Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
Your voice, be clear. That's your voice, be clear. And I'll share. Go ahead and give him praise in this place.
Thank you, Jesus, Lord, we bless your name. We praise you. We exalt the mighty name of Jesus. We thank you, Lord, that you died on that cross for our sins. You rose the third day, Lord. You've given us, Lord, the holy scriptures, Lord, to lead us and guide us. You've put your spirit within us, to lead us and guide us into all truth. And I pray today, God, that everyone here, everyone watching and listening, those who will watch and listen, Lord, that you'll give them ears to hear and a heart to understand that today, Lord, they'll not only just hear the word, but they'll be doers of it. Practice the word of God and do what they're taught. Father, we pray this in Jesus' name. And everybody said, amen, amen. All right, you may be seated this morning. Welcome, everyone. Fire and Grace Church, summertime. I know we got some traveling and gone to California. Be praying for your brothers and sisters that are traveling out there. The world is a crazy place now. Real quick before we get into the message this morning. Have y'all seen this? Rachel Jerry, she is one of our graduates from the Fire and Grace School of Ministry. In fact, she was our valedictorian last year, and she's written a children's book, Let There Be, Biblical Cosmology of Creation for Little Ones. So, it's really good. So, you know, I know a lot of people ask, is there any books for kids about biblical cosmology? Well, here we get, there is one. So, it's on, what is it, Amazon? You can get it on Amazon. And we know she is a, she and her husband, they are a godly, anointed couple. So, it'll be good for your kids, grandkids, whatever, support her and what she has done. It's good stuff, amen? All right, First Peter chapter five, that's where we're going to, we got a lot to cover here. I've been not sure, gotten into a deep little rabbit hole yesterday, back on the CIA website for a while. I guess they're like, he's back again, digging into some FOIA documents on some things. But I don't know how much that will get into, but last week I talked about discerning of spirits and discerning wolves in sheep's clothing, infiltrators. That is an important thing. Again, we sing in that song at the end, Holy Spirit lead me, we need discernment because everybody that says they're a Christian's not. Jesus warned us there would be wolves in sheep's clothing. We were told by the apostle Paul that there would be false apostles, deceitful workers who would transform themselves into the apostles of Christ, and that they would be like the ministers of righteousness, but not exactly,
and their end would be according to their works. And I guess if I had to title this today, I'm gonna title this Fighting Witchcraft. But it's really fighting the devil. But I wanna read this to you. We're gonna look through 1 Peter 5 today, and starting at verse one. He said, the elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed, feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder, yea all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time. Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil is as a roaring lying walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist, somebody say resist. Means to fight against. Somebody say fight against. Whom resist, speaking of Satan, resist him, fight against him, oppose him steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. Now, as I read this, there are principles in the kingdom of God that if you're going to overcome the devil, you gotta understand these principles, all right? And how I'm gonna talk, I'm gonna talk to you how to oppose and how to fight him today, but you have to have some things in order. First, let's put up James four, verse seven and eight. I want you to look that up. You can turn to it. Go ahead, James four, seven and eight. There's conditions here, but just hold your spot on first Peter five. We're gonna come back to that, all right? Because the fight is real, amen? Now, Paul said it's a good fight. Now, what's a good fight? A good fight's a fight you win, not when you lose. I've had some fights in my life, real fights, and it was more, I'd say it was better to win. I fought five guys one night, I lost.
That was unpleasant, okay? A visit to the emergency room that evening, but two of them went with me. So a good fight is a fight you win. But hear me what I'm gonna tell you right now. If you don't know how to fight and if you become passive in this spiritual war that we're in with Satan, you will lose. Just because you're a born again Christian does not mean you automatically overcome the devil. You have to actively fight and resist and you have to know how to do it. This is why the Bible says in Second Corinthians chapter two is say we're not ignorant to his devices. Hosea 4-6, what? My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. So it's really up to us to learn how to fight, all right? Now, here's what these principles I'm gonna give you first before I get into some things about how you resist. It says submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Now, let's pause right here for a second. If you don't have the submit yourselves therefore to God first, you will not be able to resist the devil. You might try, but if you're not truly submitted to God, meaning you're submitted to obey his word and you're submitted to the principles of his word and you are truly trying to walk with him according to his word, according to the scriptures, you can just forget what I'm saying because if you go after the devil and you're not truly submitted to God and obedient Christian, he's going to whip your tail. He's going to tear you apart. This is not a game. We don't play with, you know, it's like little children playing with a gun or a sword or a knife. We just, you don't play with it. You learn to do what is right and then you can be trusted, right? Now submitting to God, then he says, resist the devil. Again, here's that resist and he will flee from you. That means to, again, fight against, to oppose. It's something you have to do. And see, this has been the big error in the body of Christ for decades. They have taught basically once you get saved that the devil can't touch you. I remember the old Pentecostals, can't cross the bloodline. And I'm like, they're getting beat to death. That all sounds fine and dandy. You don't get to sit there and do nothing. Just because you're a Christian, you're born again, yes, the blood of Jesus has washed your sins away. And yes, there is a degree of protection, but there is a war that we're in and passivity will not win. I tell people all the time, if you get in the ring with the devil
and you don't put your guard up, you don't put your armor on and you don't start throwing some fists, you're gonna lose, all right? And what I've found out, I don't care how long you've been doing this. The fight never quits. I'm 37 years in. It hadn't slowed down at all, right? He wants to knock you down and to knock you out. Now look at the next verse right after this. He says, draw a night of God and he will draw a night to you, cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, you double-minded. So he's telling you again, here's the principle. If you're not a person who really wants to draw and come near to God and purify your heart and be a pure, again, holy Christian, he's re-emphasizing this, you're not gonna win this war. You're not gonna win it. If you constantly wanna feed yourself with the things of the world, then that's what you're gonna be and you're just gonna be beat up. I tell people, people contact us all the time about deliverance. I tell people all the time, casting demons out of people's easy. That's easy. Jesus said in my name, you will cast out demons. Casting demons out of somebody, getting somebody to truly repent, live for Jesus and learn how to fight so they can stay delivered is to me the biggest, it's 90% of it. Then if we can get that in you, how to fight and how to stand and how to resist, then you can go through deliverance and you can stay free. But if I take you through deliverance prematurely and you're not a fighter, guess what's gonna happen to you? You're gonna get whipped and then the Bible says seven more, you're gonna get seven times more the demons you had before and you're gonna end up worse. So this is why I don't jump into deliverance with a lot of people real quick because I wanna make sure that they're walking with Jesus and they're on fire for God and they know how to fight. You gotta have the basics of how to do this spiritual warfare. Now, let's go back to 1 Peter chapter five. Again, some of these principles, submit to God. Draw night of God by cleansing your hands and your heart by repenting of your sin, not living in it, all right? But here's some other principles and this is something I'm gonna tell you right now if you don't get ahold of, I know it's contrary to the American way because we're a bunch of rebels, but it says here, he's talking about him being an elder and he says likewise ye younger, verse five, submit yourselves unto the elder.
Yea, all of you be subject one to another, be clothed with humility for God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble and then he says humble yourselves therefore unto the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time. This principle is probably one of the areas that gets most people in trouble. It's because they don't listen to elders. They don't take heed to correction, to counsel, to advice from people who have walked with the Lord for a long time. And I'm gonna tell you right now, if you don't have a heart to submit to an elder and to, when you've gotta make a big decision or whatever, yes you pray, yes you seek God, but you should also seek godly, wise counsel from people who have been walking with Jesus for a long, who have a proven life. I mean we don't just seek counsel from anybody. Trust me, if you wanna do something bad enough, you can find people who will tell you yeah, they'll agree with you. Who you should listen to are the people who say hmm, maybe you oughta slow down. Maybe this is not right. This is what blows my mind is that this is in the Bible. In fact, let's go to Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews 13 verse seven. This is why in our school of ministry, you have to take a class on the book Spiritual Authority by Watch My Knee. Because again, I love it, you know, the Asians have this down. You see it in the Asian culture. There's more of a respect for elders. You saw this in the Middle Eastern culture. There was more of a respect for elders than we have today. In America, no, the young people think they know everything. And I'm talking about the young Christians. They think they know everything. They think they got everything handled. And I just watch them just blow through things and just not listen to anybody. And like I'm watching one young man now, he's headed for pain and destruction because he wouldn't listen to multiple counselors who came to him and said you're making a mistake about who you're about to marry. About to marry a woman full of witchcraft. But won't listen. But what does it say here? It says, remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation. What? Who have the rule over you? Go to verse 17. Again, I'm gonna get hate mail because of this. Because we're a bunch of rebels in America. What does it say here? Obey them that have the rule over you
and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you. Now granted, there have been ministries in the past that got into control of people's lives and manipulation and that kind of thing. And that's not what I'm talking about. But again, I marvel when people want counsel or especially they want me to marry them. And we start doing some premarital counseling and boy, it just, things get revealed. That's why I don't marry people without premarital counseling. I've done it in the past and it's always been a mistake. But you gotta find out what's really going on. And just say, we just had a brother that because of premarital counseling got saved from a terrible mistake that was about to be made. But he listened to his elders. He listened to counsel and truth and it got revealed. Now, again, this is a principle that if you don't get down in you, then the devil will be able to mess with your life. He will have an open door because remember, I love what Watchmanee says about this when he talks about spiritual authority and submitting to elders and listening. He says that, you know, you have to understand that Satan's fall was not because he was a drunkard or a sexual deviant and with any of those things, he failed because what? He rebelled against God's authority. He didn't wanna be under God's rule anymore. He wanted to do things his own way. And this is what he's talking about. Watchmanee says in his book, Spiritual Authority, you can walk with Jesus in doctrine. You can be correct doctrinally, but be walking with Satan in principle if you're rebelling against elders and authority. Now, what's interesting, and I heard, I think it was one of my old pastors way back in the day, when he's talking about this, he said, when it says humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. And he said, what he believed that to be in the context of this, when he's talking about submitting to elders here, he said that the hand of God, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, that God has put these in the church for the equipping of the saints, right? Ephesians chapter four, there's a reason. And this is a reason why you need to find, if you're a Christian, if you're a born again Christian, you need to find a true pastor, a true prophet, true apostle, true ministers, a true church,
even this was a small group of people meeting in a house. It doesn't matter. You need to find elders. And I remember when I was a young man, I understood this principle and it was hard to find. Sometimes it's hard to find people that you know you can trust, but I found some people. I found some people that had been in the ministry for 40, 50 years. And I submitted to them and I learned from them. And when I had a big decision, yes, I prayed and fasted over it, but I would go get counseled because what does the Bible say? Proverbs 24, in the multitude of counselors, there is safety and with good advice, you make war. In fact, put that one up so they can see it. I can't remember exactly what, I think it's verse three or somewhere in that area, but Proverbs 24, I don't know why my voice is, I've been yelling at anybody or anything, I don't know what's going on. Maybe it's because I cut grass yesterday, I guess I got something blooming that's bothering me, I guess, I don't know. Y'all got it yet? Multitude of counselors, there is safety, with good advice, make your war. Now I'm not gonna keep harping on this, but this is something that humility, humility means that you don't think you got it all together. And you go, you know what, I need the body of Christ. I need the elders, I need the fivefold ministry. I need my brothers and sisters and I need to bounce things off of people. I need to ask questions, I need to say pray for me. You know, this idea I got it all together is, you know, if you get that attitude, that's what pride is. I'm all the time asking people to pray for me. I'm all the time asking people, what do you think about this? You know, it's, I guess you get a little bit older and you find out it's easy to make mistakes if you don't check the boxes, right? Now let's go to the other principle right here, verse seven. Y'all saw that by wise counsel, make thy award and the multitude of counselors, there's safety. Was that Proverbs 24, six? Am I seeing that correctly? But the next thing he says, is casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. That means all your fears, your anxieties, you can't be a worry ward. When I used to, I remember I used to go to the church on the rock in Rockwall, Texas, when I lived out in Texas,
Dr. Larry Lee, he was an anointed teacher. And one of these said, he said the 11th commandment of church on the rock was thou shalt not sweat it, right? Worry is a sin. Worry, you're supposed to cast these cares upon the Lord and trust him with it. This is another area that if you constantly allow fear, anxiety, and these things to torment you, and you don't cast them upon the Lord and trust him, you're going to end up in the pit, okay? So these are some principles leading up to the verse, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil is as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour. Guess what that's seeking there? It's a present tense Greek verb, continuously, ongoing and in the present, he's constantly seeking how he can vary, and he says be sober and be vigilant. Now let me just go ahead, what does it mean to be sober? It means you're not high on marijuana every day, or every other day, or alcohol. You understand what I'm saying? You don't live a life on, I know there's a lot of, there's a lot of Christians out there smoke marijuana regularly, think it's okay. God made it, it's a plant. Well, let me tell you, back in the day, I smoked it too, and being high is not being sober. And then we got a lot of sipping saints, and not so just sipping. So I told y'all, I heard about this, David Crowder, the popular musician, there at the Passion Church over in Atlanta with, what's his name, Luke Giglio, and great, talented musician, so-called Christian, find out that he loves to drink whiskey, that him and his buddies after prayer meetings and worship services go to a bar and clean them out. Let me just go and tell you right now, you drink two or three shots of whiskey, and you're starting to get lit up, if you know what I mean. I mean, we're not talking about just drinking a beer, we're talking about pounding liquor. And I'm just like, these are a bunch of Christians, and the Passion Conference over, there's one of the biggest conferences in America when they have it every year. And who's up there leading worship most times? David Crowder. I was blown away, he just talks about this freely. You're like, what Bible are you reading? Be sober means, guess what? Be sober.
If you're using marijuana all the time, and getting drunk with alcohol, you are opening the door to demons. You will not be able to resist the devil. And trust me, I remember the days of when I would start getting drunk. Let me tell you what happens when you start getting drunk, especially with liquor. You start getting drunk. Immediately, your resistance to things that you would never do, you will do. Everything that I said I wouldn't do that I ended up doing was because I was drunk, or high, or both. I remember saying I would never do drugs, but I would drink, and then I ended up what? Doing drugs. But here's the thing, let me just go and tell you this right now. You start getting drunk, especially guys, I don't know about women. I know there's a song that says tequila makes her clothes fall off. So I mean, maybe it affects women the same way, but you start getting drunk, and that sexual lust goes, it can go from 10 to 100 real quick. So this is why it says be sober. And then it says be vigilant. That means you can't be like checked out. You gotta be focused on what's going on. And this is, you're gonna understand as I get into this a little further, because this is just the introduction, all right? But you have to pay attention. It's not something that you can just go, ah, la dee da dee da, I don't care, because the war is constantly coming at you, and especially witchcraft. And this is something that a lot of Christians don't understand, and they think that they're just immune to the effects of it. But this is where, you know, we have two things going on. We have the normal demonic, satanic attacks that will come against us. And then we have the people who worship Satan or follow Satan who begin to attack us, okay? And I'm gonna explain how they attack us. All right, there's really just a few ways. This is how witchcraft works. Now let's put up Proverbs 18, 21, because this is a principle that they use. And this is actually something Christians do to each other as well. It's the power of words. Really, witchcraft is simply, incantation spells are simply words spoken against you. And let me go in and tell you right now, words have life and power.
They're not demons. Somebody say words are not demons. This is where we can, this is why you can bind the devil sometimes, right? And yet your oppression and the attack doesn't stop, because there are words coming at you. Remember Jesus said the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. All words have spiritual force behind them. This is why this is scripture says, death and life are in the power of the tongue and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Death and life's in the power of the tongue. Our enemies know this principle, okay? And they are constantly speaking against us. That is what a spell is, all right? We say, but it can affect a Christian. Oh really, really? Look at Psalm 55. David was always battling this. And I think Psalm 55 really bears it out here. I'm gonna turn here. See, I've been fighting witchcraft since day one. When I came back to Jesus, and actually really I was fighting it before, I didn't know how many Satanists were around me, even when I was a child. And the things that I went through as a child, it was all Satanism. Psalm 55, let's look at this. Verse one, David praised this. He says, give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not thyself from my supplication. Attend unto me and hear me. I mourn in my complaint and make a noise. Why? Why is he mourning? Why is this battle going on with him? And he says, because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked, for they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me. You hear what they're saying? It's the voice, it's the words of the wicked are casting this upon him, and this is what he's feeling like. He says, my heart is sore pain within me, and the terrors of death are falling upon me. Fearfulness and trembling hath come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me. Oh, he said, and I said, oh, that I had wings like a dove, that I would fly away and be at rest. He said, I wanna escape this. And then he, I love the verse nine, he says, destroy, O Lord, and divide their what? Tongues. For I have seen violence and strife in the city. So he's saying it's coming from what? Their tongues.
It will skip on down a little bit, but he says this about them. Verse 21, he says, the words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords. Do you see that? And there's many places, David talks about this oppression, this oppression he was going through, and this attack, sometimes it's depression, sometimes it's fear, sometimes it's, sometimes it even gets into physical, but he's saying it's because of the words of the wicked that they're casting upon me. So you say, Pastor Dean, how do you deal with this? How do you deal with words versus demons? Well, first of all, let's deal with, let's say with demons, and I'll get to this in a minute, but with demons, we bind them in Jesus' name. We rebuke them, we bind them, and we command them to stop their maneuvers against us in Jesus' name. And I'll cover those scriptures in a minute. But with words, we have to say out loud, I break their curses and their words off of me. Let's go to, what is it, is it Isaiah 54, I believe. Oh goodness, why am I forgetting this verse? Yes, verse 17, I was right. Isaiah 54, 17. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every what? Tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment. God will deal with, you shall condemn. The word condemn is a bad word in the Hebrew. It means that you put the judgment upon it, meaning you speak against it, you reverse it. Now, we don't curse the enemy. That's not what I'm talking about. We don't curse people. We bless those that curse us, right? But we have to, we have to literally, we have to condemn, come against the words, the tongues that rise against us. This is what witchcraft is. I'll give you an example. One time, and I've shared this in many of my sermons over the years, but this was unique. I was pastored in the church in Montgomery, Alabama, and I came under this heavy oppression. Now, this was a time in my life too where I was fasting a lot.
I was praying a lot. I was studying a lot. I mean, I was just living for Jesus. I wasn't in sin. I wasn't compromising. I wasn't walking in lukewarmness or laziness. And, but this oppression came in. I mean, it was heavy. It was thick. It was dark, right? I mean, I just, it was almost like I could be outside in a bright, sunny day. And yet I seemed like I was walking in a cloud of darkness and it just surrounded me. And it was spiritually, mentally, emotionally, it was just stifling, all right? And I remember I started binding the demons and rebuking them. Didn't lift off of me. Fasted for a few days, right? Even started, even said I break the curses and spells being spoken against me. Didn't lift off of me. And I'm like, what is going on? And so finally just, I got exasperated and I was praying for a few days. And I mean, again, I can't tell you how heavy anybody been through. Some of these were just like darkness upon you, right? And I remember saying, I'd fasted about two or three days and I said, Lord, what is this? And finally I heard him speak to me and he said, 200 witches have agreed in prayer against you. Specifically gave me the number 200 witches, 200 Satanists are praying in agreement against you. Break the curses of these 200 witches is what he told me. And so I obeyed the Lord. I said in the name of Jesus, I break these curses of these 200 witches in Jesus name. Immediately, the heaviness, that spiritual heaviness and darkness lifted off of me. So sometimes you need information. You need to know what's going on, okay? So you got to get information from who? Holy spirit. How you gonna get that information? Prayer and fasting, right? And I found out this and you can write this down. This is just my experience over the years is that the more specific you can be at praying against something, like if you know a person is a witch, say their name. I bind the demons coming from Susie Q over here. I bind the demons and I break her curses, spells and incantations off of me. You have to say this. And this is part of the war we fight. Now, sometimes I know, sometimes you're gonna know, sometimes you don't know, right? But you have to do this. There are tongues you have to do. Now, let's go back to binding demons because there's a lot of, we haven't had somebody comment on, I think it was last week or the week before, comment on the Facebook as the sermon was going on that it's not biblical to bind demons. Oh Lord, have mercy.
Now, I don't know where they got that, but I can tell you for a fact that I know that my brother and two of my friends that I led to Jesus back in the day, went to the assembly of God Bible College down in Florida, down in Lakeland, Florida, what is it called? Southeastern seminary or something like that. Well, they told me because they would come back on breaks and stuff. And the Lord told me, I wasn't going. I remember when the Lord, I would say, Lord, let me go to Bible College. He would say, no. And I remember when they came back, so I would mess with them. I'd say, what are y'all learning down there? And I remember all of them saying this to me. They said, we're learning how not to be. And then they told me that their professors were actually teaching that it was not biblical to bind demons. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Now, their whole stance was that Matthew 18, when it talks about Jesus says you have, I've given you the power and ability to bind and to loose, they said, oh, that's in the context of forgiveness. So all that has to do is forgiving those who have hurt you. True, that is true. But see what they do, and this is where all false teachings come from is that they ignore other passages, right? So let's go to Matthew chapter 16 and look at the context of what Jesus said here. Go to verse 13. Hallelujah. I don't know if we're ever gonna go home today. That's right. Good thing, eat a hearty breakfast before you come to church, right? I guess I ought to turn there, shouldn't I? And these are things, again, these are things that I've taught before. I guess I'm getting a little more specific today about witchcraft. But here's the principle. This is Matthew chapter 16. We're going down to verse 13, and this is what he said. When Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples saying, who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, some say that thou art John the Baptist and some Elijah and others, Jeremiah, one of the prophets, and he saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed art thou Simon, Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven, and I say also unto thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shall bind on earth shall be bound in the heaven of the spirit realm, whatever thou loose on earth shall be loosed, shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Then he charged his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. Now, what is the context of this? Is this talking about forgiveness when he talks about binding and loosing, or is he talking in the context of the gates of hell not prevailing against the church? So he's talking about the keys of the kingdom, binding and loosing, in context of spiritual warfare. Then we have Matthew 12, where Jesus taught it again in the context of spiritual warfare. Matthew chapter 12, go over there. Let's back up a little bit. Verse 22, he says, then was brought unto him one possessed with the devil, blind and dumb, and he healed him in so much that the blind and dumb both spake and saw, and all the people were amazed and said, is not this the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, this fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beals above, the prince of the devils. And Jesus knew their thoughts and said unto them, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself, how then shall his kingdom stand? And if I by Beals above cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else, how can one enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods, except he first bind a strong man, and then he will spoil his house? Do you see that? Jesus, in the context of casting out demons, dealing with the demonic, he said, you must, what? First, bind the strong man. There's only two times Jesus said, do something first. He said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. And then he said, first, bind the strong man. So if he says, do this first, that means it's important, right? Can I tell you right now, binding demons is important. And let me explain, there's a difference. Binding a demon is not the same as casting a demon out, because we shouldn't go around casting demons out of unsaved people. That's a very rare situation that you'll ever run to. That's a whole other sermon on can Christians have demons? Yes, they can. Can a Christian, if a Christian can sin, a Christian can have a demon, right? Because that's what opens the door. But that's not what we're talking about today. But what? Here's what you do. Binding demons is a temporary suspension halt upon a spirit that's working. It could be working through a person, it could be working attacking you. It could be in a situation at work, it could be in a church. But if you know, you discern a spirit is working and you can't cast it out because the person's not ready for that, but you need that spirit to be halted and stopped
in what it's doing, then you must say in Jesus name, I bind the demon spirit. Let's say for instance, that a person you're at work and there's a, you know, you're a married person and there's another person there trying to, with the spirits of lust and adultery, trying to lure you and tempt you into that. What you need to be doing every day when you get up or when you go to work or when you walk into the bathroom at work or whatever, when you're kind of apart from, is say in the name of Jesus, I bind the demon spirits of adultery and lust and hoardums and perversion in this person. I do not receive it. I command them to stop their maneuvers against me. I bind them in Jesus name and you will see them cease in those operations. Again, under the condition that you are submitted to God, somebody say, well, I did it and it didn't work. Well, maybe you're not where you need to be. You know what, we have a funny story about this. My wife, you know, taught my wife these principles and she's heard them so long. And then we had a situation where one of my family members who has issues, demonic issues, was came over into our property, cussed out some of my church members that aren't here today but they cussed them out. I mean, just cussing in front of the kids and everything. I'm out there trying to talk. I'm on the phone with somebody else and this woman is just running her mouth, just fighting, just nasty. It's just demon possession. So she's out in the yard and I'm out in the yard. I'm on the phone. There's other people, her family's out in the yard, you know, her children, it's all cousins, you know, it's family issues, right? I mean, this is a long time ago, but it's funny. But Nancy was up on the porch with our church members and she just finally just said, I bind the demons in her in Jesus' name. The moment she said that, her feet flew out from under her, she hit the ground on her butt. Nobody was even around her. Nobody was close to her. Or, you know, if I'd have been close to her, she'd accuse me of knocking her down, kind of like Greg Locke. But she, you know, she bound the demons, and her command was to shut up and go. She shut her mouth, got up, walked off our property and didn't come back for six months. And when she came back, the next time she was nice. And we remembered that we had to just, you know, you have to do this because it's kind of like you do it, it's a temporary suspension. And so you have to, we would have to remember,
oh, we hadn't bound the demons in this person in a while, we need to bind them in Jesus' name, okay? And sure enough, I mean, over time, things got better and better and better. And so, you know, I mean, they're not perfect. She still, she hadn't been through deliverance, but we get along okay right now. And then when she, you know, when the demons start getting active, they start getting a little hyped up, we would remember, oh, we gotta bind the demons in her again, all right? This is, it's powerful. When my mom, I've shared it, when my mom came home that night, then cussing me and my brother out, and my stepdad pulls a gun on us, and everything else that went crazy that night. My brother, I was dealing with the stepdad pulling a gun on me. My brother was in the kitchen with my mom. She's screaming at him. They're drunk, you know, they've been out drinking. My brother just finally just looked at my mom, straightened her face, I bind you in Jesus' name. I bind the demons and you're gonna come in and shut up. Man, she shut up and went over and sat down at the table. She didn't even know what happened to her. And then my stepdad finally went in his, we finally got him in his bedroom, and he passed out. And we were able to talk to my mom about Jesus for the next couple of hours, calmly. And she sat there and had a conversation and listened to different worlds. But if we, if my brother had not bound the demons in her and commanded them to shut up, then we wouldn't have got anywhere with her that night. You understand? This is a powerful, powerful tool we've been given. I tell people all the time, it's like car keys. She said, I've given you the keys to the kingdom. If I give you the keys to my car and say, I do whatever you want with it, Doug. You can use it however you want. And you just put the keys in your pocket and never do anything. You don't benefit from the use of that vehicle, the power of that engine. You don't get anything out of it. Well, I got the keys of the kingdom in my pocket. Well, good for you. You can't get anywhere. And let me just make this clear. There's a bunch of people that are wrong about, we don't lose demons. There's actually teachers that have taught that you lose demons. No, we bind demons. Everybody say this with me. We bind demons. We lose people, okay? Another thing, just while we're talking about this, we don't command angels either. We don't lose angels. We don't command angels. Even Jesus didn't command angels. He said, I could ask my father to send them. There's a bunch of people teaching out there that we can command demons. I saw L.A. Marzulli teaching that nonsense. Command the demons. No, give me, huh?
I mean, command angels. That's why I'm sorry. We, but I heard him saying that. I actually clipped that. I'm like, where's he getting that from? Was that, yeah. Yeah, that's another thing. If demons start talking, like they manifest in somebody, we don't take their information and then use it. I mean, Jesus always says, Jesus said, hold your peace. Shut up. Stop talking. Come out of it. It's not, and this is another thing. This is one of the things I have a problem with certain deliverance ministries that wanna show. And they wanna just aggravate demons and talk to them and make them manifest so that they can get it on film and look like they're super spiritual. That's not the way we do it. And to me, you're abusing a person because you shouldn't want a demon manifesting in a person. You should love and respect that person enough to not want to make it a show. It just bothers me deeply when I see that. But we got people that wanna build a big following and a big name, so that's what happens. So let's break this down real quick. We've got two things when you fight in witchcraft. You gotta bind demons and the more specific you are, you bind them and command them to go from you in Jesus' name. You've gotta break the curses and spells. And the more you know about, I know because of leading people out of witchcraft and Satanism and things, I know some of the curses and spells they do, like cage curses, death and destruction rituals. They'll do lust curses on you. I just start breaking all kind of stuff off. I just break it off. I break their curses, their words, their spells, their incantations toward lust or confusion or doubt or fear. You just break their curses. Now I'm gonna talk to you about another little part here. We also, we fight demons, we fight words and we fight human spirits. Oh, human spirits, yes. It's called astral projection. Some call it astral travel, okay? Now this is a technique that all, really all Satanists, witches, occultists, New Agers, Eastern religions, they all try to get to this place
where they can, their spirit can travel outside of their body, all right? And you know, there's been studies, I spent, this is what I spent hours yesterday. Even though I've studied this, this is a very real phenomenon. And look, it's in the Bible. We know that God took Ezekiel's spirit out of his body when he was in Babylon and took him to Jerusalem and to the temple and showed him everything that was going on. He saw everything that was going on. You could look at Ezekiel 8, 9, 10 there. We know Paul said, when I'm there, he was in a different place. He said to the Corinthians, when I am there in spirit, then we will judge this matter, okay? I believe that John was caught up, his spirit was caught up into heaven and his body stayed here. Now God can do this and let me make this clear. And I talk about this in my book, The Polited Church, I deal with this very specifically. This astral projection or your spirit moving out of your body and going places is not what Christians are supposed to do. We are not to do this. We are not to do any type of meditation, visualization, any type of technique so that we can do this at will. If you do that, you are opening the door to a demon and it is a demon spirit that is now formed a link between your soul and spirit and it is demonic. God can do it. God can take our spirit out and show us something and take us somewhere. But it's his will, not our will. Y'all understand that. Let's put up, I sent you the pictures that I took out of Dr. Rebecca Brown's book. He came, these are just, I just took screenshots. But this is, we have, of course, according to 1 Thessalonians 5.23, we have a spirit, a soul, and a body. And before Adam sinned, there was a link between his soul and spirit, which is why he could see God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. There was no, because again, your spirit body allows your soul, your mind, will, and emotions to see and perceive both the spirit realm and the physical realm, okay? But your spirit is how it's, your spirit body has eyes, ears, mouth, I've said this, you have a full spiritual body. And the Russians, as I'm studying some Russian documents, learned how to photograph this and actually saw that the spirit, as it came out of somebody, actually had mass as well. And they've actually weighed this. They've had a person dying on a scale and when their spirit left, they became lighter.
Your spirit is tangible, okay? And it can, through a link, it can travel out of your body. Now that link that enables it to travel out of your body will either be the Holy Spirit, God doing it sovereignly, or you doing it through some type of Eastern meditative practice, guided visualization, the laying on of hands of a guru or some witch or Satanist or spiritual thing. But this is their goal in everything. Now let's go show you what happened. So at the fall of man, the link was broken. See there? This is why they began to focus on the spiritual. This is, I mean, the physical and not the spiritual. Remember, they knew they were naked. Well, how did they know that? They were, I believe the glory of God lifted off of them. I believe actually they were clothed with the glory of God. And when they sinned, the link was broken. They couldn't see anymore and they realized they were naked. So the focus became from spiritual to physical. And this is the way we live. Now let's keep going. See, after the fall, there's no link. And this is something God doesn't want us, but Satan uses demonic force to build a corrupt link in fallen man. This gives man conscious awareness of his spirit body. The link enables him to consciously communicate with the occult spirit world via his spirit. Everybody see this. Now, people that have astral projected out of their bodies through these demonic techniques, they will also say that they see that between their body and their spirit, they can turn around, sometimes look back at their body, like laying on a bed or sitting in whatever they're doing. They see this silver cord attached, okay? And there is a reference, it's funny, many of them talk about the witches and Satanists and occultists that do these things, talk about this and the silver cord is actually mentioned in the Bible, right? Ecclesiastes, I'm just looking it up. I can't remember the exact verse now. Ecclesiastes 12, six, turned to there. And it's in the context of life and death. Now, some have said that because Solomon got into paganism, human sacrifice, he got into all forms of occultism
that he learned about this, that he learned about astral projection. And obviously he had knowledge whether he, some of his pagan witch wives explained it to him or he experienced it himself. We know that his heart was turned away from the Lord, I don't believe Solomon ever came back to the Lord. I don't believe he made it to heaven, I believe he's not gonna be there. He's one of the ones that didn't make it. But here's what it says, we're gonna read Ecclesiastes, oh, verse five, we'll just start reading there. He says, also when they shall be afraid of that which is high and the fear shall be of the way and the almond tree shall flourish and the grasshopper shall be a burden and the desire shall fail because man goeth to his long home and the mourners go about the streets. And then he says this, just out of the blue, or ever the silver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken or the pitcher broken at the fountain or the wheel broken at the cistern, then shall dust return unto the earth as it was and spirit shall return to God who gave it. So he's talking about this. Now, what's interesting was, I didn't even know about this, there was such a, well, I mean, I knew in the 60s and in the 70s, there was an explosion of people talking about out of body experiences and how to do it. There were books, I mean, I went through so much stuff. Of course, the Russians were studying this and they called it remote viewing sometimes, but the Russians were studying this, the Americans were studying it like because they figured out that it was a great way to spy on people, all right? And this is one thing that witches do. They will astral project out of their body to your house or your location where you are and listen to your conversations. Oh yes, they will also try to oppress you. They can try to, they can oppress you with their spirit like a demon does. I'll tell you, one time I was praying and I was actually laying in the floor, just flat on my face praying and I felt four hands pressed down on my back like started pushing, trying to push me down, like trying to press me into the floor. And I remember, and this is how you deal with it because you gotta remember it's a human spirit. So how do I deal with the human spirit? Well, you have to deal with the spirit that's assisted them there and this is what I say, when I know I'm dealing with an astral projecting spirit into my house, a human spirit. I say, I bind the demon spirits of astral projection, the power demons, the spirit guides
that are enabling them. I bind you and command you to go from my house, go from me in Jesus name. And this is how you deal with it. And that's why sometimes you have to recognize you're not dealing with just a demon, you're dealing with a human spirit there as well. And it's funny because over the years, people we've suspected that it's pretending to be Christians and that we've suspected in church or ministry to be a witch or an infiltrator of some kind, we will have a conversation about them at home. This happens a lot. And it's like almost immediately. We will get a text or we will hear of them talking about, basically almost trying to counter what we're saying, because they're spying on us. It happens a lot, all right? And this is something that you just have to discern and figure out. And I know this is kind of beyond what maybe you hear in church normally, but this is real. Now let me tell you what happened. One time, one time, the Lord took me out of my body. So I experienced it. I know what it's like. Because my brother, I was visiting my brother, he was still living at home at my mom's house and I was visiting, I just come back from Arkansas and I had been here a while and Alan had gotten saved and on fire for God. And he was going to this, he'd been going to this particular church and this particular youth group for a long time before he got saved. I mean, it was just a bunch of heathen people going to, I mean, not one of them was living for Jesus in this youth group at this church. It was a dead, dead church, so bad. And anyway, I remember visiting this youth group and I remember thinking, well, then my brother began to have these conflicts, constant like battles with this so-called youth minister as a woman. And I don't know, just in the spirit, I began to suspect, we both began to suspect that she wasn't just a Christian that it was hard to get along with, that she was actually working for the other side. But we didn't know for sure. But we were just thinking, we just get a weird feeling about her, something ain't right. So I'm visiting my brother, we're at my mom's house and my mom, this is before she built her house in Wetunka. So she was living in Montgomery, but she just had kind of rented this house
and it was just the kind of floor plan, like if you walk into the side, there's a kitchen and then you got a den this way and the wall and then if you go around that way, you got a living room, you know what I'm talking about? And then they come back around to a hallway to the bedrooms, right? The old standard house. So I'm in my old bedroom there, laying on my old bed. I said, I mean, I'm tired. Alan said, I got to go do some stuff. So I laid there for a second and I fell asleep. Well, the next thing I know, I am, I'm thinking I'm dreaming, but I'm moving through the living room, going around to the kitchen and there's a door right there, a doorway and then there's the dishwasher and the sink and my brother is putting the dishes in the dishwasher and I'm watching this and then I see standing next to him, this is all in the spirit. I see that woman, the so-called youth pastor, standing next to him, whispering in his ear and what she was whispering in his ear was, I'm not a witch, I'm not a Satanist, you don't know, right? She was trying to convince him that she was not what we were thinking she was, right? So, and it was interesting because I could hear and perceive everything she was saying to him, but she didn't see me there because like he's standing here, she's on this side whispering his ear and I'm over here watching this and listening and I could see my brother, I could, I mean, but now it was, how do I put it? It was like a misty haze and I could see through her. Alan was more solid, but I could see her through it. So I knew she was there in spirit form. So here's what I knew it wasn't a dream, all right? Because my brother turned and walked away from me to walk through the den. I turned and went through the living room and then all of a sudden the Lord carried me through the wall. I felt it. I felt the wall, like go, I went through, I was freaking out. I was like, whoa, well, when I went through the wall, it brought me to exactly where they were. And she's still walking beside him as he's walking, talking in his ear. When I came through the wall though, the demon that was assisting her in her astral projection freaked out. I saw it because it manifested in him. Let me tell you what it looked like. It had a human body, but the head and tentacles of an octopus. And this is before, long before Pirates of the Caribbean
came out, but it was that dude, the octopus head. And when it saw me there, it screeched and the tentacles all went out, like, like just, and it was screeched like, ah! Well, when it did that, it startled me and all of a sudden I woke up and then my brother walks in the room. I was like, man, I just had the strange, I said, I told him what happened. He goes, I wasn't loading the dishwasher. He goes, I was thinking thoughts that she, maybe she's not what we think. And it's just our own imagination. I said, well, she is. Because she was here astral projecting into the house trying to convince you that she's not a witch. But that was wild. Now that's the only time I can say I know for sure that the Lord took me sovereignly by his spirit out of my body to let me experience what it's like. So I know what it's like. I know you can hear conversations and recognize places. So this is real. And they proved this. The government experiments that they did, the CIA, they did them at Stanford, the Russians, I mean, I could throw up some of the documents real quick, just so you can see, I don't, you can do the research. You've done a lot of research in the remote viewing stuff. It's all there. Yeah, yep, Scientology. Just throw up a few. The first set I sent you just to, yeah, see right here. Wait, wait. Well, that's their references of books to read. This was interesting. You just look up a few of these, but the other one, the backup to the one you had. Yeah, the Russian. So this talks about here that Dr. Vasilov, they would, anyway, they were doing these experiments. Let's go to the next one. Yeah, here it is. Soviet research into biocommunications phenomena does not appear to be earthbound or limited to inner space, but apparently extends to outer space as well. The so-called father of Soviet rocketry, however you say his name, Svolsky or whatever, he says in the coming era of space flights, telepathic abilities are necessary while the space rocket must bring men toward the knowledge of the grand secrets of the universe, the study of the psychic phenomena lead toward the knowledge of mysteries of the human mind. It is precisely the solution of this secret that promises great achievements. Let's go to the next one. They start talking about, I think this is the one, the military possibilities, yeah.
So they begin to do the Kirlian photography of the human bodies, or it appears that the Soviets may be considering that a hand which appears out of nowhere and can grasp with the firm pressure of an old friend. So he's talking about the spirit, you can feel it sometimes. And then he starts talking about using this, he says, the individuals have studied these effects real or otherwise have suggested that since these bodies can travel unlimited distances and are able to pass through solid material walls, they might well be used to produce instant death in military and civilian officials. It is further conjectured that the bodies could disable military equipment and communication. So they were into all this. And then the United States was trying to counter this stuff. And at one point it got out of hand and people started dying. And here's what's interesting, remember it talks about if the silver cord's loose, then you're dead, right? There's a great article, and you can just put up that article from the medium. This article, if you wanna read pretty much a synopsis of everything I was studying and researching yesterday, this pretty well explains it all. And it's called the Hades environment. But it says here, the untold story of psychic spies, unexplained death and unleashing of astral projection revealed by hundreds of pages of previously lost and classified documents. This is a great article. But it talks about one guy who was being lured by this beautiful woman in the spirit realm. And he told his friend, I'm gonna go in my room and go into my meditative state. And I'm gonna go, I'm gonna astral travel out there and I'm gonna go find this beautiful woman. Well, he said, do not disturb me. No matter what, I don't care, don't disturb me. Three days went by, his roommate finally panics, busts the door down, goes in, he's dead, right? Then story, and this is one of the main guys in this whole movement. He was the military, he was involved in the military aspect of this and he, they began to discover, and I'm just gonna say this, the people that were Christians, we're talking about Terry people, occultists, New Agers, Satanist witches that were doing these things and going out into the astral plane, as they call it, the spirit realm through astral projection, began to see monsters and demons and evil entities. And I'm like, oh yeah. Then here's what's interesting about this. If you watch this, it was like almost all of the activity,
even the government, the Soviet Union, the United States backed off of this for a bit. The books and stuff and all the push into the world, it began to stop. Now I'm not saying that the occultists stopped doing these things, but what happened was that for the first time, and these was in the newspapers of this guy that died from doing this, and then all the bad experiences began to happen, and people began to, and what I believe is, all right, this was in the 70s, that this was during too the Jesus movement and the charismatic renewal, and I think a lot of people got wind of, there's a lot of occult activity going on. This was being pushed, in fact, I have documents of how it was being pushed to children, like the astronaut, Edgar Mitchell, was pushing this to the kids, and it was going to the students. But what happened, I think a lot of Christians started praying against it at that time. And it's like it started getting exposed that the beautiful woman turned into this shape-shifting monster. And then they began to realize, this goes back to ancient Egypt, and the goddess Amut, who was the destroyer of souls. And they realized they were out there playing with stuff that they didn't realize they were playing with. Now, there's still people, let me tell you, you look up astral projection now, man, you can find every TikTok video, you can find hundreds and hundreds of them teaching you, here's how you do it. Oh, and here's talking about traveling to friends' houses and ex-husband's houses and spying on them. So this is part of the battle we face, the human spirits, you have to deal with them accordingly. You have to bind the spirits of astral projection. And see, let me tell you something when it comes to binding demons, saying how do I identify demons? Well, the Bible lists a bunch of demons, spirit of fear, spirit of hoardums, deaf and dumb spirit, spirit of error, right, seducing spirits. But there's a bunch of spirit of antichrist. There's spirits mentioned all throughout the Bible, but it's not complicated. Jesus came up to a boy that was deaf and dumb, and he said, deaf and dumb spirit, come out of him, right? If you're getting attacked by a spirit of lust, just say it. I bind the demon spirit of lust. Just name it for what it's doing. If it's trying to make you full of fear and anxiety, bind the spirit of fear and anxiety. Command it to go from you. This is what I'm talking about. You have to resist the demons in Jesus' name to make them flee. Everybody understand this? And I wanna tell you, if you get lazy and you don't do this often in your prayer time,
you are going to get beat up. Especially if you're part of this church and this ministry, because we attract the warfare, because the devil wants to stop. He wants to stop the message and the truth that's going from this place. It's just a fact. Years ago, after 21 day fast, 10 day fast, 14 day fast, I mean, I fasted myself down to 155 pounds at one point. I weighed 200 pounds now. So you can imagine, I think I was wearing a 30 waist jeans. I mean, I was, I finally, I had fasted and prayed myself down to nothing and finally had to protein deficiency and had to stop and just take time to eat and take protein and lift weights to get back in shape. But it was powerful. The Lord told me a lot of people were getting saved at that time. A lot of people were getting delivered from demons. A lot of people were getting healed because of that fasting and prayer time. So one day I'm walking out to the woods to pray, which I did often, and the Lord spoke to me and he said, son, your enemy respects you. And he said, but everywhere you go will become a war zone. So you're in the war zone. So you have to fight. And the people who won't fight and won't do what is necessary to live under the principles that keep you with the ability to fight, they fall by the wayside, man. One after the other, after the other. Look, we have more people that have fallen away than we have in attendance church because they won't fight. They decide it's too hard, got to give in. This is why a lot of people go find them the big mega church to go to. They can just kind of disappear, right? And this is why too, so many people, they go to church, they'll slip into the church, big church, and then nobody knows them or a few people, and they slip out, they slip in, and they feel like they're getting their little religious fix, but they go home and they can't beat the lust, they can't beat the alcohol, they can't beat the drugs, their marriage is falling apart. They just, you know, the kids are going to hell in a hand basket, sickness, accidents,
all kinds of stuff is just over and over and over again. And it's because they won't fight. But know this, you got to fight witchcraft. People will say, well, witchcraft doesn't affect me. Let's go to one more verse here. Go to Galatians 3.1, I got a little definition for you here. He said this to the Galatians, I think it's powerful. In fact, it's the only time this particular word is used in the New Testament. Only time. Oh, foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ had been evidently set forth and crucified among you. Oh, foolish Galatians, Christians, Holy Spirit-filled Christians. He was talking to multiple churches here. He says, who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth. This is what the witchcraft is to do, is to get you to not obey the truth of God's word. It's influence upon you. Let's look, here's the word, the strong's first, and then we'll put the theirs up. The outline of biblical use to speak ill of one to slander, traduce him. Now, speak ill of, what does that mean? Curse, right? Then he says, what, bring evil on one by feigning praise or an evil eye to charm, to bewitch, all right? To malign, that means to speak negatively of, to fascinate by false representations to bewitch, to deceive, right? And he says to charm by, this is using supernatural. Let's go to the theirs and see, it says here, to bring evil on one by false praise and evil eye to charm a bewitch. And look what it says here. It says, hence of those who lead away others into error by wicked arts, magic, witchcraft. Don't tell me it can't affect you. If you do nothing to resist it, it will affect you. It will affect your mind. And this is where they work on, changing your mind, changing your thoughts, putting thoughts in there. See, the devil can't read your mind, but he can put thoughts in there and know what thoughts he put in your mind, especially if you let him stay there. Plus, he knows human beings, so he's a pretty good guesser of what we're thinking and what we're doing. I mean, think about it. If you can, you know, I'm a poker player, so I can read people's faces. I know what they have most of the time. But it's a simple deduction of, what? You just get used to learning people's baby. A lot of times I watch, you know, y'all ought to, when you're preaching, oh, the faces I get.
Boy, I'm telling you what, I'm getting all, I get all kind of messages, all right? And sometimes it's just because I can read people, and sometimes the Holy Spirit, though, will tell me exactly what you're thinking. And he'll tell me exactly what you're thinking and the question you're asking, and I'll go ahead and answer it while I'm preaching. Isn't that right, Chitra? Happens with her all the time. She'll have something in her head, and I'll just go ahead and answer it. That's just the Holy Spirit. But we can be bewitched. They can use their charms, their curses, and again, all witchcraft is, is an attempt to influence you and manipulate you in a direction you're not supposed to go. That's witchcraft. Using words, using whatever they can get their hands on to help them, astral projection, to whisper in your ears. This is why you have to cast down imaginations and every thought that comes against the knowledge of God. You hear me? Can I ask you, did you learn something today? You can, in Jesus' name, through his power, that he's given us, you can fight witchcraft. And what's amazing is, is that when you do, it will happen if you stand firm and you're a good example, just like what happened to me many years ago in Arkansas, a high level witch will come up to you and say, we've been watching you. We've tried to kill you, we can't. We've been watching you and we know you're a Christian. We know you're a true Christian. Trembling, she said, I want out of this, but I'm terrified that they will torture me to death and kill me like they have so many people. And I said, well, the same Jesus that's been protecting me can't protect you, but you gotta go all the way. You can't be playing games. For you, it's gonna be life or death, for sure. And I learned from that. And then what happened? Because she came out, we did so much preaching and teaching, I mean, I stirred up all kinds of trouble. Came back here, busted up the satanic little group, the whole thing with Mitch the Satanist I shared last week. So get this, I'll tell this little story and I'll finish. This has all happened between 1987 and 1991, right? Just messing these Satanists up and their whole system.
So my brother, Allen, decides he's gonna go to leave Southeastern and go to Christ for the Nations in Dallas, Texas. So he goes, he gets in and they assign him, they had a big, I don't know, high rise you'd call it, I guess it was, but that's where their dorms, they had their dorms and you just gotta sign a roommate. So he gets, I think he was on like the fifth floor. He gets up there to his roommate and he introduces himself to his roommate. He said, and this is, remember, this is before the internet, y'all. And he said, so there wasn't any internet stuff going on. He said, hey, I'm Allen Odell. And his roommate goes, hey, hey, wait a minute. He goes, you have a brother named Dean? Now this guy was from Nebraska. I never been to Nebraska. He goes, you got a brother named Dean? He goes, how in the world do you know that I have a brother named Dean? He said, because I was a Satanist. He said, and he caused us all kinds of trouble in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Alabama, because they sent people to kill me. They sent assassins and God blinding them, knocked them to the ground. I mean, it was a full on war there for a number of years with them. And they lost, because I'm still here, right? But he said, we tried to kill him every which way, and it didn't work, and it shook everything up. And people began to think, well, maybe Satan's not as powerful as they thought. He said, that's what got me, and that's why I gave my life to Jesus, and that's why I'm in Bible school right now. Somebody I never met, never talked to. See, this is the power of being a light for Jesus and being a fighter. It's the only way too that we're gonna save some of them. They have to see and know that it's real, that Jesus is real, that he is who the Bible says. Because they've been taught a version of Jesus that's not the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus who is God almighty in the flesh, the creator who has all power and authority. They've seen so many weak Christians that they were able to manipulate, make fall, stumble, break up their marriage. They look at Christians like, they're weak, stupid. They don't know what's really going on. We do whatever we want. That's what keeps them in their sin and their rebellion. But when they run into one of us that's really living it and really resisting the devil, that really shakes up their world.
See, they sent an assassin because God gave me a word of knowledge and then she knew. They sent an assassin to kill me as I'm coming in from Oklahoma into Arkansas and that Ozark Mountains in a place where I had to go real slow in a curve and I've shared this. God was there no further than me to Cherie because the road he was standing with a high powered rifle to shoot me and a bright light hit him in the face and knocked him to the ground, blinded him actually. And I had this word of knowledge about this. I told her where in the road it was, what happened to the guy and they had told her what they were gonna do. She goes, how could you know about that? She said, they told me they were gonna shoot you right there before you got into town. I said, well, and she just would break down in tears. She just, she knew Jesus is real. Mitch found out, Mitch the Satanist found out. Jesus is real and he's more powerful than the devil and he comes to Jesus. Now granted, there's some stubborn ones. They just determined they gonna follow Jesus because they love their sin. They love the indulgence of the flesh. They love their sexual immorality. They love the power they get from the devil. They love to do whatever they want, Crowley's message, do as thou wilt, right? So they love that. So for a lot of them, it's not that they don't know. They know, they know there's a real God, a good God but they love their sin, so they stay with it. And then they may, they convince themselves, we're gonna party in hell. Hell's gonna be a big party. They believe that, it's not a party. Yes, oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah.
So Pastor Troy, you couldn't hear, he was saying that he taught yesterday a message because they do their church on Saturday and he taught them this verse, was the main verse about being bewitched. And then he said that whole segment is gone from the recording. Yeah, this is the battle we face. It's real, man. They, the devil, I say this much, the devil gets in sound equipment. It's really, we have to pray over everything. He doesn't like us, bro, he is called the prince and power of the air. He doesn't like us broadcasting over his airwaves. He pretty much controls them but God makes him let us use them. And we'll use them until we can't. But let's stand. That's enough for today. Fight the witchcraft, y'all. It's real. And see, you know what? Here's the thing. It may be coming from folks that you don't even know. It could be neighbor, it could be a family member, it could be a coworker at work. And you don't even know. You don't know because they've hidden it pretty good. And this is why you gotta fight it and you gotta pray that the Lord will open your eyes and give you discernment and discerning of spirits and help you know where it's coming from. The more you know, the better. But it has to be supernatural information. It has to be words of knowledge, discerning of spirits. This is why I say all the time how much we need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. We need to operate in the gifts of the Spirit. We need to pray in tongues often so our spirit man is strong and sensitive to what the Lord's saying. This is absolutely necessary. This is the war we're in. And see, Holy Spirit revelation of things, that's intelligence. There's no good military operations without intel, all right? So you need intel from Him and then you know where to fight. Amen? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this day. Lord, make us warriors. Make us fighters. Lord, we know that we fight the demons and the devils and we also know, Lord, that we fight the human beings that are against us. They're against you. Lord, help us to fight. Not so as to harm them, but to win them, Lord. So they come to know that you are the all-powerful, almighty Creator. The one true God that Satan is nothing, Lucifer is nothing but a fallen angel who has deceived them. Lord, I pray, God, that you will truly help us all understand the principles of submitting to you and then we are able to resist the devil. The true nature, Lord, the true authority, we have to bind demons and that we have power to cast out demons in Jesus' name
and that we have power to deal with and condemn and break the words and the curses from witches and incantations and people speaking against us. And we have the ability to deal with the spirits assisting human spirits in astral projection. We can bind them and command them to go from us. Father, help us to fight, make sure our houses are clean from any accursed objects to help us, Lord, remind us to anoint our homes from time to time and sanctify them. And we pray, we don't command angels, but we pray that you will send them and let them encamp round about us and deliver us from our enemies. Father, we pray all this in Jesus' name. Somebody said, amen. All right. Well, I don't think we need to sing another song today. I think you just need to let the word settle on in you. Amen. You gonna fight? All right. Here's the good news. If you fight according to the scriptures, you fight the devil, you will win. If you don't fight, you will lose. Real simple, isn't it? And you know, sometimes it isn't comfortable to fight. You're tired. You say, I'm tired of doing this. It gets wearisome. I understand. I get sick of it sometimes. Lord, can't it just stop for a day? But we'll rest when we sit down in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Right now, we're gonna put on the whole armor of God. And how do you do that? Just say it. I put on the armor. I put on the belt of truth. I put on the breastplate of righteousness. I put on my feet, shod my feet, the preparation of the gospel of peace. I take the shield of faith. I put on the helmet of salvation. I take the sword of the spirit. But it's not just saying that you say it, but then you actively walk in it. See what I'm saying? You have to walk in it. So fight the good fight, the fight you win. Fight for your brothers and sisters. Sometimes they're tired and they need help. That's why you pray and fight for them. Amen? All right. Hugs them next before you leave. Don't forget, oh yeah, Fire and Grace School of Ministry. We're getting close to August 1st. So if you wanna be in the School of Ministry this year, then you need to get that in by August 1st. And then Skyfall, of course. October, what is it? 25th through the 27th. All right. Y'all know the drill. Hugs them next before you leave. Oh, for those of you here, yes,
we have a baptism today. So please come be a witness to the baptism and then go get your lunch. All right. Sounds good. All right. God bless.