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Spiritual Warfare and Deliverance
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One could go on all day about the various different demons that Satan uses to oppress. One of the most important keys that we need to remember when doing deliverance is that it CANNOT be done in the flesh.
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Our flesh holds NO power that is greater than God's. The POWER that we use to cast demons out is done through the POWER of the HOLY SPIRIT that lives in us. ` Yes, you already know that, so why am I telling you again? Because I've seen far too many people attempt to do deliverance work in their own power and strength (in the flesh WITHOUT the power of the Holy Spirit), and Satan has a field day with them.
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Look at the story in the following verses of the Bible: "Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified." - Acts 19:13-19 KJV
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That's a dangerous game to play with demons that have more power than any man's FLESH. The key word here? FLESH.
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The solution? When you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, things drastically change. You are then Supernaturally supplied with power from the Living God. Demons tremble not only at the mere mention of the Name of Jesus, but they also tremble in the presence of Jesus, which because He and the Holy Spirit and the Father are One, is very evident when you are prayed up and doing deliverance work through the POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST that will then manifest to do the works.
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I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have received phone calls from people seeking help with deliverance issues. Seems alot of them were trying to cast demons out without the aid of the Holy Spirit.
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I don't get it. WHY would someone even try such a thing (unless, of course, they were just curious as to what it is actually like to see a demon manifest faster than they could say 'boo')?
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Many of them would become so rattled from what had manifested that they would become too afraid to engage in any more battles because of it.
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Please let me stress something here. When you have the POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT living inside of you, you have more power in the pinky your hand than Satan has in the whole world!
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Satan's power IS NOT more powerful than God's. Alot of times people have a tendency to focus more on what the devil is doing instead of focusing on the fact that GREATER IS HE THAT IS IN YOU, THAN HE THAT IS IN THE WORLD (1 John 4:4 KJV).
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Who are you going to magnify? God or the devil? When we focus on the devil and his work for too long, we give him more glory for his evil deeds than we give God His glory for His good deeds and the fact that there is NOTHING that is impossible for our God to conquer.
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When you have the Power of the Holy Spirit doing the work through you, you have no reason to fear. The spirit fear IS NOT of God! There's a reason that God refers to fear as being a 'spirit' (2 Timothy 1:7) and that is to let us know that 1) GOD has not given us a spirit of fear (that's right - He IS NOT the one who gives us a spirit of fear) and 2) FEAR IS A SPIRIT, a demon, that needs to be dealt with and conquered in order to move on in ANY part of our call!
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Believe me, the devil can smell fear in a person a mile away. And he will be quick to manifest that fear in an attempt to paralyze the body of Christ, in order to prevent them from destroying his works through the power of the Holy Spirit.
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On the other hand, the devil also knows those who are prayed up and MOVE in the power of the Living God, just as the demon stated in the verses above when it came to the seven sons of Sceva.
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The demon stated that he knew who JESUS was, and he knew who PAUL was, but did not knew these men who approached him outside of the Power of God, implying that the demon knew that these men were there without the POWER OF GOD to back them up - resulting in the devil having a field day with these men.
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Believe me, when you walk in the Power of God, every demon around for miles knows it, too. There was one time when I had been fasting and praying for three days when I received a call from a counselor at a secular treatment center who requested that I come up and share my testimony with the addicts there (He was a believer).
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I drove to this treatment center, and when I walked into the room where all of these recovering drug addicts were seated, the devil started manifesting in every single one of them.
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Many of them started crying just at the presence of the Lord that I brought in with me - no words were needed to be spoken. Many others started fidgeting in their chairs, the demons in them nervous and literally trembling at the presence of JESUS in me. Others sat twisting their hands together, fearing GOD.
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Needless to say, JESUS got His way that day because there is just NO OTHER WAY TO BE HAD WHEN DEALING WITH THE POWER OF GOD!
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Jesus is KING, and a room full of demon oppressed drug addicts got set free!
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It's war! You gotta know if you engage in any kind of Spiritual Warfare, that it means war! Because we are not fighting against flesh and blood, we need to keep in mind that we need to know what we are up against!
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How can one expect to ever engage in and win a battle if they have no clue what or who it is that they'll be fighting? Even our Military forces know that in order to engage in a battle and expect to win, you first MUST learn all that you can about the enemy and what they are capable of doing.
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Even JESUS said, "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." - Matthew 10:16 KJV
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Now I suppose that some people will look at that word 'harmless' as meaning that they should stay passive when it comes to the devil, which would be a HUGE mistake.
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I prefer to look at that word harmless as: having your mind free from any kind of evil that may try to pollute it. In other words - be innocent and free from guilt so the devil doesn't have anything on you.
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And of course, to be wise as serpents (Satan is referred to as a serpent in the Bible) means to be wise to (Satan) and what the enemy's capabilities are to the fullest extent possible.
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And in order for us to know this, we have to look to God's Word for the answers.
So let's look and see what we can find.
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Ephesians 6:12 tells us, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
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If we look closer at this verse, we can see that Paul actually refers to four different levels of the spirit realm of the evil one. Keep in mind that there are many different forces of these 'evils' working, and this is just an example of one of many, many in each level that you will need to learn about in order to be sufficient in knowing about Spiritual Warfare.
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Did you know that witches and warlocks fast and pray on a regular basis to gain more demonic evil power to use against unsuspecting people, particularly God's chosen?
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Sad to say, but many of them fast and pray more than Christians actually fast and pray to obtain more power from the Living God.
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Even Jesus went and fasted and prayed for 40 days and when he was done fasting, he returned in the power of the Holy Spirit ("And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about." (emphasis added) - Luke 4:14 KJV).
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If JESUS went to fast and pray and was able to obtain MORE POWER of the Holy Spirit by doing so, what does that tell us that we should be doing as his followers PRIOR to going and doing His Works or going out to destroy the works of the devil?
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So you've got to know that when witches and warlocks, etc, go and fast and pray, who's power do you think they are coming back in? It sure isn't the Holy Spirit's!
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Always remember that the Power of the Holy Spirit (which is the Spirit of the LIVING GOD living in you) is far more powerful than any power that Satan has.
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One piece of advice I could give you on dealing with a Principality? NEVER attempt to deal with a Prince unless you are absolutely sure that THE LORD is the One that is leading you into the battle.
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To go into battle with a Principality WITHOUT the Power of the Holy Spirit and the Army of the Lord backing you is just asking for trouble - and believe me - the devil will try his hardest to give it to you.
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BUT - again - ALWAYS remember that the POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST is way more powerful than even a Prince of Satans. If God is the One leading you into the battle against even the worst of the worst of Satans henchmen, FEAR NOT and KNOW that the battle is WON BY THE ONE WHO CONQUERS ALL - JESUS!
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