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Explore the different doors of entry into a person’s life, from generational curses to inner vows. We get freedom through the Power of the Holy Spirit, by what Jesus has won on the Cross for us. He won the total victory, which was utterly complete, covering all intentional and un-intentional sin. As you open your heart, and take ownership for your sin, rather than blame others, and then repent and release forgiveness, healing and freedom will flow into our lives.
We want to look now at some of the doors of entry for evil spirits; common ways that spirits enter people; and what to do about dealing with them. If we just try to confront spirits, and we don’t deal with the root issues, you’ll find that it’s very difficult to get them free, and then they tend not to stay free. So, we want to look then at just some of the ways that spirits would enter a person’s life. Some of these, you will be aware of; there may be some new ones. We’ll look at each one, and then look at what you would need to do to deal with that specific issue.
We looked at three main areas: 1.) Legal rights – we’re going to look at legal rights. So, we want to understand: what does this mean; what are some examples of doorways that spirits use; and then how do we demolish that legal right.
Before I go into the list of that, I want to look at what Jesus did for us on the cross. We’re just going to look at 3 areas of scripture, and we’ll see the extent of Jesus’ work on the cross, and realise that He addressed every area that we need to deal with. Then, when we look at each specific area of ministry, we will look at how you would address the problem. Before we go to the doorways, we’re looking at foundations for freedom.
First of all, we look in Colossians 2:13-15: “ And you, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”
We see here what Jesus has done on the cross. It says: He forgave us ALL our trespasses. A trespass is an intentional breaking the law of God. So, Jesus has forgiven ALL our trespasses; and it says: “He wiped out the list of requirements against us, contrary to us, took it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” Jesus completely removed something that was written against us. In other words, every law of God that you broke - whether you knew it or didn’t know it, every possible violation of God’s law that has been listed and recorded against you. Sometimes it’s hard for us to understand that everything is recorded.
In the Old Testament, deliberate breaking of the law had an offering required. Also, if we sin through ignorance, there was still an offering required. Can you imagine someone and they’re watching your life; and the angel has a big role in recording every breaking of the law. For some of you, he’s writing very fast, it’s a very big roll! It’s a hard-working angel writing down all these things. The Bible says: Jesus took the whole roll. It says: He took it to the cross.
So, everything the devil could say to you: ‘Hey, you did this. Oh, you did that’. Every kind of accusation he could make, he just points to the scroll – “See. On this day, at this time you did this.” Every possible error, mistake you’ve made. Jesus took it all to the cross. Notice what it says: when He took it to the cross, He forgave all the trespasses. Forgive means: release the debt. The devil says: you sinned, you must pay. Jesus took it to the cross - release! Every person released!
Then it says: “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them”. So, when Jesus took our sin to the cross, He’s removing the weapons the devil has against you. He’s removing, and taking away, all his weapons. We see in Colossians 2 - every possible sin, every possible legal right the devil has for you, Jesus took it to the cross, shed His blood, in order that that can be broken.
Remember we saw the scripture in Luke 11 – “Remove the armour. Remove the sin.” We must confront the sin issues. God has a remedy for sin. If you say: “Oh, it’s just my weakness, you know.” Oh, ok - it’s not sin then, it’s not going to go to the cross. However, if we acknowledge sin, we bring it to the cross. 1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We notice what Jesus has done. At the cross He took all our trespasses. So, if a person is demonised, and the cause is sin - take the sin to the cross. People just want you to pray for them. We must bring the truth to them, and point them to God’s solution.
The second scripture’s found in Galatians 3:13-14 – “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” You notice now that the issue of curses are addressed. These two verses talks about blessings and cursings.
Let’s have a look at blessing. “The blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ, we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith”. A blessing are: words spoken that bring power. Notice that blessing means: receiving the Holy Spirit. To be blessed, is to receive an impartation of the Holy Spirit, enables us to go forward in life. So, the blessed life is empowered by the Holy Spirit. A blessed life is living in the flow of God’s spirit.
It says in verse 13 – “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law”. Cursings are words spoken that have spiritual power behind them, spiritual power that’s destructive. The power behind a curse is an evil spirit. So, it says that Jesus became a curse for us. There is a little known verse in the Old Testament that says that everyone who goes to death on a tree is a cursed person. This was written hundreds of years before the Romans invented crucifixion. So, when the Romans put Jesus to death by crucifixion, the very method of death that they chose meant all curses of humanity fell on Him – all generational curses, the curses of God’s laws being broken, all the curses of Deuteronomy 27, all of those curses were broken at the cross. Christ redeemed us. In other words, He paid the full price. It is a legal price. He paid the price to ransom us away from the captor.
So, when you are dealing with people, if there’re cursings resting on their life, whether they are generational or other kinds of cursing, the blood of Jesus shed at Calvary is the remedy. We must bring curses to the cross, where their power is broken. So, every time you face someone who has a cursing around their life, there is a process of bringing that cursing to the cross, where its power is broken, and release of the Holy Spirit and blessing comes. When we are ministering in the area of cursings, we would expect deliverance from evil spirits, and a release of the presence of the Holy Spirit. We’ll show you what to do with those a little later.
Let’s have a look at Isaiah 53. These are good scriptures to know and to memorise. There is a legal ground for us to be set free. If evil spirits use legal grounds to enter us, then God removes the legal grounds to free us. So, when you are ministering to someone, remove the legal grounds; and the evil spirit has no room to remain there. Let’s have a look in Isaiah 53:3, and I want you to notice as we read these 3 verses, I want you to read the scope of Jesus’ work on the cross.
“He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” Here it is – “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”. Grief means to be weak, sick, diseased, to be afflicted. Sorrow means mental and emotional pain. So, He bore our griefs and our sorrows. Verse 5 – “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities”. Transgression is an intentional breaking of God’s law. Iniquity is the crookedness inside us that bends us towards sin. Iniquity is the twist towards sin. So, He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity. “The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
So, we see here, in the 3 scriptures we’ve read, at the cross, Jesus dealt with our sins and transgressions. He dealt with all curses that are against us, He dealt with our griefs and sorrows, our traumas and painful experiences we’ve had, and He dealt with our iniquities, the crookedness in us that leads us away from God. So, Jesus made full reconciliation for us.
Our part is then: how do we apply this? You remember in the Old Testament they had to apply the blood. It wasn’t enough that the blood was shed; the blood had to be applied (to the door). So, always, we have to apply what God has done. In other words, there’s a faith action people must take, to apply the work of Christ to their life. So, when you are working with people, there is a part you play; and a part they play. They have a part in their own freedom.
For example, when you consider salvation - Jesus died on the cross for people to be saved, for every person to be saved. So legally, every person can be saved; but for salvation to manifest in their life, there’s something they must do - they must repent and believe. So, there’s always something people must do, to position themselves for God to work. Our role is to work with people to bring them to a place where they apply what Jesus has done to their life - first to get free; second to stay free. They need to apply what God has done for them. It requires faith. So, there’s always the foundation you must lay in a person’s life for them to be free.
I found the most common reasons people are not freed, or don’t stay free, is that the roots have never been pulled out of their life, or the person hasn’t cooperated in the process. So, we will now look then at the foundations for freedom; and we looked at what Jesus has done. However, every person also has a part to play. They have something that they must do.
I will give you a list of the things that people must do. Number 1, a person must recognise and take responsibility for their life and their failures. It’s very common for people to want to blame someone. It’s common for people to want to make excuses; but a core part of a person getting set free, is taking responsibility for their own sin, and their own failure.
For example, in Proverbs 28:13 – “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” So, if we conceal our responsibility for our life - usually people do that by blaming someone else, or minimising it, or just denying there’s a problem. So, if we deny or minimise or blame someone else, this is frustrating the work of God to set them free. If you’re working with someone, and they won’t own up and take responsibility, you can’t go any further. If a person doesn’t recognise what their part in this is, they won’t actually get free. I find this very common; the biggest challenge is to help people see the truth, because often people cover it or bury it or pretend it isn’t as bad as it seems.
I had one woman I was praying for recently, and she was struggling because she could not get pregnant. She wanted a family, and I talked with her and listened to her story. I said to her: “You have a family already. You have 4 children, but you took the life of each of your children. The children are in heaven now. They’re real people. They have a name. What you have done, is created the problem you have now, where you can’t conceive.” So, it was quite difficult for her to come to face the reality, that her inability to have children now, is because she’d had 4 abortions.
I said: “If we’re going to pray for you to be healed and have children, you have to face the reason why you’re in this condition. You have 4 children in heaven, whose lives were cut short by your hand; and Jesus knows them all. You need to come to Him, He has forgiven you, you need to reach out to Him and receive that forgiveness. Then, we can pray for you, that the results of the sin can be healed.” She preferred to be healed without dealing with the reason why she was like this. So, I said “You need to come to forgiveness, first of all, and to acknowledge the children you have, and what you did.” So, God touched her very deeply, and she named each of her children. So, the first challenge in working with people is to find out what the roots of the problem, and bring people to the place of recognising and being responsible.
You’ll see this in 2 Timothy 2. It says in 2 Timothy 2:24 – “And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” You notice in this verse, you see a person who is taken captive. In other words, there’s someone who has gotten influence over their life, and they’re acting against their will, they’re doing things according to what the devil wants them to do. There’s a need to get out of that snare, or out of that trap.
You notice that the key to getting out is the person has a truth encounter. You share with them the truth. If they acknowledge the truth and come to repentance, then they can escape the snare of the devil. Notice it says in verse 26 “they may come to their senses”. The word literally means “to sober up again”. So, when you share the truth with the person, often there’s a conflict for the person to come to admit that’s what’s happened; that’s when they can come free. As you are working with people, you may find that there’s almost like a conflict going on, like confusion in their mind, until they acknowledge the truth. You notice that acknowledging the truth and repenting, precedes getting out of the snare.
In our process of working with people, we will ask questions to diagnose the problem, present people with the truth, and then show them the journey out of their problem; then confront them with power. Does it make sense? We spend time asking the questions, diagnose the problem to its roots, and help them see the truth. If they’ll acknowledge the truth, and come to the place of repentance, you can set them free. If they don’t acknowledge the truth, or are unwilling to repent, they don’t get free; or if you get them free, they don’t stay free. So, always in our ministry, it’s a ministry of the truth, and then the power.
As I was talking with this woman, and she was a leader of some years, she was very distressed at not being able to have a child. When I said ‘You have 4 children’, you could almost feel like this fog of confusion around her. I had to be quite slow and clear in trying to help her see the truth, because she had believed a lie: this is just something I got rid of, it’s solved a problem in my life; but I had to get her to understand ‘Actually, you have 4 children. They live in heaven’. The reason you have the problem, is because you’ve taken their lives. Of course, she had all the reasons why she had to do this, and how she buried all of the pain related to it.
I said: “We can’t proceed for freedom, until you face the reality. This is what the Bible says about this situation.” You could feel the confusion around her mind, and then suddenly you could see it come clear, and she realised what she’d done. Then, she began to grieve over what she had done; and then we’re in a place to pray and minister to her, because she’d acknowledged the truth and come to a place of repentance. So, always in our ministry, it follows kind of like a process of diagnosing the problem, find the roots, and bring the person to be responsible for what they’ve done. At first she was very bitterly blaming people. I said to her: “While you blame people, you remain a victim. You can’t be free, if you blame someone else. If you blame someone else, then you are giving them the power for the situation. If you take responsibility, you are now becoming empowered.”
So, the first area that you will strike or work with people is, they must recognise and be responsible for their sin. Once a person has recognised and taken ownership, then something can happen. I had one woman that I prayed for, well I was going to pray for, I was asked to pray for her; and she said: “I’ve got this man who wants to marry me. What should I do?” That’s always a trick question! So I said: “Tell me about your situation.” She said: “Oh, well I was going with him for quite a while, about 3 or 4 years, and then we broke up. I went with another man, I had a child to him and now we’re broken up too. So, now this man wants to marry me.” I said: “Can you tell me why you broke up?” She said: “He was unfaithful to me 3 times.” I said: “Sounds like a good reason to break up. Maybe after number 1 would be better. Is he a Christian?” “No he’s not a Christian.”
I said: “I don’t think we should keep talking. The answer’s very obvious. He’s been unfaithful 3 times, he’s had no change in his heart - he’s going to keep doing the same.” But I could tell she wasn’t listening, because what she wanted is to marry this man. I said: “By the way, tell me about your own family. Tell me about your father.” “Oh, I don’t see my father.” “Why is that?” “Well, our family broke up when I was 13; and he lives somewhere else now.” I said: “Out of interest, why did it break up?” “Oh, he was unfaithful.” “Just out of interest, how many times?” “Oh, 3 times.”
Now, it was quite unusual that that came out like that. I said: “You have bitter roots against your father, and judgements against him, you have never dealt with. This is why you are attracted to the same kind of man, and are blind to what he’s really like. So, this relationship is a disaster. You need to deal with the bitter roots in your heart against your father.” To my surprise, she said that she couldn’t see it. Actually, she didn’t want to see it. She just wanted to marry this man. So, I said: “I’m sorry. I can’t help you. You won’t face the truth, that you have deep bitterness and demonic spirits inside you.”
So, when working with people, the first part is the diagnosis and establishing what the problems are. Help the person to see their part in it. Then there are some steps out of it.
1.) Recognise and take responsibility.
2.) Repentance and confession of sin. It’s crucial if a person’s to come free, that the sin issue is dealt with. If sin creates the legal rights, sin has to be removed; and it’s removed by repentance and confession. 1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So, we need to deal with sin. People need to repent and deal with this issue of sin. Repent means turning away from it. Sin leads to death. Turning away from it leads to life. Many times, if you find deliverance difficult, it’s because the person has not really repented.
3.) The person must release forgiveness. Mark 11:25 – “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him; that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” Forgiveness is another major reason why people are not free.
Unforgiveness keeps the person’s soul bound to the demonic spirits, and whatever’s been done against them. When a person is holding unforgiveness, they usually have resentment and anger in their heart because some injustice has been done, something’s been taken from them. It may be real or it may be imagined, but unforgiveness is a debt they must pay. It’s a demand: you owe me! It could be against a father – you broke up our family, I’ve suffered these years - you owe me. So, it’s a demand that there be a repayment of some kind.
Forgiveness is: we’re letting go of that demand. “I release you. You don’t have to say sorry. You don’t have to pay me back. You don’t have to do anything. I have let go my demand.” So, if we’re going to get people set free, we need to understand the importance of forgiveness. In Matthew 18:34-35, Jesus said: “If you do not forgive every person, his brother, from their heart, then you’ll be delivered to tormentors.” In other words, evil spirits have a legal right; they can access your life, if unforgiveness remains in your heart.
Now, I have found increasingly, this is a problem. It’s not enough just to tell the person – “Hey, you need to forgive.” The person must let go from the heart. It has to be a heart decision: to move from death to life. “I let go the unforgiveness, I release forgiveness, and I’m willing to bless the person.” Jesus said: “Bless those who curse you, forgive those who despitefully use you. Pray for them.” So, forgiveness is letting go and blessing. So, I have found, rather than just mechanically say: “You have to forgive”; and then the person prays a prayer, but their heart isn’t in it - they generally don’t get free. Forgiveness is a decision. It is a choice; but it needs to involve the heart. It needs to be a heartfelt letting go.
So I found often, people pray a simple prayer to forgive, but in their heart they have not let go, because they’ve buried the hurt and buried the anger. So, if you’re working with people, I’ve found this is a helpful approach. Sometimes you may be aware a person’s been deeply hurt by someone. Now, let me help you understand this.
If Jonathan comes to me saying: “Pastor Mike, can you forgive me. I’ve caused some damage. Will you forgive me?” I say: “Yeah. Yeah. No problem.” Now, the question is, he didn’t tell me what he did; and I didn’t ask. Was this a dollar; or was this a million dollars? How much have I been affected by what he did? If it’s a dollar, I say “Hey, nothing.” If it’s a million dollars... “Ahh. You ruined my life! All these years I save and you’ve taken it all away! You want me to forgive you?! I’m so angry.”
You notice now, there’s a difference - I have got connected to my loss. Now when I forgive, I understand what I’m letting go. Many times when people forgive, they just say a prayer from the head, but the heart isn’t really in it. So it helps, when you’re working with people, to address the pain of the heart. What did this person do? How did it affect you? How do you feel about this? Now, a lot of people just deny how they really feel. It’s very common in Asia. They endure, with a knife in the heart; but bitter, very bitter inside. When people are bitter, it shows up – sharp words, the bitterness flows like a river, and it defiles.
So sometimes before I pray for a person for deliverance, I get them to talk or to write, how this thing has affected them. How do you feel about this? Are you angry? How angry are you? Because often people have pushed it down; and I found it very helpful, I just interact with the person through questions, because the moment the person acknowledges the feelings, they start to connect with the heart. When you think about this person, what do you feel? “Oh, I don’t think about them at all!” Yeah, because you want to avoid! But when you think, what do you feel? Afraid, angry, hurt. So, let the person bring these things out.
Sometimes I get people to write an “anger letter”. It’s never to be seen by anyone but them and God. It’s to take out of the heart, and put the feelings in front of themselves. Sometimes with the father, sometimes with the mother, sometimes with other people; I tell them: “When you write the letter, write the good things first. Then start to say a bit... because if they don’t write the good things first, they’ll go through this process. They start to talk about the bad – “oh he’s so mean to me”. “Oh but he wasn’t that bad”. “Oh, I feel so angry about this.” “Oh, but he wasn’t that bad. He was kind.” So they can’t connect with the heart.
If the issue is with your father, write down all the good things, and say ‘thank you for the good things’. Then, write down the things that have caused hurt and pain; and write how you feel, and allow the feelings to come out, and then grieve over them and weep over them. Now release forgiveness - you know what it is you’re letting go of. “I release them, I forgive them, I bless them.” Forgiveness is very important for being free. God calls me, not to live in this place that demands on people, but to live in a place of blessing on people.
So sometimes I’ll just stop ministry, and get the person to journey through the process of facing their feelings, and expressing them, and forgiving - especially if the person has been abused or traumatised. So release forgiveness. “I forgive them, I bless them.” I encourage a person, if this has been a deep longstanding pain with a family member, for the next 3 weeks or so, each time you worship God, think about that person, put your arms around them and bless them and pray for them; because you can’t do that, and have anger and hurt in your heart. These are foundations for people to get free. Failure to recognise sin stops the whole process. Failure to repent of sin stops the process. Failure to forgive stops the process.
The next thing is that people need to renounce or cancel bondages in their life. I’ll explain what these are, and how you do it. Bondage can be as simple as a generational curse. It could be an inner vow a person made. Like for example, I was praying with a person recently, and she was trying to get pregnant. As I spoke with her, I asked her: “Have you been pregnant before?” She said: “Yes. We have one child; and I want another child, but I’ve had 3 miscarriages.” I said: “Tell me about the first child, and the process of pregnancy.” It was extremely painful, extremely difficult for her. I said: “Did you ever make an inner vow – I will never have another child again.” She said: “Yes I did.” I said: “That’s what’s happening. Your body is reacting. It is rejecting each new child. You’ve made an inner vow – I will never have another child. You need to renounce and break that curse over your life.”
So I’ll identify the specific things to renounce shortly. There it is: Recognise; take responsibility; repent and confess sin; release forgiveness; renounce any bondages, speak words to cancel them; and then reach out for God to set you free. So, we see now, the foundations for freedom. Notice the last one I had – you reach out to Jesus to set you free, because otherwise, people make an idol out of you in ministry. They want you to fix them up. They put the responsibility on you, rather than being responsible to reach Jesus for the help.
[Demonstration and Exercises]
I’ll just show you what I mean. I’ll just demonstrate something with you. I just need one volunteer. Just please stand here. Can I take your hand? So when it comes to ministering to people, if the person looks to you, to come-through for them, there is a pressure that comes from them. You are under pressure to perform. You’re under pressure to do something; and pressure from people can lead to quite strong witchcraft. Jesus never allowed Himself to be pressured by people over ministry. He always did what He saw the Father doing, or was moved with compassion.
I have found a very simple thing you can do. It’s something like this: “I want you to close your eyes now, and I want you to look towards Jesus. From within, look towards Him, expecting for Him to touch you.” Now, I’ve directed her attention away from me. So immediately, pressure comes off. I’ve directed her towards the Lord, expecting to receive; and even as she does that, the presence of God will start to come on her. There’s a flow of God’s presence. Now, if I was to do the same thing, not focus on her, or trying to fix her, I just set my attention, focus my attention on Jesus, the source. His presence starts to come, and she starts to feel the anointing come on. Ministry flow needs to be Holy-Spirit-directed. So, we work with the person’s heart, to open up to the Holy Spirit; and then we listen for him [Whoosh] and it’s very easy to minister his power.
So, always turn the person towards Jesus for their help, because people tend to want you to fix them; which makes them a victim, and you’re the rescuer. That’s not empowering, because here’s what happens: if I’m the victim, and you have to rescue me, then if I don’t get free, it’s your fault. ‘I need someone more anointed. I come for someone more anointed.’ Same thing, “you have to get me free. It’s your responsibility”. See, I’m still thinking like a victim, rather than being empowered; but if it’s my decision to receive and respond in faith, then my faith will release the power of God.
“Just come stand. Just come and stand there. Can I take your hand? Close your eyes and just in your heart, look up to the Lord; and as you look up to the Lord, the presence of God will come on you.” See? Just like that. Now, ministry should flow out of rest. You notice, I really didn’t do a lot. I just directed him to the answer, and He could feel the presence of God come on him. So, I have noticed in ministry, it’s the anointing that flows from within us, the energising power of the Holy Sp