October 13, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
All right, so we’re going to be in Mark, chapter five. As we’re reading through the Bible. In a year, we’re in our New Testaments. We’re in the home stretch. You got through the 75% of the Bible of the old covenant, and now you’re in the last quarter. So way to go. You made it. You made it. And all that old Testament reading, that didn’t hurt you none. That was good for you. That lays the foundation for everything that’s happening in the new. So here we go. Mark, chapter five, the first 20.
So they arrived at the other side of the lake in the region of the Gerasenes, and Jesus climbed out of the boat and a man possessed by an evil spirit came out from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the burial caves and can no longer be restrained, even with a chain. Whenever he was put into chains and shackles, as he often was, he snapped the chains from his wrist and smashed the shackles. No one was strong enough to subdue him.
Day and night he wandered among the burial caves and in the hills, howling and cutting himself with sharp stones.
When Jesus was still some distance away, the man saw him, ran to meet him, and bowed low before him. With a shriek, he screamed, why are you interfering with me, Jesus, the son of the most high God? In the name of God, I beg you, don’t torture me.
For Jesus had already said to the Spirit, come out of the man, you evil spirit. Then Jesus demanded, what is your name?
And he replied, my name is legion, because there are many of us inside this Mandev. Then the evil spirits begged him again and again not to send them to some distant place. There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby. Send us into those pigs, the Spirits begged. Let us enter them. So jesus gave them permission. The evil spirits came out of the man and entered. The pigs and the entire herd of about 2000 pigs plunged down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned in the water.
The herdsmen fled to the nearby town and the surrounding countryside, spreading the news. As they ran, people rushed out to see what had happened.
A crowd soon gathered around Jesus, and they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons. He was sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane, and they were all afraid.
Then those who had seen what had happened told others about the demon-possessed man and the pigs. And the crowd began pleading with Jesus to go away and leave them alone.
As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go with him. But Jesus said, no, go home to your family and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been.
So the man started off to visit the ten towns of that region and began to proclaim the great things Jesus had done for him. And everyone was amazed at what he told them.
1 So they arrived at the other side of the lake, in the region of the Gerasenes. 2 When Jesus climbed out of the boat, a man possessed by an evil spirit came out from the tombs to meet him. 3 This man lived in the burial caves and could no longer be restrained, even with a chain. 4 Whenever he was put into chains and shackles—as he often was—he snapped the chains from his wrists and smashed the shackles. No one was strong enough to subdue him.
5 Day and night he wandered among the burial caves and in the hills, howling and cutting himself with sharp stones. 6 When Jesus was still some distance away, the man saw him, ran to meet him, and bowed low before him. 7 With a shriek, he screamed, “Why are you interfering with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In the name of God, I beg you, don’t torture me!” 8 For Jesus had already said to the spirit, “Come out of the man, you evil spirit.”
9 Then Jesus demanded, “What is your name?” And he replied, “My name is Legion, because there are many of us inside this man.” 10 Then the evil spirits begged him again and again not to send them to some distant place. 11 There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby. 12 “Send us into those pigs,” the spirits begged. “Let us enter them.”
13 So Jesus gave them permission. The evil spirits came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the entire herd of about 2,000 pigs plunged down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned in the water. 14 The herdsmen fled to the nearby town and the surrounding countryside, spreading the news as they ran. People rushed out to see what had happened. 15 A crowd soon gathered around Jesus, and they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons. He was sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane, and they were all afraid.
16 Then those who had seen what happened told the others about the demon-possessed man and the pigs. 17 And the crowd began pleading with Jesus to go away and leave them alone. 18 As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go with him. 19 But Jesus said, “No, go home to your family, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been.” 20 So the man started off to visit the Ten Towns of that region and began to proclaim the great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed at what he told them. (Mark 5:1-20, NLT)
And God made the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. Amen.
All right. This is a strange story for westerners to kind of take in. And when I grew up in church, I grew up going to church, and then in the hippie movement, in the Jesus revolution times, I had a born again experience wherever, you know, just entered into having a relationship with Jesus.
And so I’ve had this history of being in church, but I’ve had a growing understanding of what the Christian faith or the gospel is about.
As a child growing up in church, I didn’t understand about being born again or having a relationship with Jesus or any of that kind of stuff. As a child growing up, I thought church was about being a good person. I thought that was the message of Christianity, that it’s important to be a good person. It’s important to obey your parents. It’s important to be nice to your sisters.
No easy task, by the way. Important to do good in school and to be a good sport, to be a good sport when you played sports.
And my dad always emphasized, learn how to be a good loser and a gracious winner and be a good sport and be a good team player and a lot of teaching about not being selfish and all that.
And then, so the main message I got, the main message I heard, or the main message I believed was, God wants me to be a good person.
Now, I want to say, as I go through each stage of my development of understanding the gospel, that that’s true. I don’t want you to go away from church saying, oh, the pastor said I could be a bad person.
It’s very important to be a good person. God wants to make us good. In fact, he wants to make us more than good. He wants to make us just like his son Jesus.
But it was an incomplete understanding, and I soon realized that I couldn’t be good on my own.
And I realized that I wasn’t really a good person. I was in high school, and these hippies started coming on our campus. They were with this organization called young Life, and they were pretty cool. They had these meetings, and you would go to these meetings, and they would be fun. Then they give this little Jesus talk. I wasn’t sure what that was about, but I went to young Life because all the cute girls went to young Life.
My older sister was a cheerleader, and she went to young Life with her cheerleading friends.
I was a freshman in high school, and I got to go in the car with all the varsity cheerleaders to young Life. My mom said, you can do that, or you can go to Catholic catechism.
Okay, varsity cheerleaders, Catholic catechism, definition of a no-brainer, right? So I would go with the varsity cheerleaders to young Life, and they were really nice to me.
Oh, you’re Kathy’s little brother, you know, and pat me on the head and stuff.
It was great. All attention at that age is good attention.
Then they said, go to camp. And I went to camp, and I went to camp, and I was shocked because I heard a message, even though I had grown up in church, that I’d never heard before. I heard a message about a God, about the God who became a man and died on the cross, and on that death on the cross, this great transaction occurred where he took my sin and it was crucified with him, and he rose from the dead.
And then I heard something that rocked my world, that this God, through his son Jesus Christ, wanted to have a personal relationship with me. Man, that was huge. And it took me a while to accept it because it just sounded too good to be true. But a couple weeks after that camp, all by myself, I asked Jesus into my heart. You know, I went. I did the deal. Lord, come into my heart. I repent of my sin. I want to follow you. You know, the whole thing. Come in. And he did. My life changed. Boom.
My life changed. And I told my young life leaders, and they were thrilled. And they said, okay, you got to do three things. Three things are really important to do. Have a quiet time, which includes these two things, read your Bible and say your prayers. And three, go to a Bible believing church. So I started going to a Bible believing church, and they reinforced everything I had learned at young life, that the. The message of the gospel was how to be born again, have your sins forgiven, be saved.
So when you die, you go to the good place, not the bad place, and you can have a relationship with Jesus.
I started saying my prayers. I started talking to God, and prayers got answered. So cool. Started reading the Bible. But when I read the Bible, something happened.
I started reading the gospels first off, and I started reading passages like this, and devils, demons in people and guys howling in the graves and cutting themselves. And I knew I was in the seventies, the movie The Exorcist had just come out.
So, you know, okay, okay, I guess. But this just seemed like a radically, you know, I thought the Bible was just going to reinforce. I thought every page of the Bible was going to say, clean your room, obey your parents, be nice to your sisters, and get born again.
But instead I found this story of a conflict between kingdoms. And I’ve come to realize over the years, as I’ve read the Bible time and time again and said my prayers, that those Bible believing churches kind of avoided that.
They kind of focused on that get born again message, but they avoided this idea of the sick being healed, the dead being raised, demons being cast out of people. It was like that was a different world that had no relevance on 21st century or 20th century America, but it impacted me.
And I’ve come to realize, through years of study and seminary and what else, I’ve come to realize that what I believe, the central message of the Bible is not taking away those first two things I talked about. They are included in that message.
But the central message of the Bible is about the kingdom of God. That’s what Jesus came. He said, behold, the kingdom of God is at hand. Here it is.
Well, where is the kingdom of God? Well, the king’s here, and he brings his kingdom. And it began to make sense to me all of a sudden, this idea of this conflict, it began to help make sense of the whole Bible.
In Genesis, God created Adam and Eve and said, fill the world with what? My kingdom. Go out and have dominion over the world.
You are my co regents. I’m the king, but you’re my co regent. Subdue the earth, multiply, fill the earth with my kingdom. Take this little garden of Eden and spread it to the ends of the earth. And Adam and Eve botched it. They fumbled. And then in doing that, through their agreement with the snake, they invited the rebellious kingdom of the demonic powers, the principalities and powers and spiritual forces of wickedness. They invited their kingdom to come to earth. Then all of a sudden, the old testament makes sense.
Why, you know, you would think the number one sin would be murder or oppressing the poor, and those are sins for sure in the Old Testament. But what’s the number one sin throughout the whole Old Testament? We just got through reading it. What’s the biggie that God’s always harping on them about? Idolatry. you’re worshiping false gods, you’re worshiping the devils. In other words, you are aligning yourself with what? The wrong kingdom. The kingdom of darkness, not the kingdom of light.
And so the whole point of Israel is to create a place where Yahweh is king, and they believe in one true God so that the Messiah could come.
And so this understanding of the conflict of kingdoms all of a sudden made these passages about devils make sense to me, and also the healings of Jesus. I was taught in those Bible believing churches that Jesus performed miracles to prove he was the Son of God, which is true.
But Jesus really performed miracles. Why? Because his kingdom had come. Why does Jesus cast out demons?
No demons in his kingdom. Why does Jesus heal the sick? No sick in his kingdom. Why does Jesus raise the dead? Death is defeated in his kingdom.
All of his miracles are manifestations of the kingdom of God. And so demons, for the first time, when I got that perception of the Bible, demons for the first time made sense to me. And once I understood demons, that certainly helped me understand my sisters. Well, never mind. That’s another story.
All right, so Mark 5:1-20, Jesus goes over into Gentile territory.
If you don’t know your biblical geography, he gets into the lake, goes across the sea of Galilee or the sea of the Gerasenes into the region of the ten cities, the Decapolis. And that’s gentile territory. There are two other huge clues as to why this is gentile territory. If you know your Old Testament, one of them ought to just jump off the page to you. How do you know this is gentile territory? Bueller, anyone? He cast the demons into, what, 2000 pigs. No pig farmers in Israel. No pig farmers. Unclean.
There’s no pig farmers in Israel. All right, there’s another clue also that this is Gentile territory. Because if you’re familiar with the Gospel of Mark, whenever Jesus heals somebody in Israel, he comes to the children of Israel, all right?
And whenever he heals somebody in Israel, he tells them, don’t tell anybody he’s the secret Messiah because he’s demonstrating to his disciples that he’s the Messiah. But he doesn’t want momentum growing in Israel that he’s the Messiah, because Israel had the wrong messianic view.
Their view of the Messiah is the Messiah would be a king who would conquer the Romans, and they would try to make him king. You see that when Jesus feeds the 5000, they try to make him king.
And you see that the wrong messianic idea is in the disciples. His whole point is teaching his disciples that he’s the Messiah. The first half of the gospel of Mark, he’s teaching his disciples, I’m the Messiah.
And then the second half of the Gospel of Mark, he’s teaching his disciples, I’m not the Messiah you think I am.
They get the first part. Peter gets the first part. Who do men say that I am? You are the Christ. All right, you got it. The father revealed it to you. You got it. They never get the second part. If they would have gotten the second part, they wouldn’t have run away when he died on the cross. They would have hung around and said, oh, he’s going to rise from the dead.
He told us he would. By the way, he told him plainly, like three or four times, I’m going to go to Jerusalem. I’m going to be handed over to the Romans. I’m going to die, and on the third day, I’ll rise.
What do you mean by that, Jesus? Fair enough. He spoke cryptically enough that the disciples could. They didn’t understand. So what do you mean by that, Jesus? But this time he’s speaking very plainly. I’m going to go to Jerusalem, be handed over, crucified, die, and on the third day, I’ll rise again.
Peter says, may it never be. You obviously didn’t go to good Jewish school. You don’t understand. He’s telling the Messiah that the Messiah doesn’t understand who the Messiah is.
And Jesus tells Peter, who he just said had heard the voice of God, that now he’s hearing the voice of the devil. All right? Like anybody you know, have you ever heard the voice of God and then five minutes later heard the voice of the devil? Not me, but those other people in church. Happens to them all the time.
All right, so it’s Gentile territory. And so he’s able to tell this guy, tell everyone you want, because the Gentiles have no false messianic expectations. That’s why he says he can’t come with him, by the way, because Jesus can’t have, as he’s preaching the gospel to the Jews about his Messiahship, a Gentile disciple.
But it’s a prophetic picture that the gospel is going to the Gentiles.
Jesus is there very clearly for the house of Israel, but he’s also showing us that later is what is fulfilled in the book of Acts, that his messianic mission is not just to the Jews, but to the Gentiles.
So he’s a gentile. The demons come and they rush to him. Demons are driven to him. That’s one of the things that struck me as bizarre when I first started reading the Bible. Why didn’t demons run away and hide? I’ll tell you why. Demons didn’t run away to hide. They can’t hide from the light.
When Jesus is there, there’s no place to hide. And so demons are actually revealed in the presence of God.
When revival happens and there’s a strong presence of God, there won’t be an absence of demonstration. They will rise to the surface, and they will manifest. All right? The critters will show up.
There was a woman at a church I passed. I was associate pastor. Sweet old church lady. The definition of sweet old church lady, except she was demonized.
And the demon that had attached itself to her gave her an unhealthy, creepy, stalking type fixation on the senior pastor. When her husband had died, the senior pastor had shown her compassion.
She was probably 20 years older than him, but she fell weirdly in love with him. She would stalk him, and she would. When he would go out of town, she would leave presents. It was weird.
When he would counsel other women, she would wait outside, and the women would come out, and she would accost them and call them vicious names.
And she would hang out outside of his house and wait for his wife to leave for work and then knock on his door. And when finally he reached the point where he had no longer open it, she threw a newspaper through his window. Crazy church lady. But you would. You wouldn’t know this from just my casual interaction. And I was the one. I had to go confront her, you know, I had to go give the restraining order with another guy from church and say, you know, here you go. And.
But one of the things that later made sense to me is she was at a prayer meeting with us before I knew she was who she was. And the Spirit of God was strong at that prayer meeting.
One of those places where you could feel it, you know, the heaviness. And that wasn’t common in the Methodist church, but these were all the charismatics in that church, and they were having a good old time. They were hallelujah and praising Lord, and they were intercessing powerfully and going deep.
And the Spirit of God was there, and she was in that meeting. All of a sudden, she turned greenish, and she had to go to the bathroom, and she had to start throwing up. Then she said, I got to go, and bolted out the door.
If I’d have known then what I know now, you know, I just thought, oh, poor Charlotte. She’s sick. But if I’d known then what I know now, it’s like, oh, the light got too bright for the critters in her. That’s why they rend to him. That’s why these demons rend to him.
Don’t torture us, send us into something. They want to be in something. They don’t want to be prematurely judged, and they want to abide in something.
There’s something about this level of demons, and this is. And again we begin. We think of angels and demons of all. They’re all kind of the same. No, they’re all uniquely different.
There are principalities, there are powers, there are spiritual authorities in the heavenly realms. There are different ranks to these fallen angelic beings. These ground level demons, for whatever reason, hate being non-embodied.
And so they come to Jesus and they say, don’t send us away. Don’t send us to the abyss. That’s the place of non-embodiment. We want to still be in something.
And so Jesus actually obliges them, and he sends them into the pigs. The pigs go crazy, and chaos ensues. Except for the man. He is left in his right mind.
I once participated in a deliverance ministry that would interrogate demons and try to get information out of demons. And they talk a lot to demonstration. I now see that as a mistake.
It’s one of my things that I’ve regretted in my life, that I took part in that ministry.
This is the only place I know of where Jesus actually asked the demons for information. Every other place when demons try to talk, he says, be quiet. But there’s something about having the demon’s name that adds to the authority in casting them out. I’m not sure exactly how that works, but something about knowing and the name is not really a personal name like our names. It’s more of a function or a description.
Spirit of rejection, spirit of lust, spirit of anger, spirit of fear. In this case, spirit of legion. Thousands of demons had attached themselves to this poor soul.
And so there’s something about identity, Jesus’ identity as the Son of God and the identity of those demons. And when those identities clash, those demons lose. There’s authority in the Name of Jesus. There’s authority in the person of Jesus. It’s not a magic name, it’s a relational name.
The man’s in his right mind, which the locals, you think, would have been thrilled with, but they’re not.
They want him to leave for two reasons. Jesus had negatively impacted the economy. He couldn’t get elected. He wasn’t good for the economy. 2000 pigs is a lot of money. I don’t know how. I don’t know if they could, if they could have saved, you know, used, saved any of those pigs and butchered them, insulted them. If they could have redeemed any of that, I have no idea, but that’s a lot.
And so whenever the gospel negatively impacts the economy, it’ll make enemies. If revival hit and the bars started closing down, the bar owners wouldn’t like us.
The drug dealers wouldn’t like us. All right, you see it in Ephesus, Paul, there’s a revival in Ephesus, and the silversmiths who made the idols for the goddess of Ephesus led a riot. Why? Because nobody was buying the idols anymore. They were following Jesus. But there’s another reason. As uncomfortable as Uncle Harry was out there howling among the tombs and cutting himself, it’s even more scary to have a power bigger than that in town. People are uncomfortably comfortable with the dysfunction in their lives.
It’s amazing to me how many couples divide after the alcoholic gets sober, because as uncomfortable as the alcoholism was to the family, the new dance is even more uncomfortable. It’s like, well, what do we do now? You know, what do I do? I can’t scold him anymore. He’s actually being nice. And it’s hard to change your dance. The disciples, this happens to the disciples, right? They’re with Jesus going across the lake, and a storm rises up. And the disciples are fishermen. They know about storms.
Now, this is a very scary storm to them because this is a big one. They think, oh, we could die. And Jesus is sleeping during the storm, which is amazing in and of itself, but he’s sleeping during the storm, and they wake him up.
And Jesus gets up and he goes, hey, hey, hey. It’s my interpretation because that’s how I used to yell at my kids. Hey, hey, hey. My wife would say, bark at the kids. That’s what I do. Hey, hey. It works with small children and dogs. A male voice going, hey, hey, hey.
That’ll get them. Jesus goes to the storm. Hey, settle down. And it does.
You know what it says? You think it would say, oh, the disciples rejoiced. They were saved. But right before they woke Jesus up, it says they were afraid. After Jesus calms the storm, what does it say? They were afraid. Different, kind of afraid. And they said this. Who’s in the boat with us? Even the winds and the waves obey him.
25 Then he asked them, “Where is your faith?” The disciples were terrified and amazed. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “When he gives a command, even the wind and waves obey him!” (Luke 8:25, NLT)
I love C.S. Lewis nails this in the Chronicles of Narnia with the character of Aslan. Oh, Aslan is he safe?
No, he’s not. Safe or tame. He’s a lion. He’s good, but he’s dangerous.
Oh, you know, pet things Christians say that drive me up the wall. All right. And I used to say them, and I don’t say them anymore. God is a gentleman. He’ll never make you do anything that’ll make you feel uncomfortable. Whoa, wait. Read the Bible. God delights in making us uncomfortable.
Moses, take a stick and your stupid brother and go confront the most powerful man in the world and then lead a couple million people across the desert. But I’m a gentleman.
I’ll never make you do anything.
And Moses says, I can’t do it. And God doesn’t let him off the hook. No, you’re going to do it. I stutter. That doesn’t bother me. What will I say? I’ll tell you what to say. God just never lets him off the hook.
Abram, leave your comfortable retirement in Ur of the Chaldees, wherever Ur of the Chaldees is, and go to a land. What land? Oh, I’ll show you. You know what? 75-year-old men in their retirement don’t want anything to interrupt their comfort.
I just went to Africa, and one of the reasons I went to Africa was simply because I felt like the Lord said, you’re getting too comfortable. Go do something that’s uncomfortable for you.
I don’t want to. You know, when I was 18, it’s like, woo, adventure. Now that I’m 66, it’s like. Or 65, it’s like, ooh, adventure hurts, you know?
All right, God, how about this for an adventure? I’ll buy a new recliner. No, that’s not it, David.
See that nine-foot Philistine with a sword, a spear, a shield, and all the best modern armor that Philistines can buy. Yeah, take your sling and a rock and take care of that dude for me.
Paul, go to every Gentile town that you used to despise and preach the gospel. And by the way, the Jews in those towns, and sometimes the Gentiles, are going to rise up and throw rocks at you and beat you with whips. But, you know, don’t worry. you’ll stay alive long enough, son.
Go win them back by a humiliating, horrible death and love them to the end.
You’re not called to be comfortable. God will make you uncomfortable. And that’s good. That’s good.
Leave la. Come up to Washington. you’ll love the weather. Be great. Raise maggots. Be fun. Be fun.
All right, what does all this have to say for us? You know, it almost seems like the modern western church believes that was then and somehow that stuff doesn’t happen now. It does. Are people possessed by demons?
Listen, I believe I’m a strong proponent that the people, the modern evangelical scholars who translate the Bible for us into English, do a wonderful job. They really do.
People say, what Bible should I get, pastor? And I say, the one you will read. You can’t go wrong. If you like more word for word and more structured, go with the New American Standard or the ESV or the New King James. If you like more of a flow where the words aren’t as wooden and it flows more, but maybe not as word for word.
Go with the new living or the NIV. If you want the best hybrid between those two, go with the CSB. That’s my favorite these days and nobody even knows what it is. But I love it.
The CS Christian Standard Bible, the best hybrid between those two views, I think. But you know, I like what Jack Deere, an author I’ve read, when people come to him and say, what Bible should I read? He says, the one that tells you to love your enemy, read that one.
However, I’ve got a complaint and this is it.
Demon possessed. The King James translated into English the Greek word demazinai as demon possessed. Almost every major English translation has followed that. Demozynai literally means has a demon.
Here’s my problem with demon possessed. It denotes ownership. Now, this guy was pretty owned—2000 demons, pretty owned a legion of demons. But literally what demonized means is has a demon. It doesn’t mean that a demon owes you and owns you. And this has led to confusion because people, teachers will say Christians can’t be demon possessed.
And if it denotes ownership, I completely agree, but it doesn’t denote ownership. It means has a demon. Can Christians have demons? Yes, they can. Just like a Christian can have a cold, just like you can have a house and you can have a burglar in your house. The burglar doesn’t possess your house. He doesn’t own your house. He is unlawfully in your house.
All right, there’s no sinus infections in heaven, but we live in the now and the not yet. And so Christians still get sinus infections. We pray for healing and people get miraculously healed.
We pray for healing, and people sadly die because we’re in the now and not yet.
Listen, if you don’t believe Christians have demons, not at this church, because our board is perfect. Not at this church, but go to another church and go to a board meeting, and you’ll discover Christians have demons.
We’ve never done it that way before. Oh, my gosh. I was at a church meeting one time with all these good old Methodist sweet people, and I suggested we change the name of the church. It was Oakdale Community United Methodist Church. Boring.
You know, I wanted new life, new hope, something like that. Something peppy. I said, we should. We should call this new hope. And they said, you want to change the name of the church? Yeah.
You’d have thought by their reaction I had said, not change the name of the church. you’d have thought I said, let’s boil your grandchildren and eat them a lot. And eat them. You can’t change the name of the church. He’s always been his name. Even though I was young and a foolish pastor, I learned that was one of the times.
I said, okay, pick your fights wisely. I said, okay, we’re not going to change the name. Easy now. Easy, easy. Calm down.
But, I mean, I have seen time and time again, people. This dear lady that I shared the story with earlier, she was by every account a Christian woman. She’d have passed an elitist test. She could give you her born-again testimony. She could tell you that she read the Bible and said her prayers and walked with Jesus, and yet she had a critter that made her crazy. A crazy, violent stalker.
I’ve seen it time and time again. Conversion doesn’t automatically get rid of demons. Christians can belong to Christ and still have demons, just like Christians can belong to Christ and get sick. The kingdom is now and not yet.
Well, how do people get demonized? That’s the phrase I like better than demon possessed. Demonized. How do people get demonized? The Bible doesn’t tell us; they just show up. However, experience tells us, as you begin to talk with people who have demons, there are simply open doors that allow people to be demonized.
In other words, what I’m saying is, you just can’t be walking down the street. You just can’t be walking past the Walmart and have a demon jump on you and demonize you. It doesn’t work that way.
It is through the invitation and the agreement of human beings that open doors for demonstration. Sadly, in my experience, it’s not always that person’s fault or responsibility. There are two ways that people can get demonized without them opening those doors.
One way is that their ancestors have opened those doors. This is just experience talking now, their ancestors have opened those doors.
Their parents, grandparents, whatever, were involved in the occult. They were molested by a family member or for that matter, somebody else who is demonized. When people have sexual relations, they become one. And if you have sexual relations with a demonized person, even if it wasn’t of your choice, even if you were violated by that person, there still can then be a transference of that attachment. It’s unfair, but it happens. However, the majority of cases where people get demonized, they did it. All right.
Three ways that I’ve seen where this happens is the occult, participating in the occult, and even doing something that you think is on the level that it doesn’t. Oh, you’re just doing this because this is what this club does. All right?
And I get in trouble for this one because many people are involved or their families have been involved. But I think there is no bigger open door in western culture to getting demons in your life than the masons, than freemasonry. Freemasons take oaths and vows that are satanic and anti-Christian.
And people say, well, I just did that because I wanted to belong to the club. I didn’t mean anything by it. Doesn’t matter. Devils are legalists. Whether you meant something about it or not, they did.
And so if you were De Molay, Job’s Daughters, Eastern Star, Freemason, or that’s in your family, there’s almost a—I can’t say 100%—but there’s a good chance that there’s critters there. Mormonism is the same. Jehovah’s Witnesses are the same. Those Christian cults are the same. New Age.
If you delve deeply into new age, I think if you are just kind of naive about yoga, yoga is eastern religion. It’s Hinduism. All those positions are Hindu positions. If I were to take yoga, I would call it Christian stretching. I wouldn’t even take the name yoga on my lips.
Now, other people, they talk about Christian yoga. I don’t want to have a big argument with people. I’m just saying you’re playing with Ouija boards, kids playing with Ouija boards or magic eight balls, all right? Tarot cards, astrology going, having your fortune read.
I don’t think you’re in much danger reading a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant unless you invest. You think, you know, unless you invest in that, and you’re saying, hey, let that fortune be mine, and you invest in it.
But I think all those things kind of expose you. Sexual sin, or any sexual sin, is so rampant in our culture.
The devil opened up a door through Hugh Hefner and the media in the late fifties and the sixties that has grown into a multibillion-dollar, just overreaching pornography industry that has just affected millions and millions, mostly young men.
But now more and more women and people just get snatched up into that. And as they give themselves over to that, they open themselves up to demonization.
Any sin that you commit outside of the realm of pornography, but any sin that you commit that you will not repent of, that you’re in rebellion of, and what I mean by that is not that you fall, but that you just tell God.
When I first became a Christian, I made a big mistake, right? I said, Jesus, you’re the lord of my life, except for two areas. I said, I’m going to chase girls. you’re not going to stop me from chasing girls, and I’m going to smoke weed.
You’re not going to stop me from smoking weed. And Jesus said, no, that’s not going to be how it is. And, you know, he saved me from that. He got me on both those accounts, and I’m grateful for that.
But any area of your life, I preached a couple weeks ago on tithing. Listen, I’m not trying to get your money, but if God doesn’t own your wallet, he doesn’t own your heart. And if you’re in continual rebellion about your wallet toward God, that’s why I preach about it.
Listen, I’m not, I’m not trying to get your money. You need to give your money away. You need to be free of that. You need to give away enough that it hurts.
If you think I’m after your money, give it to somebody else. I don’t care. I’m concerned about your soul, not your, not, not your cash.
Anything where you’re in rebellion to God and saying, I’ll follow you this far, but no further, then the devil can step in and say, well, I’ll step into that area of your life.
Any rebellion, any occult practice, and here’s another big one, which is a rebellion. They hurt me too much. I’m not going to forgive them.
One of the major things, when somebody is demonizing, you’re trying to get rid of a demon and the demon won’t yield, you know, in Jesus’ Name, come out. And the demon’s not coming out going, well, that’s supposed to work. Why not working?
Then you ask the person, okay, you got demonized because your stepfather violated you. Yep. Have you forgiven your stepfather? Well, pastor, you don’t know what he did.
No, you just told me what he did. What he did was horrible. I got it. I don’t know if I can forgive him.
All I’m saying is you’re not going to get clean. In fact, the most powerful deliverance I was ever a part of was a little 15-year-old girl at camp and her stepfather. She was multiply demonized. But it started when her stepfather molested her. Then she began to steal drugs from her mother. Then she did a marriage ceremony with Satan. That’s a good way to get demonized, Mary. Satan.
And so we spent all night trying to get that little girl clean. We’re at camp, and she’s manifesting. This is a youth camp, right? And I’m 35 years old, and she’s manifesting and growling, and I’m off praying with somebody else, and all these college kids are yelling, come out in Jesus’ Name. Nothing’s happening. It’s just chaos.
And I’m looking over my shoulder, I’m going, and I pray to God. I said, God, there needs to be a mature leader to step into that situation and take control. I know, stupid prayer, huh? Stupid prayer, right?
I’m thinking, I’m 35, I’m not a mature leader. This is a youth camp. I’m the mature one. Everybody else is college kids. And the Lord just speaks to me, goes, you’re right, Kevin, go. And I said, no, no, no, you don’t understand. Another mature leader. And it’s like, no, tag, you’re it.
And so I went and I said another prayer and I went over there, and for 6 hours we, but here’s the point I’m making.
We were trying to get rid of that first stronghold, that first strong demon that had a hold of her, and her name was Courtney. And Courtney, her eyes would be closed, and whenever her eyes opened, it was a demon. You could just see it in the eyes, this hatred and anger. But when I was talking to Courtney, her eyes would close, and it was interesting. As she got clean, her eyes began to open and you could see. It was amazing. You could see in her eyes whether you were talking to Courtney or the devil.
Just the eyes. It was bizarre.
Anyway, Courtney, I need you to repeat after me. Heavenly Father, real faint voice. Heavenly Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, in the name of the Lord Jesus, with 100% of my will, with 100% of my will, I forgive. I forgive my stepfather.
And then this other voice would immediately break in, no, don’t do it. We’ll have to go. Yeah, that’s the point. And it must have taken us an hour to get her to finish that sentence and say, with 100% of my will.
And when she said, I forgive my stepfather. I was able to say, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, you leave now. And, you know, ah, you know, the manifestation, but afterwards it’s gone now. There were lots of other demons, but that was the biggie. But as long as she would not forgive, that thing had a legal right to hold on. So unforgiveness is huge. I remember, I remember that was my first, like, big deliverance.
And I remember at one point that wicked voice and those cruel eyes looked at me and said, I’m going to hurt you now.
I was holding Courtney’s hand. Courtney’s a little 15. She’s tiny. You know, she couldn’t hurt me, but she had these long fingernails, and she began to dig those fingernails into my hand.
I’m going to hurt you now. Those fingernails start grinding into my hand. I go, in the Name of Jesus, stop it. And that hand went limp in my hand.
I remember at the time thinking, glad that worked.
Glad that worked. So, forgiveness is a biggie. How do people get rid of demons? Well, you forgive. You can’t get rid of demons you still want to play with. You can’t get rid of demons you still want to play with.
I don’t want these demons of pornography, but I still want to look at pornography. No, you can’t do it. You got to repent. You got to repent, all right? You have to renounce the sin, forgive those who have sinned against you, and then the devil will speak lies into people’s lives.
Your parents got divorced, and you hear this little voice and you internalize it. They would have stayed married if it wasn’t for you. you’re the problem. It’s a lie.
Heard that lie dozens of times. Maybe not dozens, but plenty of times, or your brother wouldn’t have died. You know, a little four-year-old girl whose brother died. It’s your fault. And people live with those lies.
You get molested. Oh, you asked for that. And the devil speaks those lies.
And one of the things you have to do in confronting demons, you have to confront those lies, and the person has to renounce those lies. Then the Holy Spirit can come and speak truth to replace those lies, and he’ll do it. It’s amazing. You can watch it happen.
And then you take authority. You have an authority encounter, and authority is not how loud you yell. Authority is based on your relationship with Christ.
Why couldn’t those college students get those demons out of that girl? And I could?
It’s not because I was more holy or better, Christian. But I was older, and I had a deeper awareness of who I was in Christ.
And so when they said, in the Name of Jesus, come out, they were mostly hoping. When I said, in the Name of Jesus, come out, I wouldn’t say I had 100% faith. But I really had a sense that no greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world.
It happened today in Bremerton. I preached the same sermon in Bremerton.
At the end of the sermon, when everybody left, a young man came to me and said, when you were preaching, I got agitated, right? You start preaching about demons, and he starts getting uncomfortable. These critters are saying, we don’t want to be here for this.
And he came to me and he confessed his sin to me. He said, this is what. And I think there’s demons attached to this sin. And it’s like, all right. And there’s a sense, right? I just have this sense. I am not a courageous man.
I’m the wimpiest guy I know, all right. I’m a wimp, right? I’m just. I’m not a hard man. I’m not a self-made man. These hands are as soft as a baby’s behind, all right?
Stevan cut his finger on some tool, right? The worst thing that ever happened to these hands is a paper cut. You know, it’s like, ow. Reading the Bible. Ooh, that’s the worst kind of pain.
There’s nothing macho about me, but I ain’t afraid of no demonstration. Just. I mean, I’m afraid of a lot of things, but I’m not afraid of any demons.
I’ve seen those eyes and I’ve heard those voices, and there’s a level of certainty in me that greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world.
I had one gal come into my office, and she was traumatized as a youth, and she reached out for comfort to her stuffed animal, Snoopy. You know, the Charlie Brown and Snoopy. And she had a stuffed animal, Snoopy. Well, that Snoopy was demonized. Snoopy got demonized. And so Snoopy became her inward guide.
And so Snoopy would talk to her, but it was demonic voices, but it was, you know, she turned to a false god. That idol was that little stuffed animal, and that. And a demon filled that stuffed animal with his presence and his voice. And for her whole life, she’d been following the advice of Snoopy. Not Charlie Brown. Snoopy demon Snoopy. You know how snoopy I like Snoopy. Not this snoopy. Because this Snoopy said. I’m sitting there talking to her, and this snoopy said to this to me, Snoopy says I should kill you. Okay.
You know, it’s like, good boy. No, Snoopy says I should kill you. It’s like, well, but I just asked her, I said, well, why don’t you? And she says, we can’t because of the angels.
Greater is he who is in you and in me than he who is in the world. That’s authority. When you know that, or at least have a good faith in that, then you have authority over the demonic realm. Then you can say, in the Name of Jesus, leave.
All right. When you don’t know that, they don’t care what you say, Jesus.
I know, Paul. I know. But who are you in me? Oh, yeah. Several, probably. Yeah. I have never had a dramatic deliverance, but there have been times in my life where I have said, hey, if anything’s in me, I command you to go. I’ve never had the experience where I felt like I was going to throw up or anything like that. So I can’t be sure. But you can actually do self deliverance. You can. you, you know, you have authority. You say, if anything unclean is in me, I command you to go.
And typically you can. So the young man I was praying with this morning, I prayed a few times, you know, leave, leave, leave. I said, what do you feel? He says, there’s something in me that wants. That’s pushing. And so we kept praying. And then he kind of. And then oftentimes, there’s some kind of physical manifestation. He kind of. And then he kind of settled in, and I said, anything left? He goes, it doesn’t feel like it. And then I just did a test. I can’t see him. I just did a test.
I just said, in the Name of Jesus, if there’s anything left, I command you to come forward right now. And I said, when I said that, did anything happen? He goes, nope. I go, okay, best I know you’re clean. And I’ll do that to people. Say, I think I might have a demon. I’ll say, well, let’s test it. I don’t know. I can’t see them. There are people who have spiritual sight. There are people who have other avenues of discernment. I don’t have another avenue of discernment. All right.
You know, if a person is growling and hissing and speaking in a different voice, it’s like, okay, I got that level of discernment. You know, I’m gonna hurt you now. Yeah, I think, you know, Snoopy says to kill you. Okay, that’s probably, you know, he’s probably demons.
But I just can’t look at somebody walking down the street and say, oh, that person’s loaded with demons. There are people who can do that. There are people who have spiritual sight and discernment way beyond what I have. So I just do this.
I just put it to the test. I say, if there’s anything unclean, in the Name of Jesus, I command you to come forward.
Now, sometimes you can see it, sometimes, but other times they just feel it inside themselves. And so I just have to ask them, when I said that, what happened?
And if they said, nothing, said, all right, you’re probably good. But if they said, oh, man, when you said that, I felt like I had to throw up. Got them.
And here’s the thing. If you have authority, when you spot them, you got them.
You got them. You got a deer in your sights, baby. And, you know, unless that person is holding on to it on their own, if they really want to get rid of it, you can’t.
In my experience, you can’t cast demons out of people who don’t want them out. There’s a woman in our church, another woman who is a street person, and she’s been coming to our church, and halfway through church most Sundays, she goes back to the bathroom and has this argument: you’re mine. No, I believe in Jesus. No, you’re mine.
Sounds like a devil, right? So she was having that argument this morning, preaching the sermon on devil. She’s having that argument in the bathroom. People are listening.
So I say, all right, in the Name of Jesus, Holy Spirit comes, settle her down, calm her down. And she calmed down, and she came back out, and I said, hey, TJ, Jesus loves you. I know he does.
Can you just say, Jesus, thank you for loving me? She goes, yeah, Jesus, thank you for loving me. Can you say, I renounce those lies in my head?
And she goes, there’s no lies in my head. Nothing I can do. She wants to play with those voices still. So anyway, where do we go from there?
Demons from returning. I can’t help TJ until TJ wants to get rid of him. So very easy. Well, not very easy, but dog returns to its vomit. Don’t return to the vomit.
Jesus says, if that place is not filled, that demon, because demons hate being unattached, will come back with seven friends worse.
And so immediately, when I pray for somebody, I have them pray, Holy Spirit, come and fill me afresh and fill every spot in me that was vacated by that evil. All right, so fill the house.
Getting the name can be important. It may be helpful. Demons are legalists. So if you command a demon of greed to leave and it’s a demon of fear, it won’t leave. But if it’s a demon of fear and you say demon of fear, then it will leave. Demons are legalists.
So that’s one thing, is you want to get the name if you can. Sometimes you don’t have to. I don’t know how, you know, I don’t know all the science of how it all works, but sometimes you just.
In fact, people get delivered in a variety of ways, through authority, through truth encounters. I was with a young man who got delivered through baptism. He came into my office and he wanted money, and he was just a deeply wounded young man. And to say that he was effeminate would be an understatement. His swishiness, if you will.
Oh, this stuff, you know, the lith and the rift and everything. I mean, he made Liberace look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mean, he was just, if you know who Liberace is, and he was looking for money and looking for a place to stay, and I couldn’t offer him either.
And I said, why don’t you stay at the shelter? And he says, I can’t because I’m so much like a girl. The men won’t leave me alone and all this kind of stuff.
And I said, look at, man, I want to pray for you, you know?
And he obviously had deep childhood wounds, so he said no, I don’t want that. I just want money. And so I’m not going to give any money. And so he left.
Well, three months later, he called back and said, I want that prayer. And I got a couple of my ladies who pray with me, a couple of those, you know, people like you, Karen, and, you know, just our intercessors. And I got them there and we began to pray, and we’re doing all this inner healing work.
And then it just dawned on me. I don’t even know if this guy’s a Christian. I said, hey, have you ever given your life to Jesus? Do you want to be a follower of Jesus?
He said, yes, I do. I said, great. And we led him in the prayer.
And then it just hit me, we got to baptize him now. If you’re a Baptist, you’re going to get offended by this story, because we were just in my little office and we couldn’t immerse him. We didn’t have any pool or anything.
I just took a styrofoam cup. I was a good Methodist. We can do this as Methodists, you know. I could do this. Just took a styrofoam cup, put my fingers in it, and said, in the name of the, you know, I baptize you, had him renounce the devil, you know, confess his faith in Christ, the whole bit.
And then I just baptized him in the Name of Jesus, one of my intercessor ladies. And after we got done with that, she said, oh, my gosh. As you were baptizing him, I had a vision.
And I said, what was the vision? She said, you know, he wasn’t immersed, right? But in her vision, he was totally immersed.
And she said, I saw him going down to the bottom of the ocean, and all these horrible creatures were chained to him. And when he hit the bottom of the ocean, they remained chained to the bottom. And he rose, and I thought, well, if that ain’t baptism, I don’t know what is. Dying with Christ and rising again. And I think he got delivered in his baptism of those critters.
He didn’t go to our church. Lost track of him. But as I was leaving that town, a nice couple took us out to dinner to the nicest restaurant in town, nice hotel, really nice steakhouse.
And we’re at the restaurant, and this guy comes out, and he’s our waiter. Now, you have to understand, for him to be a waiter in the most plush restaurant in town compared to where he was, was a huge miracle. He was unemployable anywhere before, and now he’s got a really nice job, and he goes, oh, I remember you now.
He’s still a little swishy. Oh, I remember you. He’s like, okay, you prayed for me. I said, I did. How you doing? I’m doing good. I’m going to church. He was going to, like, Calvary Chapel or something.
I’m going to church, and I got this job, and I got a roommate. I didn’t press on the roommate, you know, one step at a time. I wasn’t sure who the roommate was, but it’s like. But he was on his way, right? And so God delivered him through baptism.
I delivered a lady accidentally one time.
Are you okay with these stories? Are you getting bored?
All right, so this lady comes into my office. She’s a mother of young children, and she says, pastor, I can’t pray and read my Bible without being overcome with apocalyptic fear. I don’t think she said, apocalyptic. But the way she described it, you know, disasters and end of days and fires and antichrists and tribulations and all the things that we fill our heads with.
And I said, well, are you trying to read anything beside Revelation and Daniel?
I mean, what else are you reading in the Bible? The 23rd Psalm? And this is what fills my head.
Well, I do a little more investigating. I found out as she was growing up, her mother’s sister was a single woman with no children, and she was a kind aunt to her and her brother as long as their mother was around. But when their mother wasn’t around, she was a strict, some denomination, strict fundamentalist, our way or the highway kind of Christian denomination.
And she would take them aside, and she would just fill them with, you know, your mom’s going to hell, and you’re going to hell, and your dad’s going to hell unless, you know, you join our church and believe exactly the way we believe and, you know, just scare the heck out of these kids with that kind of violent religion.
And it traumatized her. I said, oh, I know what to do, inner healing. So I lead her through this inner healing prayer. No deliverance, no getting rid of demons, just an inner healing prayer.
Get done with the prayer. And, you know, I think that was a pretty good prayer. I’m a pretty good pastor. I said, well, how was that prayer? And she goes, well, you know, you were praying. I think this is kind of stupid. You know, I’m like, oh, okay, good, good. You know, bruising my little ego there. Good. Yeah, stupid. I pastor pray stupid prayers. Good.
And then she said this, and I don’t remember saying this in my prayer as I was rambling on, but she said, in the middle of your prayer, you said these words: fear, leave her. A command. Fear, leave her. And she said it was amazing.
She said, when you said those words, she said, I had to open my mouth. It was as if I was throwing up. Okay. So I gave her a little Bible study on overcoming your fears.
You know, you give your little doctor pastor prescription, take two of these, call me in the morning, read this Bible study this week, call me next week, see how you’re doing. She came back next week. I said, how’s it going? She goes, it’s gone. I could read my Bible and say my prayers. It’s gone, delivered by accident. Long rambling, inner healing, stupid prayer. She got delivered. So who knows? Something good may happen with this long rambling.
You may be thinking this is a stupid, long sermon, but maybe God will just zap you with one in there. All right, I’m almost done.
People turn to somebody and say, hallelujah. Dealing with territorial spirits. Big controversy in the church. If we can cast demons out of people, can we cast them out of Paul’s bow? My answer is no. You might think, why not? Don’t we have authority? Well, maybe, but we haven’t been given that authority. There’s nowhere in the Bible we’re given that authority.
In other words, if I see a demon in Ico, I can cast that demon out. But if I perceive that there is a principality or power over Poulsbo, I’m never told that I can cast that out. And I think there are reasons to think we can’t. We’re the infantry, not the air force. Those are powers and principalities in the heavenlies. And if we tell them to leave, they may have to. I don’t know. If we have that authority, they may have to.
But remember when I said, when you cast a demon out of a person, you can pray for the Holy Spirit to fill that place. You can’t pray for the Holy Spirit to fill Paul’s bow. Here’s why. You don’t have the agreement of Paul’s bow on that.
So even if that demon has to skedaddle for a second because you’re assaulting it, it will come back with seven other demons, and who’s going to have a target on them? Be like, yeah, that’s the guy who bullied me. And I’ve seen people do this.
I’ve seen people think that they have authority over territorial spirits and that sort of thing. And in most cases, it has not worked. Well, now, there are some in the Argentinian revival, some pastors who believe they have that authority and have gone into towns and they fasted and prayed and locked themselves into hotel rooms and prayed until they felt like that territorial spirit was broken. And then they preached the revival. Maybe God has given them that special authority, but just average Joe and Mary Christian, I would not do it.
People, man, I see them doing it all the time, and I just say, don’t do it.
So what do you do with territorial spirits? Well, in Luke 10:17-20, Jesus commands his disciples to preach the gospel, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons. And when the disciples come back and say, we did that, what does Jesus say? He said, I saw Satan fall from heaven.
17 When the seventy-two disciples returned, they joyfully reported to him, “Lord, even the demons obey us when we use your name!” 18 “Yes,” he told them, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning! 19 Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you. 20 But don’t rejoice because evil spirits obey you; rejoice because your names are registered in heaven.” (Luke 10:17-20, NLT)
In other words, if we do our job at the foundation, it actually works in the territory. Does that make sense?
We do our job, that weakens that territorial stronghold. Secondly, God describes himself. This is in the notes. But God describes himself as the lord of hosts, the Lord of heaven’s armies. You can pray. Instead of straight on attacking that territorial spirit, you can pray, Father in heaven, King Jesus, Lord of heaven’s armies, will you send your armies over Kitsap county and over Poulsbo to open wide the door for the gospel? Now you’re simply interceding with God. you’re not directly assaulting that spirit.
You’re just asking God to assault that spirit, which I trust he has authority to do. All right, then.
The third thing is, pray in the opposite spirit. Pray in the opposite spirit. I have a good sense. I don’t have as strong a sense for Paul’s bow. Maybe some of you do for the rest of Kitsap County. But in Bremerton, I have a good sense that there is a spirit of despair and hopelessness over that town.
So I don’t go after that spirit. But what I do is when I walk through Bremerton and I pray.
I pray for hope. I pray, Holy Spirit, send a revival of hope on this city, because I believe that those territorial spirits are actually assigned against the very destiny that God has for that region.
St. Francis was a very pure and holy saint. And look at the Spirits of San Francisco. All right? So pray for that which was like St. Francis. If you’re in San Francisco, you pray in the opposite spirit.
For God to bring the devil is kind of revealing, I think, God’s destiny for that region.
The devil’s showing his hand, so to speak, and then you can partner with God for his agenda. So that’s how I deal with territorial spirits.
Let me finish. How do you protect yourself and family from demons? Stop sinning, knucklehead. I don’t know how to say knucklehead in Greek, but I went to seminary, so that’s a very deep theological concept. Stop sinning, knucklehead. If you got demonized by a particular sin, don’t go back to it. Don’t return to your vomit. All right? Cleanse your house. Cleanse your house. All right.
I don’t mean vacuum, though my wife has said this may be a reflection on maybe some demons she has, maybe some demons of violence, because she has said that no man has ever been shot pushing a vacuum cleaner. But I don’t mean that when I say, cleanse your house. What I mean is this:
Go through every room of your house and pray, in the Name of Jesus, we claim this place. And if you are the legal owner of that house, or even the legal tenant, you have authority.
People will come to me and say, pastor, come and pray for my house. I say, I will, but you have more authority than I do. I don’t own this house. You do. And therefore you can tell any intruders to leave. If you bought a house that’s a used house, that somebody else, or even even a new house, who knows what the workers did when they built that house? Who knows if they didn’t write little, if they weren’t satanists and put little messages down in your foundation or something?
Or who knows if there probably was some cussing and other sin that happened in the building. Just go in and clean it. This property belongs to the Lord. Take some oil, anoint the doorposts, anoint the house and pray for it and cleanse your house. All right, stop sinning. Cleanse your house. Worship. Be a person of worship. Devils hate worship. If you want the devils to leave you alone, sing God’s praises. Sing God’s praises and worship him and bow down to him and honor him. Devils want worship, and they hate the worship of God.
And then finally, the Bible says, put on the armor of goddess. Truth, righteousness, sharing the gospel faith, salvation, God’s word, prayer in the Spirit, intercession. In other words, it really helps just to be a disciple and a consistent follower of Jesus, not to be a kind of Christian. We had, my mom’s cousin came and lived with us when we were children, and he had a girlfriend, and he was a nice guy, and he was a younger cousin of my mom. So he’s kind of between us and my mom and age.
And so he was cool, and he moved up, and he was working with my dad. He lived in our house for a while until he found his own house. Then he brought his girlfriend up, who later became his fiancée and wife. Real nice gal.
But I remember my little sister said, oh, his girlfriend, she’s probably halfway pregnant. No, she’s not. There’s no halfway pregnant. There’s no kind of pregnant, you know, but many people are trying to be halfway Christian. I said the prayer, when I die, I want to go to the good place.
But, you know, I don’t really want to follow Jesus, right? I want to do what I want with my sex life. I want to do what I want with my time. I want to do what I want with my money. I don’t want to become a disciple, but I do want to go to the good place.
Well, here’s the deal. That actually is the recipe for a miserable life, because if you’ve got the Holy Spirit.
If your prayer was authentic and God came to you, let me tell you what the Holy Spirit does for sin. He makes it way less fun. He ruins it.
So here’s my advice. Be all in. Be all in with the world, or be all in with Jesus, but be all in.
Bob Dylan, in his little Christian phase, wrote a song, says, you’re going to have to serve somebody. It might be the devil or it might be the Lord.
Listen, people, we’re at war whether you like it or not.
You didn’t pick it, but we’re at war. There is a clash between kingdoms. There’s the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. And ultimately we have to take sides. And in the end, I’ve read the book, in the end, there’s no neutral. In the end, there’s no place between heaven and hell. There’s no place between life and death. There’s no place between mercy and judgment. And it does you no good to try to skip out of the enlistment.
In fact, when you do, you expose yourself to the enemy much more than when, you know, people say, well, people will come to me and say, man, I’m trying to follow God and I’m really experiencing spiritual warfare. Great, you’re right where you’re supposed to be.
Oh, but this spiritual warfare is so hard. Well, listen, quit playing defense and start inflicting some punishment on the devil. We grew up in a Christian culture where people were trying to protect their kids from the world and the devil, which parents ought to do.
But here’s really what the parents’ objective should be. I want to raise kids that the world and the devil need protecting from. How about that? How about raise some kids the devil’s afraid of instead of kids who are afraid of the devil?
How about raise some warriors for Jesus? How about being a. And I’ll tell you how to raise warriors for Jesus. Be one.
Kids will do what they see you do, and they’ll believe what they see you live, not what you tell them you believe, and not what you tell them how you should live or how they should live.
So, okay, we’re not perfect. I’m not perfect. I’m away from perfect. But, man, I resonate with Joshua. Listen, children of Israel, you can go back and serve the gods in Egypt that you used to serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
I’m signed up with Team Jesus. I’m signed up with Team Jesus.
He has my time, he has my money, he has my relationships, he has my heart. He has my house. Do I live that out perfectly? No, I don’t live that out perfectly.
If you want evidence, I could give you evidence. Or you could talk to my wife. Or you just know me well enough that you know. Yeah, we know, Kev. We know you don’t live that out perfectly. All right, fair enough.
The Mandez. That’s where I’m pointed. I don’t want the devil. I don’t want to compromise with the devil.
I don’t want to dance with the devil. I don’t want to flirt with the devil. I want King Jesus. I want King Jesus. Who have I in heaven but you? And besides you? I desire nothing on earth, Lord, make that deeper and deeper true in me and in us. Who have I have in heaven but you?
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. (Psalms 73:25, NLT)
And I desire nothing on earth besides you. Yes, my heart and my flesh may fail, but, God, you are the strength of my life. And you are my portion forever.
I don’t want anything that’s not stamped and branded with your name, with your purpose, with your heart. I don’t want any spiritual junk food. I don’t want any fleeting, temporary, worldly gobbledygook that would get in the way of the deep wine of heaven. I want you, Jesus. And in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I renounce every foul and lying spirit that would tempt me or us otherwise. Any demonic influence in the Name of Jesus. Go. Go. And as for me and my house, Lord, let us serve the Lord. And God’s people said Amen.
Amen.
On the night that he was betrayed. Listen. Devils don’t like this. Devils don’t like this. They don’t like this meal. And you can take it full of demons because you can take it religiously or nonchalantly. But, dear ones, Jesus Christ died for you. And this meal represents his life feeding us. It more than represents it. It actually. When we believe, I believe it actually does it. He strengthens us with this food. So come with gratitude and faith for the body and blood of Christ.
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