In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of not treating special days like unbelievers do. They emphasize the need to read and understand the Bible to gain insight into spiritual warfare and how to help those who are struggling. The speaker references Ephesians chapter four, specifically focusing on the dangers of anger and giving Satan a foothold in one's life. They also share personal stories of individuals finding freedom by aligning their lives with biblical truth and casting their cares upon the Lord. The sermon concludes with a reminder of God's love and the assurance that nothing can separate believers from the love of Christ, but our response to trials and temptations can impact our relationship with Him.

In the book of Romans, you probably wondered when we're going to get around to that one, Romans chapter 8, 31 to the end of the chapter. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecutions, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Those things won't separate us from the love of Christ, but our response to them can. Right? The way we respond to these things can separate me from the love of Christ. As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter day. In all these things we are more than conquerors to Him that loved us. Often I have a counselee read that and I say, what does it mean to be more than a conqueror? Think about it. All he had to say is, we are conquerors. What's more than a conqueror? Well, it's the same thing as exceedingly abundantly above all. It's the same thing as more grace, isn't it? It's just one of those there. God is just saying it. It goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on. You can't put a period there. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things come. You know, that's referring to the spirit world. Nor height, nor depth, or any creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. You know, I said something that really wasn't biblically accurate. I want to change what I said. I thought about it. How to respond to these things really can't separate us from the love of God, in a sense, because I know that if I turn my back on God and walk away from Him, He says, Jim, I'll love your back if you won't let me love your face. But my awareness of God's love can be removed from me when I refuse to receive His grace to respond positively to the struggles of life. And many people do not sense God's love because of how they responded to the trials of life. I was asked to mention something, and I forgot about it. And then I was given this newspaper on Halloween on the way in, and I was glad because someone asked me just to mention Halloween a little bit. I think it was three years ago, I was to speak at Tennessee Temple University, and I drove into Chattanooga, Tennessee. When I got there, there was a young man who had on campus there, a missionary son who had tremendous demonic problems. They were all unnerved. It was Halloween. In fact, I think the very day I got there was Halloween. They had burned satanic symbols on the lawn of one of the boys' dorms there, and there was a rumor that some of the young men, or at least one of the young men from the university was going to be offered as a sacrifice that night. Now, the reason that that was so frightening was because Anton LaVey was holding a special service in Chattanooga Halloween night on, I'm going to say Suicide Mountain, that's the wrong, that's in the movie. What's the mountain called? Lookout Mountain. There's a cemetery up there with people that have been dead and buried there for over a hundred years. So Anton LaVey and Satanists from all over America gathered in Chattanooga on Halloween evening to celebrate one of the most important days that they have. In fact, it's more than one day, if you know satanic days. They have a number of days that are special to them during that time. And it just seems unusual to me, and every person needs to decide what your family will do or not do. Isn't that right? And we don't need to look. If someone has a different idea than I have, Paul says, be careful that you don't look down on someone that doesn't look or think about something as you think about it. But what I am wondering, it seems kind of strange, one of the most holy days for a Satanist that Christians get really involved in it, in the same way that they're involved in it. And someone asked about giving just tracts to kids when they come to your house. I think I would be very upset if I was an unsaved kid and all you gave me was a story. Right? But CEF has one of the most wonderful tracts I've ever seen on spiritual warfare. And it shows a little boy, full color, the guy that did the first computerized chart ever done at CEF, was the one in your notebook. The guy that did that wrote a chart. It's excellent. I mean, wrote a tract. It's excellent. It's full color, CEF. And it's a boy in full armor fighting a dragon, breathing out fire on him. And it says, you have an enemy. And the whole tract is the enemy of the soul of children and how he works through drugs and violence on television and so on and so forth. And then how they might know the Lord Jesus Christ. Excellent tract to give out on Halloween. In fact, it was going to be a Halloween tract. And I said, don't limit to Halloween. Take Halloween off that tract. Every child needs to know that Jesus Christ is the victor. Not only the Savior, but he's the victor. And he can save them from violence and all of this type of stuff. But getting around, what should you do? And I just encourage this couple. And there are books. I don't know. I think it's Dobson or somebody right now is offering a book called Halloween. I've read the book. And this fellow has gone in great detail to tell you what is the significance of Halloween. What is it? Why is it? A missionary friend of ours, husband, who was a radio technician, put a ladder up and didn't realize that as he put the ladder up and grabbed a hold of it, he put it on high-tension wires and he was killed. And on Halloween night, those Rubens pleaded with her to come into their home and not to be alone because that's the night the souls of the dead walked the streets. And they were afraid for her to be alone, for the souls of the dead, her dead husband would come back and torment her in the house. It just doesn't seem, you know what I'm saying? There's something about it. If you put a mask on and went ringing a doorbell in Aruba and said surprise, you'd probably be shot if they would open the door on that night. And so I suggested we used to have creative alternatives for the kids. And we'd have a party that was so excellent with a number of families putting it on and giving the kids candy that the kids from the school, and we had a no-costume party because we didn't want people showing up as vampires and all this stuff at our church party, that the kids from the school would beg their parents, please, I don't want a costume, I don't want to go trick-or-treating, I want to go to that party. And we'd have unsaved kids come and we'd show an excellent children's film and children would get saved on the night of Halloween. And we played the most fun games. It was a super evening. Now you don't have much time, but maybe some of your parents here would like to have a creative alternative than taking the kids into town and going. But get that book, read about it, and the more you read about this you go, boy, that's one day that I don't want special like an unbeliever makes it special. We're going to talk tonight about how to help somebody that is obviously losing in warfare. We've been talking about having victory, victory over the enemy, and so on. An interesting study we said was Ephesians chapter 4. We talked about this today and I want to get another verse, have you look at another verse. But in Ephesians chapter 4 he talks about anger and he says don't give place to the devil. It can be translated don't give Satan a beachhead in your life. It doesn't say on your life, it's in your life. Don't give Satan a foothold in your life. It can be translated quite differently. Look it up, study it, but it's a very interesting verse. It's a warning to Christians. Don't give Satan an advantage in your life. Look at 1 John 5.18. It says, and we know whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and the wicked one touches him not. The word sinneth not in the Greek, and if you didn't write it down, get it down this time because this is a very important verse as we're going into helping someone tonight. Sinneth not literally means does not habitually practice sin. And we know believers do not habitually practice sin. I don't know, I was going to write this down, I haven't taught this in so long, bear with me if I miss it. But we call it steps to bondage. And I'm going to try and go down the steps if I can because this is the warning here. A believer is walking along in his life and a flaming missile of the enemy comes to him with a temptation. If he receives that, he will sin, commit an act, and he goes down one step. If you can go down the steps, if you can see, he's down one step. If he confesses that sin, he moves back up and walks again on the same level he was on. But if he's down on this level, he committed an act, then the enemy may attack him again in that very same area. And he begins now to practice that act and he drops down on a lower level. At this level he's beginning now, which was once just a single act, is now becoming part of a major struggle in his life, so he's now down lower. If he confesses his sin, what will happen? He'll get back up. There's one step in here I know I'm going to miss. I've already missed it, I think. He's practicing the act, but you get the picture. If he keeps practicing, he'll drop down on another step and on this step he begins to form habit patterns of sin. This is no longer something he's practicing. It's literally becoming a way of life, a habit pattern of sin. And on this level, at some point in time, he will drop down on the bottom line, and the bottom line is bondage. And often the person in bondage needs someone to come alongside to help them to break that bondage. When they break the bondage, do they go back up here on the top level again? No. Where do they go back to? Habit patterns. And those have to be broken. Strongholds, ruts in their life. They need ongoing counseling. But the bondage needs to be broken so they can begin to work themselves how? Back up the ladder so they can walk in the freedom. Jesus Christ said he came that we might be what? Free. And if you're not free, then you're not having all that the Lord Jesus wants for you. He wants you free tonight. I didn't say perfect. It's free. Free on the inside. And it's so thrilling to sit with somebody who has been in bondage for maybe 25 years and have almost given up hope that they could ever be free of something and take them through these steps and pray with them and see them come to freedom. It's just amazing. The next thing he says here, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself. The word keepeth himself is the same word that he that keepeth the city, and it means guards the city. You know, in the Old Testament it talks about that, guards himself. The third one is the one we'll look at again, is toucheth him not. And that word touches literally means to grab a hold of. Now let's look at this, because this is a warning to believers. He says, the believer does not habitually practice sin, he doesn't go down the steps, but he guards himself. But instead he guards himself so that Satan does not grasp a hold of him. And if someone feels the enemy has a grasp of him, how do we unloose that grasp? That's what we're talking about. How can we help someone to be free of the grasp of the enemy in their life? And they need to be free. And you've got the papers, if you have them it would be really good if you could pull them out because we can look at them. I want to walk you through and why the order is there and why we're doing what we're doing. And I'll just, as if you were in my office, basically, and we were going to take you through these steps, and once you just kind of walk through them with us this way, you will not have any problem of sitting down and taking someone else. Just keep this and you'd be amazed that someday someone's going to come and you're going to be able to sit down with them and be able to take them through the steps that they too might have freedom. The first thing that you want to do is to confirm their salvation experience. As we're dealing with the individual, are they truly born again believers? I shared with you the gal in Africa and I had been dealing with so many Africans and they asked me to see this secretary of child evangelism fellowship of Ghana's sister who had a curse put on her. She was the first wife of this African leader and she was from another tribe and he married nine other women within the tribe. The nine women got together and put a curse on this wife and all her children. They mistreated her so badly. She was having just close to having a total breakdown from the curse and everything else going on and she asked me to break the curse and to free her from the demonic spirits that she knew was attacking her and I said, I cannot. The lady just was horrified that I would not do it and I said, but you're not a believer and if the spirits did leave how do you plan to keep them away? The only protection I know of is the Lord Jesus Christ. When I'm asked to go to speak in small groups of non-Christian teenagers or in some of the high schools they want us to come because and it's amazing the high schools seem to have more satanic stuff going on than some of the high schools in the city and we're asked to go and speak to these schools I said, you realize I'm a Christian and do you realize that the only way out is Jesus Christ and I will have to share that and they said, listen, these kids are so messed up share whatever you want but these kids need to be warned and it's thrilling the freedom that we're getting to share but we have to realize that their commitment to Jesus Christ is extremely important to settle before you get involved. The second thing that we try to find out in the early beginnings before we get in and we do that through a check sheet if you are going to be involved in this kind of counseling I don't have a check sheet with me there are three of them there is a check sheet in the bondage breaker which Neal Anderson uses at Talbot Seminary that was really an accident sorry Freud but his is a little more detailed now the psychologist in our office loves his and I like Dickinson's better and that's the one I use if you were going to go to Moody to see Fred Dickinson I use his check sheet and we also have another check sheet that we use and one day when I get some free time I'm going to write my own check sheet because there are things I'd like to know but what is not bad is if you have some concept of what's the problems here before you get into it what are we dealing with what ground has been given how has the enemy gotten a foothold in this life what is he holding on to what is the beachhead here so as we go through we want to be sure that that area is specifically covered to help that person so if you can sometimes by asking questions ask a person how are they hurting sometimes I'll ask a child a question in child evangelism fellowship you cannot present the gospel to a child without including the blood of Christ you know that you're trained to put the blood of Christ because without the shedding of blood there's what no remission so you must include that in the message to a child then when the children raise their hands or whatever you have them do to respond to the message and you have them come to the teacher you say you want to accept Jesus don't you they don't do that they say what do you want the Lord Jesus Christ to do for you and let the child say why he came well my son has been a summer missionary and has led hundreds of children to Christ while he was a teenager growing up and he was in a meeting a little boy raised his hand he came forward and my son was excited and he bent down and he said what would you like Jesus to do for you and he said let me go to the bathroom now we can't assume don't assume you know what's going on here the third area are strongholds what mental patterns of thought may be strongholds and barriers that are put up to you helping them to get to freedom what are they these kinds that have been established over a long period of time the next area and these are just some beginning things that you need to find out before you deal with somebody and this is probably the most difficult thing to find out but one of the most important things do they really want help do they really want help this is one area in helping somebody that they can't fool around with you know what I'm saying they have to be serious really serious or like I told that girl you know you could end up worse and you're already bad enough you don't need to be worse than what you are the problem is already severe enough it doesn't need to get worse and if you're not really sincere and you have to do that with high school kids a lot of high school kids don't like what's happening but they don't want to make the commitments that they need to make to really be free and to walk in freedom they just want you to remove you know the consequences but they're not really wanting to change lifestyle and then the next thing we do before we start is we bind the enemy from any open manifestations which is just the opposite of what most people do in deliverance we have a prayer if you're interested I mean if you're really interested in getting in we pray specific about 7 or 8 specific things as we receive God's protection the removal of any forces of darkness from that room we pray that there can be no communications between that which may be bothering that individual and the forces outside any schemes or plans that they have raised up to hold this person in bondage would be smashed and broken that the enemy and usually when a person is coming there's more than one demonic situation in their life Mary Magdalene had 7 demonic spirits in her the Gadarene had between 6 and 10,000 spirits in him but there was a difference between the acted two, right? there was a difference between Mary Magdalene and the Gadarene but when someone knows that are pretty sure that they've got this kind of a problem you can rest assure there's more than one spirit involved in the problem as they become aware something is not right in my life and we bind those spirits and then what we used to do is then force a spirit into manifestation and to speak through the mouth of the individual and then command him to tell us what his assignment was, what are you doing in that life and letting him speak out then trying to figure out what the ground was by asking the enemy then going back to the individual that he might confess the ground that gave the beachhead where it says in Ephesians don't do this where 1 John says don't let the enemy grab a hold of you how did he get a hold of you? you're going to have to confess that and then command the spirit to leave now that's the way I was taught at Moody that's the way you'd be taught at Trinity that's the way you'd be taught at Columbia Bible College under Dr. Phil Stain did I tell you about the missionary that called me? I talked to some of them missionary called me crying on the phone about his wife they were ministering, I want to tell you what country because you guys work in that country ministering in this country and she was having an affair with a street person inviting this man off the street to come in and have sex with her she was sharing it she was sharing it around with the other missionary wives some of you missionaries know this couple and know the wives the wives said in a meeting I can't believe you'd have an affair with a street man when I have my affair it won't be with a street man she came home, the husband knew nothing about it she called him told him that she was having an affair with this fellow, he went and talked to this fellow he put a gun, was going to shoot the missionary the street fellow that she was having sex with they came back his wife who has 4 or 5 children is flirting with all the high school boys and he realizes his wife has serious troubles and is under the control of forces of darkness he sat in Phil Staines class when Phil Staines said Christians could have demonic problems he laughed at him he's a Columbia Bible College graduate and he said we don't have the money to fly to Sioux City, who could we see and I said Phil Staines and the phone went blank he said I laughed at that man I said he could set your wife free he said oh was I a fool he said Mr. Logan, there is no way when you see my wife, there is something that's taken her over and they went to the school praise the Lord but school after school basically would teach you just basically in essence that way the danger of that way and what's difficult about that way is when you call the spirits up you are allowing them to take over that body and it can get very, very violent some of you here have seen that it's very violent we're not talking about nationals somewhere where you would have a power encounter in Africa if anybody would have fallen down in a meeting or would have had that thing immediately I would have dealt with it I would have commanded the spirits to go in the authority of Christ and so on we're talking now about a counseling situation not someone in a service or even an unbeliever sometimes you must cast the spirits out and the people see the power of Christ they go in awe because before nothing could happen but what we do now is the reverse of that and that's why we pray and we forbid any kind of a manifestation at all except for teenagers and the reason that I personally call spirits up in teenagers and little children little children are real easy they are so easy it isn't funny they haven't done anything it's usually ancestral spirits or their father has done something you know like the guy that went into the occult and that girl, if they got her as a little girl it would have been taken care of but we were dealing with one boy his mother was a lesbian she decided that she wanted a baby and so she asked some fellow to impregnate her and he did and he went off to prison and this baby was born and she was living in that lifestyle in front of her son and she realized it was causing him struggles and then she got saved she was having all kinds of problems but she was trying to raise her son she knew she was struggling and they asked us to help her and so we were dealing with the wife and the pastor of the church was there they were violent very wicked and so on and she had a murderous spirit that was constantly influencing her to kill her son every time she got angry it would influence her to go over anger and she would rage to the point that she would have to pull herself back so she wouldn't kill her son so her son is 9 years old and she said please see him I see so much of myself in him I am sure he's got to have something like this going on so my wife and I had the 9 year old son come over and when we prayed with him and commanded the spirit up the first one up was perversion in this 9 year old boy and we commanded to leave and he said zip I said what zip? he said well zip it went and then we called up another spirit and guess what it was? murder and guess what it was telling him to do? murder his mother can you imagine a mother and son living together with demonic spirits one telling the mother to kill the son and the son to kill his mother and when she tried to tell us about the arguments and the fights and the things going on I couldn't believe it but when I heard it I said it's no wonder that home was a mess with that kind of influence what's going on with these two people but because I kept struggling with this I can't tell you I hated this method but it was the only method I knew and we saw people getting free but I would go into these sessions and I prayed I didn't know if the person was going to hit the floor I didn't know if the person was going to start you know screaming and try to attack me and it was horrible but it's all I knew and we kept praying and finally I kept thinking why don't we go the opposite way why don't we ask the demons what ground it is why don't we ask the individual what ground they've given and why don't we take back the ground and then pray against the enemy because he's got all this stuff he's doing because of what the person's doing all the rights this person has given they've given the ground and the enemy's camping on it let's take back the ground and then pray against it and you'll find that you can sit there and it's a marvelous tremendous freedom so let's go through the procedures that we follow and it's just a really counseling procedure the first step that we want the person to do and if you don't have a check sheet you can ask have you ever been involved in the occult have you ever been involved in spiritism in games or anything like that if it's a teenager you know we often ask a teenager that's having terrible problems and you'd be amazed at the missionary's kids that will say yes they've done this have you ever prayed to satan the kids prayed to god and he withheld it so they prayed to satan thinking maybe he'd give it to them and whenever satan answers your prayer you're in trouble I look at the kids I said you know something there isn't a free lunch satan never does something for nothing you'll pay a terrible price and many of these kids are having terrible problems they begin to pray to satan because they want a certain boyfriend or they wanted this or they wanted that and they begin to do this kind of thing and they renounce it simply and you have it in your first paragraph there I renounce you satan all your works and all your ways is that biblical it's based on romans they put the doctrinal statement on top where it says finding freedom in christ second paragraph down that's where you start that is based on the book of revelation chapter 10 where it says they overcame him how? by the blood of the lamb and what was the other thing? the word of their testimony what they're doing here is they're making a stand I want no darkness in my life I am throwing off the works of darkness I want nothing to do with the enemy I am taking my stand totally completely with the lord Jesus Christ and I don't want anything of the enemy in my life in any way influence me in any way at all, it's their stand a missionary couple went to Alaska working with the Indians it's interesting, it's an interesting mission they're having success with Indians as no other mission is having success anywhere with Indians in our hemisphere now I say hemisphere but in America or Canada outstanding and the people are sticking the men are all becoming alcoholics the church has male leadership in it and it's just exciting to see what they're doing but they're doing warfare as they're sharing the gospel and standing against but this couple was out in this village, isolated and in the winter time if you've ever been in the north when it gets below zero you can hear a twig drop a hundred miles away it is that cold air and it's so crisp you can hear anything and every night around their little cabin someone would walk crunch, crunch, with snowshoes around their cabin the next day they'd look out and guess what no footprints night after night and it was, you imagine what happened to the wife you know what it'd do to a wife ah, the husband, ah, the wife every night something's walking around this cabin and no footprints let me tell you another one this is a good one, I just thought it was kind of funny this is funny and so finally they had an opportunity with the weather to get into town and they called the fellow who's over the mission and they said something strange is happening every night, after it's dark someone walks around our cabin and leaves no footprints with snowshoes and we're just, it's just getting to us and they said please tell us how long will this go on and he said as long as you let it pray against it they did and guess what happened it was gone I gotta tell you my story, I'm laughing I gotta laugh at my story I'm a typical husband, I was in bible college we lived in a little teeny house it had a living room a bedroom, a bathroom, a little kitchen and it was zipped outside and I was dead tired I had a baby in a little bed, a little child in the middle of the night my wife wakes me up, wake up Jim, wake up there's some men around our house all around it, wake up, wake up someone's outside good, you know he's outside, you know, wake me up when he's inside you know snore if you love me if you really love me you'll get up and check I just know there's somebody walking around the house you know, whatever time it was in the middle of the night my grandmother had lived in that little house and we hooked up a little button that you could push by the bed and it rang our doorbell the house in front so they could come back when she was not feeling well and tend to her so I'm dead tired, you know, I'm working my way through college Bible school I get up in that little bedroom you know, you're looking for somebody and I'm listening and I walk out in the living room nothing and I walk into the kitchen and the shade goes up my wife thinks they got me and so she's screaming in the bedroom he's got her in the bedroom she's pushing the button my mother hears a screaming and she's sure the house is on fire my mother flies out in her nightgown our baby falls on the floor and is crying I had to share that with you that walking around oh my how'd you guys like to stay with us? the first major area here that we need to deal with and that's deception and I pray there's a prayer here, these prayers are not magic but if you look at them they're all based on the word of God all these prayers have been set before the theology professors at Talbot Seminary to see is there anything theologically incorrect in any prayer or in the doctrinal affirmation and they gave it their stamp not that they would agree necessarily every professor, but there is nothing doctrinally wrong with these prayers from the standpoint of Biola or Talbot Seminary from their perspective on doctrine but I always pray I have the person pray and you can read through the prayer how that they know that God wants truth in the inner man and I will pray, oh God, give me a hearing heart I don't want to be deceived my brother or sister does not want to be deceived don't let us be deceived in this process, but may we fully understand the full dimension of the problem they're having, that they might come to full freedom in Christ and you read that prayer, it's an excellent prayer the next thing that we do is the personal affirmation page to find out their thoughts on certain things that can be so deceptive I asked a youth pastor when I say God the Father, what do you think of? and he told me it was wonderful when I think of God the Father basically I think of someone who is far off aloof and very unapproachable now I know that's wrong but I'm being honest with you if you were asking me that's the way I would kind of share and you would say I bet what kind of home he grew up in and that kind of tells about my relationship with my father I hated my father I tried to kill myself at 16 I failed at that which only showed that what he said was true that I was really a failure I couldn't even kill myself and then I began to hope that I was adopted I was much taller than my father I must be adopted and someday I'll find the papers and with that I was able to flunk through high school and then God the Son I have warm feelings towards God the Son God the Holy Spirit not quite, but you ask the person we came to the youth pastor and he said about God the Father I said, man I wish I thought those thoughts I mean I was thrilled it just warmed me that this fellow just sharing what he thought of God the Father and then I said what do you think of God the Son and the youth pastor said I'd rather not talk about him and guess what I knew right then and there guess who I was talking to not a youth pastor not of an IFCA Bible church youth pastor like the youth pastor in town that's been here same kind of church can you imagine him saying the youth pastor at Waxhaw at the Bible church here saying I'd rather not talk about Jesus Christ just that simple, just that plain and then about two minutes later he tried to kill me the second one beliefs and feelings towards self do they have a proper concept of who they are in Christ are their memories or experience so painful that it's difficult to talk about them sexual abuse number one ritual sexual abuse almost always is there a lot of ritual sexual abuse absolutely every Thursday night for a satanic meeting some things must take place or they cannot have the meeting this is every Thursday night they have to have a holocaust that has set a fire of some sort an abandoned building that they must burn something down or a blood sacrifice human or animal third a rape of a virgin must take place every Thursday night when every coven meets around the United States then on the full moons then on the special days but every Thursday night one of those things must happen and often the rape is of teeny tiny children it's unbelievable and I won't tell you about it Jerry is going to tell the kids but it's terrible what happens to children and as these children grow up you know what they do they put it out of their mind we had a counselee that went through that and when the counselee came for counseling they carried in a gun for the purpose of killing all of us in the office and we all died no there was a protector there that never allowed them to pull it out and we never knew about the gun until they were through with their counseling session and then we saw the gun they said we had a gun that we brought here and then showed it to us I'm glad we saw it afterwards by the way don't tell our girl at the desk that this happens because she's too good to lose but she sees some things going on in our waiting room that's unbelievable we had a lady she's a neat lady sent from Canada and they stay at the Best Western and they drive our counselees free from the Best Western to our counseling center and this is funny you may not think it's funny but it is funny it was Halloween everything happened the last year Halloween and this lady was in the van and she and her husband were sitting behind the driver and he drove over the hill coming down to where our office is to turn into and he said well down this road is Satan's Gulch or something and when he said this this woman went stiff like a board and started howling and carrying on here's this driver this lady she'd go like a board she could just lift her up straight and her husband's saying in the name of Jesus this guy's going oh brother Halloween what is going on in this van so they say all the time people come and say what do they do at this place people are coming from all over the United States and other parts of the world what do they do there that's the only time it's ever happened in that van but sometimes it happens in our waiting room and our poor secretary just gets so nervous and you should pray for her because we can't afford to lose her but we try to pray oh lord don't let anything happen in the waiting room either because poor Carolyn doesn't like to see that and if I walk out the door before the council lead does she's asked me please don't leave me alone with them so I don't but these satanic things are going on more and more and more and more and more children are being exposed to it ministers son ministers are involved in good churches they are now when they deliver babies we just got this, this is not off the wall stuff, this is documented information and I'm for midwifery but some of the midwives now when the baby drops grabs it and imparts a spirit guide to that baby before she gives it to the mother and you know some of the churches have found that some of the people they're hiring to be in the nursery while the church service are going on are satanists that are imparting spirit guides to children what's really difficult if you know sylvan mind control that organization is very very desperate, we've had many many missionaries that were messed up in that and usually they give you spirit guides if you know anything about the group, they give you two spirit guides before you graduate and those spirit guides will guide you the rest of your life and they enter the room that you've built inside of you you know how Lindsay his sister-in-law Johanna Mickelson wrote her book the beautiful side of evil and she became demonized after she was saved at the university then through her demonization she got involved in sylvan mind control she was imparted to demons and she went to Mexico and was doing psychic surgeries under a lady that was heavily demonized and the only way she could get free when she began to realize that this white magic was really black magic was she went to labrie and Francis Schaeffer's organization recognized the demonic and was able to set Johanna Mickelson free and her book is the beautiful side of evil but I can't tell you I remember a missionary we had it was a real struggle and guess who one of her guides was Jesus Christ and I can't tell you the number of people that we have had that set free that have gone to the sylvan mind control that they have been placed in them a spirit by the name of Jesus Christ can you imagine how confusing that could be having Jesus Christ speaking to you or a spirit calling himself Jesus Christ and the confusion and all of that that's going on it's really terrible well that's why you want to know were they in sylvan mind control were they in these things so that the confusion will be stopped before you get into this a lot of fantasizing if there's somebody else and so on this doctrinal affirmation I love this we don't have time to read it because I want to go through the principle of the roaring lion as the last thing we do but the doctrinal affirmation and I love reading this and it's just who I am in Christ we gave this to a minister of a very conservative church who came and he said I know I have demonic spirits he said I recognize that there is he got that far remember we prayed no demonic manifestations and he was being choked by invisible hands and he couldn't even read this and I had to pray that the enemy would let loose of this man's throat so he could read who he was in Jesus Christ and he was choked 5 or 6 times before he read this page and this page that was about 2 or 3 weeks ago in fact as people are reading this we say if you have any thoughts tell us what you're thinking and they'll get thoughts you'll never be free you'll always be like this you belong to us here they're reading Jesus Christ is my victor and they're getting this thought you belong to us you'll never be free and you say wait a minute is that true no see when they speak it out loud it's a tremendous thing to speak it out loud because when I hear lies and I say it out loud I realize I don't believe that but if I don't speak it out loud it just kind of runs around my head we say just tell us do you really want to hear I don't want to hear swearing I don't want to hear that kind of stuff don't tell me that stuff don't tell me the filthy stuff just say well they're cursing right now there's all kinds of cursing in my mind and they're using the Lord's name in vain the next page is a very important page that is bitterness versus forgiveness we have found the major cause of a Christian having demonic struggles is bitterness a bitter spirit you say well how can that be if the person is very bitter I do a study on bitterness in Hebrews Romans 8 vengeance is mine say the Lord so on Ephesians chapter 4 verse 32 in that area and then Matthew 18 you know what it says in Matthew 18 you know the story in Matthew 18 the man in Matthew 18 came to a man he owed a lot of money to and the man said where's my money he said I don't have it he said alright I said would you forgive me he said yes I'll forgive you fifty thousand dollars the man walks away and that's a Loganism fifty thousand you could translate the money in and he met another fellow and owed him fifty dollars or say five hundred and he said you pay me the five hundred dollars he said I don't have it he said well I'm going to put you in a pauper's prison and you're going to have to pay me that five hundred dollars well there's no way a man in a pauper's prison could pay it and the people who heard this and realized how much this man had been forgiven would not forgive and he said alright what we need to do is tell our boss that he was unforgiving and this is what the boss said the lord was very angry with the man who refused to forgive this is Jesus telling the story and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due unto him and verse thirty five is significant so likewise shall my heavenly father do unto you if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother their trespasses who are the tormentors the lord would turn me over to if I refuse to forgive what's the message of the bible I don't think the message of the bible is salvation I think there's a better word I think the message of this bible is forgiveness it's all about how god forgives and I as a child of god refuse to forgive my life is now in absolute contradiction to the message of this book isn't that right if I refuse to forgive and I'm turned over to the tormentors so if I try to break and take back the ground remove the enemy from someone's life that is bitter what's going to happen nothing until they what until they forgive and if they're not willing to forgive it's all over period it's the end the enemy has a right to be there because why they're giving him a right by rejecting the truth of god's word jesus said my truth will what set you free the rejection of god's truth will not bring freedom and so you take them through what is interesting jesus said not to forgive from your mind but to forgive from where your heart and there is a difference how do you get someone to forgive from their heart not just from the top of their head we have the person and there's a prayer there now they can pray their own prayer but there's a prayer up there that they pray and ask the spirit of god to show them all the people that have hurt them and that they're still holding on to that hurt paul said what let go of what the past jesus said you can't plow this way looking backwards tonight i had a ride to a house for dinner on the way back i had a pilot fellow driving me back that you guys are examining who asked me about all my knowledgeable information about airplanes now when we got in the car and started on the highway if i had noticed that this young man was only looking in the rear of your mirror i would ask him to let me out because you're not going anywhere looking which way that way and you must let go of it bitterness makes me look which direction look back and it will eat you up like a cancer and it will not only defile you it will defile what many you know i used to tell the kids at the college the young people coming i said do you ever see these bitter old people in the church yeah so you know what they once were no bitter young people how do you forgive from your heart i have them shut their eyes and i take a pen and a paper a pencil and a paper and i say just bow your heads and ask the holy spirit to bring to your mind we forbid the working of the enemy here just the holy spirit bring to your mind those people who have deeply hurt you that you're still holding on to and i begin to make the list of names guess who is usually first and second mother and father and then they go and they list these people and they get clear to the end and guess the two that are never listed if you read the notes you know myself and god and then i have them go back and what we do they say they'll try to get out of it easily they say forgive my dad for not being a good dad i want to know why he wasn't a good dad i want you to share i want you to share the things you're forgiving him for you know father forgive my father for sexually abusing me and you know what happens when they begin to deal with the pain they break down and weep the tears will run as they share those pains that they've held on for years they're releasing that pain to god and you know what happens when they get through with this they feel super it's too early to quit but they're feeling good there's just a release of all the stuff sometimes it's been there for years and years and years and they let go of this and let it all go and then we ask are there people that you have offended and do you need to make things right and we make a list and make a plan there that they need to make a list the prayer is there do you know that when timothy was going to be the first pastor at ephesus the church that had all the demonic problems and that's why we have the book of ephesians do you know the two things that paul said he had to take to his first ministry in order to be successful do you know what they were do you know what it was he said timothy if you don't take these things you will shipwreck as a missionary the two things he told him to take was genuine faith and a clear conscience which some have put away concerning the life of faith have what shipwrecked like hymenius and alexander who did not think faith and a clear conscience were important and we turned them over to satan that's heavy stuff that's the book of timothy turn the page the next one number three is rebellion versus submission if a young person or an adult last night the young people came i knew they would because what did we talk about last night we messed around with the girls and music so i knew the young people would come down and talk and it's easy it was easy to deal with them and i just said this basically because they were wondering about music what song can i listen to and as soon as i say what song it is they're going to say oh what's wrong with that one i've been there and i said do your folks do your mom and dad like the music you're listening to no i said it's not a music issue it's an authority issue isn't it right it's no longer a music issue it's an authority issue your mom and dad said we don't want you to listen to this and you're saying what yes i will do you smell that it's an authority issue i'm getting out under authority and what will happen rebellion is as what the sin of witchcraft what's going to happen to the young person they're open targets for the enemy to bring destructive temptations in their life when they're in rebellion so you go through this it's not just a young person but you go through this i'm just walking you through as we work it through if a person is terribly rebellious you may spend a little more time and let them share their rebelliousness and so on and there's some things here but a young person's school is not on there so you may have to tailor it a little bit for the person that you're dealing with the next area and we spent a lot of time on this pride versus humility and we saw what happens when i'm proud i cannot resist the enemy and five becomes a very difficult one a very hard one and i sit with a person and what they're doing here is they're looking at the individual sins that they've committed that's opened the door for enemy attack in their life and they're going to confess that sin and close the door and they get very specific i said i don't want details because Ephesians says it's a shame to speak of those things which are done of them in what? secret, but you can call it by name i don't want to know what you did pardon me how you did what you did i just want to know what did you do and that you will confess that sin to the Lord it says, let's look at that prayer Dear Heavenly Father, you have told us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provisions for the flesh in regard to lust i acknowledge that i have given into fleshly lust which war against my soul i thank you that in Christ my sins are forgiven but i have transgressed your holy law and given the enemy an opportunity to wage war on my members i come before your presence to acknowledge these sins and to seek your cleansing that i again may be freed from the bondage of sin i now ask you to reveal to my mind the ways that i have transgressed your moral law and have grieved the Holy Spirit often i have the person read the prayer quietly and i say do you feel comfortable with that and then they share the thoughts that come when they're reading it or there isn't any then i have them confess and often again there's a lot of weeping as they confess what they have done and asking the cleansing of the Lord and then the prayer is i now confess these sins to you and claim to the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ my forgiveness and cleansing i cancel all ground the evil spirits have gained through my willful involvement in sin i ask this in the wonderful name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we come to this this last one this last one has caused more problems with an individual coming to freedom than any other step and the last one has to do with ancestral involvement in the problem Dr. Fred Dickinson at Moody who has helped when we took the class boy i don't know how many years ago it dealt with over 400 people mostly Moody students that had demonic problems over the years and Dr. Dickinson said 95% of all the students had ancestral demons that had been passed on because of occult involvement or terrible sinful lifestyle of the parents that were in that child influencing that child that opened the door to other problems as they gave in to it but let's look at this one and i'll read it i think it's one of the best that i've ever seen the best i've ever seen written as a child of God purchased by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ i here and now reject and disown all the sins of my ancestors as one who has been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son i cancel out all demonic workings that have been passed on to me from my ancestors as one who has been crucified with Jesus Christ and raised to walk in newness of life i cancel every curse that has been put upon me and announce to Satan and all his forces that Christ became a curse for me when he died on the cross as one who has been crucified and risen with Christ and now sits with him in heavenly places i reject any and every way in which Satan may claim ownership on me and by this time there is nothing left biblically there is no ground i declare myself to be eternally and completely signed over and committed to the Lord Jesus Christ i now command every familiar spirit and every enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ that is in or around me to go to the pit if you struggle with that wording and some do say i command any spirit in or around me to go where Jesus Christ sends him right don't hang up on the words just change it so it fits what you want to say if you feel that would be a more biblical way and remain there until the day of judgment i now ask you heavenly father to fill me with your holy spirit and i submit my body as an instrument of righteousness a living sacrifice that i may glorify you in my body all this i do in the name and the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ i can't tell you some of the most violent people we've had i told you about the young man that came from the bible college that ripped the doors apart in the dorm to get the people out that were trapped in between the wood and they thought maybe he needed to go home that young man as violent as he was when he got to that and got to the amen he said the voices aren't talking to me anymore i've got peace in my heart i said go in the bathroom and look at your eyes he went in the bathroom and he looked at his eyes and he said i can never remember my eyes being so clear he walked out in the waiting room and his mother and dad started crying they said something wonderful has happened to you and all we did is take them through these steps isn't that beautiful just a beautiful thing i'd like to share just in closing turn to peter i'd like to share with you the principle of the roaring lion and i could share other stories of people that were marvelously set free by just becoming biblical lining their life up with truth taking back ground standing against the enemy that took that as an advantage coming to freedom in their inner life and first peter chapter 5 verse 7 i always read verse 7 but never read verse 8 isn't that interesting how we stop casting all your care upon him he careth for you you know that's worry you know how we do that well i've been fishing that's how you cast all your burdens on the lord and then what do you do reel them back the french do it a lot better they translate it a lot better in the french new testament in the french new testament they use the illustration there instead of casting a dump truck and the picture is when you push the button the back of the dump truck raises up and the load slides off that's the french picture slide your load on the lord and then he goes on and he says why be sober be vigilant because my friend you and i have what an adversary and he's the devil and as a roaring lion he walks about seeking whom he may devour let's look at some of these words interesting words here the word sober means cautious the word vigilant means alert or watchful the word devour means to gulp down quickly you and i have an adversary who wants to gobble us up one of the gals at our office he said i really don't understand that let me explain this to you there was quite a bit of grass between two of the buildings maybe a block of lawn that you would have to walk i said what if i showed you a mine one of these personnel mines it won't just blow your leg off like they use in vietnam it's much better to blow a soldier's leg off than to blow a soldier to bits it has much more devastating effect seeing a man rolling around with no leg than seeing a man dead on the other soldiers and i said marjo you've got to walk from this building to that building and there are 500 of them buried in the lawn and i said marjo i would show you what they look like i said how would you walk from here over there and she said very carefully i said that is what he's saying walk alertly walk carefully because we have one out there who is looking for an opportunity to gobble me up now let me give you the principle of the roaring lion every night after the meeting it's really neat because people come with specific questions and we try to answer them but let's say that tonight after the meeting that you come and we talk and i get a ride and you don't but just before we close the meeting they said you know in Waxhaw a carnival was going through and there's been a wreck and a lion has been let loose now you don't need to worry it was downtown Waxhaw and it's probably gone the other direction but we just want you to know now let's add a little fun to the story it gets very cloudy and we have a thunderstorm and the reason i'm leaving and you're leaving is because there is a terrible storm and we lose all electricity and so it is very dark outside and as you're walking to apartment A or apartment B building as you're walking in the dark you're crunching on the gravel all of a sudden it seems like there's other crunching on the gravel in the dark and so you decide maybe you better stop walking and you stand still and you hear crunch crunch crunch crunch and then all of a sudden you hear a deafening roar I think you'll probably respond in one or two ways either you will drop dead or the other alternative you may become a track star right? and you'll take off do you know how lions hunt in Africa? Lions go in prides the pride of lions will go into the rock or the scrubs and a male lion will go upwind of gazelles or zebras and sit down and as the wind blows his scent down on the zebras or the gazelles they get very very you see National Geographic they get very very nervous they know there's a lion but they don't know where it is and the lion will roar and they will make a decision on the basis of the roar and what will they do? they will run but which way? the other way where who's waiting? the pride of lions are waiting to attack them they're running to their destruction beloved you and I have an adversary and when he roars and we make decisions to run we have just violated or just learned the principle of the roaring lion who is running our lives where are we going? who's in control? who is directing? and you know what? once you get on that he'll keep what? roaring, roaring and roaring what does Peter say in verse 9? when he roars don't run because when you make decisions on the basis of the roar of the lion you may end up being devoured by the one who's roaring he said don't make decisions on the basis of the roar but what should we do? resist steadfast in the faith when you have done all to stand keep standing for you know that your labor in the Lord is what? what's vain come to nothing I want to encourage all of you that when you meet the roaring lion wherever that is remember to what? stand and resist him steadfast in the faith and you'll be men and women and young people walking in what? victory as we stand in Christ and his armor standing against that one who is seeking to gobble me up Father I'm thankful for the privilege you've given me to share with these here and Lord may we remember that which would be very important for us individually Father may there be something said this week that will be of significant help to each and everyone here and Father when we face the enemy may we not face him in fear but stand stand with the belt of truth the breastplate of your righteousness stand in the full victory of the Lord Jesus Christ that he provided for us on the cross that we would protect our minds from the enemy's attack that our situation is hopeless with a helmet that we would raise up that shield and quench the fiery darts and when we see one of our loved ones or friends or associates coming under tremendous attack that we can run alongside and join our shield with theirs and provide protection for them Father that we pick up the sword of the spirit your word and come against the enemy and then use the weapon of all prayer with our prayer targets oh Father thank you that you have promised that we will always triumph in Christ because we are more than conquerors in Christ's name we pray Amen