experienced that first time. Chester and Betsy Kylstra have taught us how to take the demon’s legal rights away, making it quite easy to make them leave.
What is spiritual warfare? I’m glad you asked. Lucifer, who we know now as the devil or Satan, wanted to exalt himself above God in heaven. We see in Isaiah 14 that this brilliant angel wanted to rise above God, and due to his pride and arrogance, he was cast out of heaven to the earth. It says,
“How you have fallen from heaven,
You star of the morning, son of the dawn!
You have been cut down to the earth,
You who defeated the nations!
But you said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
And I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north.
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
Nevertheless, you will be brought down to Sheol,
To the recesses of the pit.”
Lucifer, who is known as Satan or the devil, is the ring leader. When he was kicked out of heaven, he took with him ⅓ of the angels who bought into Lucifers lies and rebelled against God. We now call these fallen angels demons because they are in league with and under the control of Satan. Revelation 12:4 says, “Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven crowns. And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and hurled them to the earth”. The great red dragon is a picture of Satan, and the stars are the angels that were swept away when Satan fell. The bottom line is that there is a real devil and there are real demons.
Satan and God, however, are not equals. In fact, Satan and God are not the ones in the battle because Satan is already defeated. He was defeated by Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. God has already won the big battle. The only thing Satan can do now is try to stop or hinder God’s plans and purposes here on planet earth. One of the ways that he attempts to hinder the purposes of God is by trying to keep humans from receiving Jesus Christ as their saviour. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” His first attack is to try and keep people from receiving Christ. Then once they do receive Christ and become children of God, he tries to keep them from maturing into all that God designed for them to become. This is where his demons come into play. Satan is only one being. But he dispatches these fallen angels to attempt to keep believers in Jesus from walking in the abundant life that Jesus died to give us. How do they do this work? By attacking believers. A verse we looked at on a previous podcast is 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, which says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage battle according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not on the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying arguments and all arrogance raised against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” These demons have the ability to put thoughts into the minds of believers that are directly against the true knowledge of God. This is where the battle with the enemy really takes place. In the minds of believers.
Since demons are real, we must learn how to do spiritual warfare to protect ourselves from their attacks. In this week’s and next week’s podcasts, I want to talk about different methods of spiritual warfare. The most commonly taught method of spiritual warfare is to put on the whole armour of God. We find this encouragement in Ephesians 6:10-17: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.Put on the full armour of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.Therefore, take up the full armour of God, so that you will be able to resist on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.Stand firm therefore, having belted your waist with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,15 and having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Putting on the armour of God to protect ourselves from the attacks of the enemy. But the armour that these verses talk about is mostly defensive. I played a lot of sports in my younger days, and no team has ever won a game by only playing defense. Defense is important in keeping the opposing team from scoring points. When you are playing defense, you are counteracting the moves of the opposing team. You are actively acting and reacting to their offensive plays. But only playing defense will never win the game. What if instead of only playing defense by putting on the whole armour of God, we went on the offense and took the battle to the enemy? One of the offensive weapons that we have as believers is found in Matthew 16:18-19, “upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
Binding and loosing is one very powerful weapon of spiritual warfare given to God’s people. When we exercise binding and loosing, we are bringing the power of heaven to earth. When we operate in our God given authority through binding and loosing, heaven is going to back us up. God, in essence, says, “I got you.” According to Pastor Tony Evans, to bind means to restrict, lock, tie down, hold back, keep it from doing what it wants to do. To loose means to unlock, release, permit, free something up. “Binding and loosing” is a biblical and rabbinical term representing authority to forbid or permit actions and to make binding decisions on earth that are ratified in heaven. It originates from Jewish tradition to mean prohibiting (“binding”) and allowing (“loosing”) behavior, and in Christianity, it denotes the authority granted to the church to legislate here on earth with the power of heaven. We are given the authority to bind the demonic here on earth, and to loose the work of the Holy Spirit.
This verse in Matthew says that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. The Gates of Hell is an actual location in Caesarea Philippi. While touring Israel, Cindi and I visited the place known as the Gates of Hell. Even 2000 years later, this place still feels evil. The main feature of this location was a cave, which is the headwaters for the Jordan River. According to historians “the pagans of Jesus’ day commonly believed that their fertility gods lived in the underworld, Scheol, and returned to earth through the waters that flowed out of the cave. They believed that the cave created a gate to the underworld, thus known as the Gates of Hell. At this site, pagans would do unthinkable things in worship of their gods. Jesus used the most famous place for demon worship to teach His disciples about the power we have to bind and loose. Just like the way binding and loosing was done in Jewish tradition, we have been given that same ability. We can bind demonic activity, prohibit it from operating, and we can loose the power of heaven onto the earth. When Cindi and I do RTF ministry we pray to bind the demons from doing their work of stealing, killing, and destroying. Then we loose the power of the Holy Spirit into our ministry room to bring heaven to earth.
I am going to continue talking about spiritual warfare in next week’s podcast. My hope is that you will take from this podcast the knowledge that you have the ability to bind, prohibit demons from operating, and loose, releasing the work of the Holy Spirit into your situations.
PRAYER
Father God, thank You for equipping us with the ability to prohibit the demonic from operating in our lives. Would You give us more understanding on how to exercise this authority? We don’t want to always be playing defense. We want to go on the offensive in order to defeat the work of the demonic in our lives.
Join us for next week’s Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast as we continue to talk about spiritual warfare.