JUL 20 2020 | Holy Spirit Workshop S1E4 | Deliverance

Sea Change Church · Holy Spirit Workshop · "Deliverance" · July 20, 2020
Numbers 14:4
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Well, hello everybody. Welcome to the Holy Spirit workshop. I did, as I re-listened to my sermon this week, I realized, hi Greg, that I said it was a class. And we all know this is not a class because we are seeking to get our hands dirty with the clay, so to speak. So, hang on one second, there we are. So today we are talking, we're going to the fourth element as God's kind of leading me. I'm kind of seeking the Holy Spirit as he leads me.

This could go on for a year, but what I'm trying to accomplish is to either jumpstart your relationship with the Holy Spirit because it's been, for one reason or another, dormant. I mentioned that mine had been dormant for a while, many years, because I felt like I had Holy Spirit PTSD. It was kind of like there was all these things that had happened that I was disappointed about. And even though I know God was in the midst and I trusted that everything that happened in my former ministry life was from the Lord and was right and I could see him moving, I didn't get what I wanted.

And so I questioned the pouring of the oil and the anointing and all the words and all the laying on the ground and going into the inner city and the streets and praying for people and seeing healings and demon possessions and people being released from demons. And I saw all these things, but I just kind of questioned it because I wouldn't say my feelings were hurt. I would just say that I was disappointed and disappointment is one of the things that really can keep us from following God.

A lot of people lose their relationship because of disappointment. And so today I want to speak about deliverance as we move into this next layer of the workshop. And like I said, the workshop is meant to either kickstart your spiritual life and your relationship with the Holy Spirit, or maybe you've never really entered into a relationship with the Holy Spirit outside of having the gift of the Holy Spirit that is seals you for redemption and salvation.

But there is also the power of the Spirit. There is also the fruit of the Spirit. There are also the gifts of the Spirit. So these are different layers of the Holy Spirit that he has and we have access to in order that we might bring the kingdom of God to earth. Now, one of the primary missions of the Holy Spirit is to bring the freedom to you that Christ won on the cross. One of his main purposes is not only to testify to you of what God is calling you to, but to make sure that you understand that Jesus has won the victory and to live in the victory.

And the thing that we need to be removed from are the lies of the enemy or the strongholds or the footholds. We'll talk about that tonight that he wants to set up in our lives and he wants you to be in agreement with him. What the Holy Spirit wants to do is reveal things in the light and then have you walk in the light. If there's any darkness, to move out of the darkness, but then also to discover things that are hidden from you that you don't even know are hidden.

My friend owned a house in Australia and there was this rumor when he bought the house that there was gold hidden in the house. And that there was this guy that lived there and there was a woman and she died and there was all these weird rumors about the property. So he started breaking down the walls at one point and looking and he actually found $50,000 in gold bullion in the wall. He's a close friend of mine in Australia.

And he found it. It was hidden. And so he took it and put it in the bank because he owned the property and the rumors were actually true. I don't know about the dead body, but he did find the gold. So the devil wants to have things hidden in your life, have you either nonchalant about them, not care about them. But for whatever reason, if he can keep things hidden from you, things that have happened in your family history for years and generations.

Do I believe in generational curses? I don't believe in generational curses as much as I believe in generational acceptance of what has happened prior. So there is a certain type of abuse that goes on in a family. And the next generation accepts it and the next generation accepts it and the next generation accepts it. And you begin to walk in these legacies. Some of these are godly legacies and some of them are not. The ones that are of the devil are not.

And so you can have, they would call it a curse, but I would say it was a generational agreement. Now these things you won't even know where they started or how they happened. The devil will try to keep them hidden as long as possible. What we want to do this evening is to offer to you the opportunity to think about the different things that might be hidden in your life. And the Holy Spirit wants to reveal these things.

I would say the majority of Christians never get to the part of looking for the hidden things that Satan is trying to use to keep us in bondage. Because they never get past actually doing what Jesus has asked us to do in the scripture and burying their own sin. And going after their own personal sin. Once you get rid of your own personal sin and the things that you were saying no to Jesus about and the things you were being disobedient about.

That's when you can go to that next level and begin to look at these perhaps hidden things. One of the things that my wife and I did was we went to a four week, excuse me, a four day deliverance. Where we went and we sat five hours each individually with some counselors. And then afterwards they came together. We would have an hour session at the end of the day. It was four days. We each did about 20 hours each of talking to people about different things that are happening in our lives and going on.

And then they began to discern these different areas and things that had happened to us that had become strongholds. In our marriage, in our personal life, all throughout. And then they began to pray for us that we could break down these strongholds. One of the things that we had in our past is a Masonic past. I don't know if you've heard of the Masons. You know much about the Masons. But the Masons have a lot of history and a lot of ritual that goes very far back.

And I would say that our family was in deep agreement, even personally, with some of the things that the Masons put forward. I won't go deep into that because I don't have time for that tonight. But they actually went through a thing that we read where we denounced all of the things that the Masons agreed to. So there's a lot of things that Masons do. A lot of things are good that they do. But there's a lot of things behind the scenes that you can read about if you want.

And as we began to denounce these things, I actually began to feel a physical light, like a lightning becoming lighter, like in my muscles, my body. I actually felt a presence of a lifting of things off me. As we said, we rebuke these things. We turn away from these things. We break agreements with these things. This is deliverance. Jesus wants to deliver us. The first thing you want to deliver you from are the things that you know you shouldn't be doing.

You already know it. But very few Christians that I know actually take a step to walk in holiness and actually win the first battle. It is the obvious battle. You know, don't get drunk. You know, it says don't get drunk with wine. It says all these ones that are very simple. But there is a whole other layer of deliverance. The Holy Spirit wants to lead you into that deliverance so that you can walk in freedom. Because when you walk in freedom, you walk in power and you walk in truth.

If you look at your notes, I want to give you an identification or a definition of deliverance. Deliverance is being set free from spiritual bondages and barriers that hold us back from walking in the victory that Jesus won on the cross for us at Calvary. Say it again. Deliverance is being set free from the spiritual bondages and barriers, I would even say blockages, that hold us back from walking in the victory that Jesus won on the cross for us at Calvary.

The reason we want to be set free is so we can walk in freedom. We can walk in victory. These things will hold us back and they will lead us to death as opposed to life. The spiritual bondage comes in many forms. See in your notes, some of them are mental. You can have mental blockages. I believe that a lot of the mental illness we see today, in our streets today, in our families today, I believe that much of it is demonic.

And I believe that much of it is never addressed as a demonic issue because we don't believe in the demonic. We only believe, and we're in the one-third world, the two-thirds world does believe in spiritual. They do have faith in these things. I don't always want to say if someone has some mental issue or perhaps a schizophrenia or maybe even just something as, you know, deep depression, that this is demonic. I don't want to always run to the devil.

You've got to be really careful. In the 80s, there was a big movement, the Piercing the Darkness books, which I loved. All these things. The devil is behind every corner. It's always ready to jump out and everything's about the devil. I don't want to go there quickly, but I also don't want to deny that there are mental blockages and mental issues that come from the demonic. We'll see that in a moment. Also emotional and physical ailments are a result of demonic activity.

Now, we believe that there are angels. We believe that there are demons. And this world was not meant for demons. This world is not meant for demons. You will see in a moment when I read the scriptures that when demons are cast out of a host, a place that they can rest upon, they don't know where to go. They wander around in arid places and they have to wait to go look for a place that has agreement with them so that they can rest upon that agreement.

If they cannot find a place of agreement, we'll speak more about that in a moment, or in a place that is given to them by somebody that does belong here, mostly humans, because humans were built for this world. God has given us authority over this world. And we have the ability to tell demons, you belong here or you don't belong here. We have the ability to tell demons. We have the ability to tell demons. We have the ability to tell demons when we were in Australia and witchcraft culture.

We'll talk about more of that in a moment. But one of their big things is to get things like rocks and things like this to pray curses over them, to pray demons, to stick upon them. And then they go put these all over the city. You know, share some story. Well, I'll just share it right now. When one of the places I would go pray over was a surfing area. It was a beach like La Jolla Cove. And there was a place where this group of surfers sat, and it was one of the biggest, most well-known surf clubs in all the world.

And they would sit there. There was a lot of things going on. And they sat under this metal hut. I remember one day I'd go at night, and I would just pray. I would intercede over the hut. 20 or 30 of them would sit there. And they were really hardcore. Like, if you mess with them, it's like, you went and see how some locals. These guys are way more hardcore. They're more like Hawaii boys. It's like really hardcore. Or, like, run you down and shoot you.

You know, that type of thing. And so I would go intercede over this at night. I never had any issues in the water. I never got into a problem with them. But I remember one day I was, like, looking around. And on the top of this, the metal beam, I saw this little red thing. So I had a feeling I knew what it was. So I took a stick and I knocked it off. And there was a red, like a gem. I knew immediately in my spirit what it was.

It was a thing that they use in witchcraft. They'll put an incantation. And they basically say, I'm giving you authority because I belong in this world. You don't. We see that in Scripture. The devil, unless they have a place where they can reside, a host, you'll see in a moment in the Scripture they ask to go into the pigs, remember? Jesus says you can go to the pigs. Otherwise, they were going to have to go, like, run around until they can find a place to rest.

So when they don't have a place to rest, they're just running around. So I knocked it off. There was a whole bunch. There was three or four of them up there. I knocked it off. I don't touch them. Not that I'm superstitious, but I just don't touch them. I just knock them off. I go throw them in the trash. Came back the next night. They're back. Came back four or five nights later. They're back. I just kept cleaning them off over and over.

Someone's putting them back. I thought, this is not kids. This is not kids doing this. Why are these things in the same place all the time? We actually had one time where there was five major intersections, or seven major intersections through the Gold Coast of Australia. And we were driving from checking the surf from one to the other. And there was a person. They were witches. Full regalia. I mean, dressed like witches.

You know what I'm saying? Full regalia. Not the witch hat or the broom or anything like that. But like these, you know, just really gothic. Like, dressed like goth. And they had their hands in the air on each of the intersections, major thoroughfares, as you went through from the north of the Gold Coast, about 33 miles to the end. We were checking the surf. And we kept seeing people, women, only women this time, on all these.

And then another time we saw one in front of the school. And so this is this idea of having to have a place that you can rest upon. And the scripture does back this up. But I would go and I would clean these things up. Another time we were, and I don't want to get too much more into this, but we were having a worship time at a coffee house. They had an upstairs area you could rent over the beach. And this woman comes up afterwards.

And she's all, hey, just saw you guys were praying. And, you know, and up here I think it's so cool. And I collect these gems. I just thought I'd give you one. Do you want it? And I'm like, no, thank you so much. She's all, well, I just want to give it to you. I'm like, yeah, I don't really want to receive it. I just, I really appreciate it. It's so kind of, but I just want to give it. I'm like, well, I just don't want to receive it.

Thank you. And so she didn't, she goes, well, I'm just going to leave it here. I said, you can leave it there. Go ahead. But she goes, oh, I'm, you know, I'm the waitress. I worked down there. I knew exactly what it was. I knew exactly who she was. And I knew exactly what was going on. Now, if you tell anybody like this in the world, they're going to think you're crazy. But the story is the story and it's true. There, you know, there's, you know, even at my mom's house at Moonlight Beach, I saw a woman come in by and she had these necklaces.

And I, she came down to the beach. It was busy on a, on a summer day. And she came and she put a necklace by the kids' park. It was like this really pretty, you know, emerald, like fake necklace. But she put it by the kids' park and then she went and put another one somewhere else and just left them around for people to pick up. I won't go into all the theology of that, but it is definitely something that witch culture does.

And it's in order to bring power and influence and to get people who are in agreement. So I won't go much deeper, but let me just go through there's different types of spiritual bondages. That would be a different workshop on, on spiritual warfare, probably. Um, now I would say when it comes to demonic bondage, there's degrees of demonic bondage from outward oppression to inward possession, but all are based on a root of agreement.

When I came to this church and the first year and I was, you know, there was a lot going on and I started having chronic anxiety disorder. Only had one panic attack, but I had about six months of chronic anxiety disorder when I was here the first year. And it didn't go away until I broke agreements with the things that were causing me to be stressed. And so there was a lot of agreements. I believe that I had to, you know, perform.

I believe that I, you know, there's all these performance issues and that I had and I couldn't fail and I had to like, you know, whatever it is. And my dad wouldn't be proud of me unless I succeeded. I mean, all these lies, you know, but they're rooted. And because I was in agreement with the lies, the enemy can come in and there's an open door to my heart. And because I'm in agreement with it, he can come and bring anxiety.

And it isn't like the anxiety just bounces off. It actually hits a chord that I'm in agreement with. I didn't know I was in agreement with those issues until I went to deliverance class and prayed more and went to counseling. And then you start closing those doors up because I'm no longer in agreement. The Holy Spirit began to lead me in a way that I understood what was actually happening. About two weeks ago, you know, it's been a stressful period here around the church with everything that's been going on.

I had one night where I couldn't sleep, had the anxiety show up. And I was like, you know what? It's my core. When you get anxiety, you get this thing called cortisol. So you can't sleep. Your body's just rushing cortisol, adrenaline. So I preached on Sunday morning on one hour of sleep. But the whole night, as opposed to being like tripping, like I used to do in anxiety, I was like, you know what, devil? It's not 2014 anymore.

So I got a lot of energy. Probably not going to sleep. I got all this cortisol. I realized that I, you know, for the last few days, I went back into performance mode. I repent of that. It's not going to make the cortisol go away because it takes like me two or three days to get that out of my system. And I just sat there. I thought, I'm just going to lay here awake all night. And then, oh, you're going to, you're going to fail.

Then I'm going to fail. Oh, I kept getting these thoughts. Yeah, okay. It's not 2014 anymore. I kept telling the devil. And then I, you know, I saw this picture in my hand of like this, this, like, it was just a picture in my head as I was praying, this finger pointing at me. I said, Lord Jesus, I just pray you wither that hand. I just pictured it withering. And I said, the rest of the night, I just wither the hand, the pointing finger of the enemy.

I just wither it in the name of Jesus. Because those doors, I don't have those agreements. So I can step back into those agreements because I'm used to them. But for the most part now, when I see it coming, I don't have agreement with it. And so this is this idea of agreement. One of the things that witches want to do is they pray certain curses and, you know, of sexual curses, of suicide. They pray all these different curses.

And then they hope that the person picks it up, has those things in, those agreements in them. And then they wear them. And then there's a place for those demons to start attacking. Once again, a spiritual warfare course more than a Holy Spirit course. There's degrees of bondage from outward oppression. What I just told you I experienced was outward oppression. Devil's on the outside. The devil cannot read your mind anywhere in scripture.

It doesn't say the devil can read your mind. So if the Lord tells you something, you don't always have to share it. Sometimes the Lord's giving me strategies and I feel like the Lord says, don't share that. Don't share it aloud. There's nowhere where it says the devil can read your mind. But there are places he can put thoughts into your heart. He can give suggestions to you. I don't know why it goes in, but he can't do it the opposite way.

But he has no ability to read the mind. Only to tempt, to suggest. And I don't understand how temptation works, but it does. There's a feeling that comes with it. There's thoughts that come with it. So there is an outward oppression and all the way to inward oppression, possession. But all are based on the root of agreement. You will see with Job that if you read the book of Job, the devil comes up to God. Where have you been?

Wandering around the earth, just looking to make some trouble. And he says, well, if you consider Job. And he's all like, basically, he's like, well, I considered him, but there's a hedge of protection around him. Why is there a hedge? Because there's no agreements. He had zero agreements. The devil can only attack you for two reasons. One, God allows it for one reason or another. Or two, you're in agreement with it.

But he cannot just on his own show up and attack you. He doesn't have authority to do that. He can only, that I see from scripture, attack you because God says, I will allow it. And so the only reason he was able to attack Job was because God said, I'm going to allow it. And then the other reason is if you are in agreement with it. If you have those doors open in your life, then he is going to be able to use those things.

That's why I tell guys about pornography. Like if there's an open door to pornography or unforgiveness in your heart, any of these things, whatever door is open, the enemy can go in there with all the things that come along with negatively, with accepting those things and attack you with it. And there's nothing you can do about it unless you shut the door. A lot of people are praying regularly, God protect me, protect me, protect me, but they leave the doors unlocked.

You got to shut the doors. And so these are the things that you don't have to live in fear. The only fear, people get most fearful that I understand when you're not willing to close the door. That's when the fear comes because I know I'm not willing to close it, but I know I'm going to be attacked, but I don't want to be attacked. And so they get freaked out. But if you close the doors, you don't have to live in fear.

And you'll see all of a sudden, like I had, when the, when the enemy shows up with those old tricks, I'm like, it's not 2014 anymore. That's it. You know, new level, new devil. You better bring a new devil because that one ain't going to work no more. Moving on. Agreements. If we're going to live in deliverance, then we need to break our agreements with the lies and the desires of the flesh. So the lies are, you are not a princess of God.

You are not a loved child of God. You're not a loved son of God, daughter of God. You know, these things get rooted with our upbringing, with our different, with our family story. We accept these things and we have to take some time either in counseling or with another brother or just meditation and ask the Lord, where are the lies that I'm believing? These lies are the things, you know, and some of these are cultural lies.

You'll see these over nations. You'll see, you know, in Africa, America, Brazil, there's, there's blessings as well, because there's things we agree with that have blessings. A lot of the blessings right now are being under attack in America. There's a lot of things that are blessings that bring freedom, but they're under attack right now because Satan wants to close down the blessings and only have the curses. So we're seeing a ton of curses that are happening.

One of the things you don't see is the prevalence of like witchcraft in America like you see in other places. So if you look at, I encourage you to go look at an aerial map of Haiti and is it the Dominican Republic that's attached to Haiti right next to it? Haiti, tons of witchcraft. I mean, and the whole place has been deforested. If you look at it from the, from the aerial view, it's just an absolute deforested wreck.

But if you look at the DR next to it, which is different spiritually, you see that it's forested, it's green. I've seen this before. One of the things that happens is when you have witchcraft, it actually just destroys and kills and, and, you know, basically deforest. So it's an interesting thing. And somebody showed me one time that before. One thing I also saw is I looked at the, the, this is just non sequitur. The heat map on Trulia is a real estate website.

It's a heat map and it shows crime in the area and our church on this corner. And then a really godly church, the Lutheran church on the corner that has all the signs up with Mark Dale as the pastor. There's like all, it's a red line on Pearl street because there's a lot of spirits stuff that happens on Pearl street. That's where the murder was and a couple of things recently. And then it gets yellow as you get to the church, but the entire two blocks from our corner to their corner is green.

There's basically zero crime from our corner to their corner in this one area. Now, I don't know if it's a, maybe it's, you know, just a coincidence, but I think it's really interesting that, you know, we keep praying regularly that God will continue to have agreement with peace, joy, love, and take that further and further out. We pray for two feet at a time and you can do that as well. So I would encourage you if you want deliverance, not just to shut down the lies, but to find the blessings and the things that God and speak those blessings, speak those over your children, speak those over your wife, speak those over yourself.

I am a child of God. Those are the blessings that you change generational curses. You know, you have, you have children that, you know, you can speak to bless them, bless them as they get out of the car, you know, these different things. So blessing, that's why I bless every Sunday. I give a blessing every week in a world full of curses. Where do you get blessed? I mean, literally, besides coming here on Sunday, where do you get blessed?

No one even says God bless you anymore, you know? So I want to bless people and step out of that. And we're talking about those levels of agreement. One thing I just want to say is that if you have asked Jesus into your heart, you cannot be possessed, okay? I believe there's no way that the Holy Spirit can dwell where the enemy is, but you can be severely oppressed to the point where you just have the demonic attached to you all over the place.

We have, I have friends that have this gift of discernment. I don't see it, but they'll go in and they'll actually see different types of demons or spirits upon people when they're walking around. C.S. Lewis talks a little bit about this in the Screwtape Letters, a great book to read, where you just have these demons, they'll just rest upon you. They'll just kick it on the outside, speak to your ear. They're just there all the time because you have so much agreement with them, they don't have to leave.

Like, I might move into agreement, but I feel like I move out of agreement within 24 hours probably, 36 hours, and then they've got to bounce. But they're coming, they're constantly trying to have this attack. They want authority. They want authority in your life. And so I would say that it is impossible to be demon-possessed if you're a Christian, but you can be severely oppressed. And I've prayed for people that are Christians that you almost don't know the difference between someone who's possessed and someone who is not possessed because they are so in bondage.

And it actually goes to the core of their being. So, but Ephesians 4, 27 says this, and it's speaking about the footholds that the devil wants in your life. It says, Be angry, yet do not sin. Do not let the sun set upon your anger. And do not give the devil a foothold. Now, the devil wants to turn footholds into strongholds. If you ever know anything about medieval warfare, they're going to try to get on the wall. They used to put oil on the walls, and then they would light the, you know, or tar, and then they'd light it on fire if they tried to crawl up.

One of the things is they want to get somebody on the wall, get over the wall. If you get to the, past the first wall, a great castle will have a second wall. They get into the second wall. And then if you've seen Lord of the Rings, they, in Helm's Deep, when they get attacked, where do they go? They go to the keep. The keep is that center place. And so the enemy wants to take a strong, a foothold, and he wants to make it a stronghold in your life to where you feel powerless.

He wants you to feel powerless. You're powerless over your thoughts. You're powerless over your addictions. You're just powerless. And he wants to have that powerlessness also connected to an agreement or a desire. So oftentimes, people feel powerless. But with addiction, most people want to be addicted. They don't. They want to be free, but they want their drugs. Or they'd stop doing it. In counseling, on a regular basis, I'll be with people, and the husband will say, she's done this forever, blah, blah, blah.

You know, she's this, she's this, and this. And I will say, well, why do you put up with it? How long has it been going on? Three decades. Why have you put up with it for three decades? There must be something you're getting from it. There must be some kind of benefit that you're getting. I shared the story a couple times here in the pulpit about a woman who's complained, had counseling with him. He's a drunkard. He finally gets sober.

Amazing. Can't believe it. They start walking, going to church, the whole thing. A year later, they call me back, hadn't counseled with him for a while. I'd seen him at church. They'd been doing great. We got to get together. He fell off the wagon and drank again. I was like, oh, okay, bummer. Come on, we'll meet up. What happened? Well, it was his one-year sober anniversary, so I threw him a party and got him a bottle of wine.

I said, are you serious? I said, like, really? You know why? Why would a woman do that after she complained about this drunkard who finally got sober? Because there was something that either he acts like a child and she gets to be in charge, she gets to complain. I don't know. But if you dance the same dance for 30 years, it's because you're getting something from it. The enemy wants to have strongholds that are based in things that are hidden, but also get you into agreement with them.

If he can get that parlay going of something that you want, let's talk about addiction. The reason we don't want to be addicted, but we want those drugs. We want that drink. We want that sex. We want that whatever that thing is. We have to get to the place where God removes that desire from us, or we're willing to stand up to it with courage. But that is a stronghold. That is an absolute stronghold. When he can get agreement with also this desire to lock you into bondage.

He wants to turn footholds into strongholds. Bondage is easy. I've got to say, bondage is easy. Slavery is easier. Prison, let me just use prison. Prison is easier than being a free person. If you watch Shawshank Redemption, there was that movie where Brooks, he just didn't know how to live in the free world. It's hard to be free. You've got to make decisions for yourself. Even though it's a bummer to be in bondage, being told when to get up, when to go to bed, what to eat, what not to eat, it's just a lot easier.

It's hard because you're in bondage. But most people don't want to be free. They want to be told, not most people, but many people. Let me just say many people. You see this with the Jews under Moses. In Numbers 14.4, they said to each other, we should choose a leader and go back to Egypt. They were whipping them, making them make those bricks. I mean, they were treating them, they were killing them. Complete bondage.

But it's easier to live in bondage than it is to be free. And the question is, do you really want to be free? I am of the mindset, personally for me, I want to be kind of free. I've always wanted to be kind of free. I want to have just enough for myself. Just enough compartmentalized for myself, but not be completely free. And recently, I've been trying to live a life, what does complete freedom look like? It's unbelievable.

But the desire to go back, to have the things that we want, to gratify the flesh for those reasons, puts us in deeper bondage. The question is, you have to ask yourself, before we move into this idea of do you want to be delivered, is how healed do you really want to be? Remember Jesus asked that one gentleman? He says, do you want to be healed? It's a foolish question. He's been lame for 38 years. But Jesus knew something about him.

He didn't want to be healed. And something is working for us. And that's why we do what we do. Coming in, turning the corner now. I'm going to come in for a landing in about 15 minutes. Jesus preached the kingdom. He also, oh, let me give that Romans 8 verse about freedom. It says, for in Christ Jesus, the law, the spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. And so the spirit is meant to set you free.

It's one of the main purposes. As Jesus preached the kingdom, which you were called to do, as Jesus preached the kingdom, he also healed the sick and cast out demons. So we see that with two demonically possessed men in Matthew 8, dealing with the legion of demons. This guy was in so much agreement with demons. He didn't just have one demon. He had a legion. A legion is a thousand. It's a thousand demons. Unbelievable, the agreement that he had.

The epileptic boy Jesus dealt with, the multitudes of the demon possessed, and it's setting people free. Let me just read that story quickly, and I have a couple things I want to share about it, about the demon possessed man, the two demon possessed men coming out of, I think it says Gadarenas here. It says, when he arrived at the other side of the region, this is Matthew 8, 28 through 34, of Gadarenas, two demon possessed men coming from the tombs met him.

They were so violent that no one could pass that way. What do you want with us, son of God, they shouted. Have you come to torture us before the appointed time? Some distance from them, a herd of pigs was feeding. The demons begged, if you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs. I already taught about that and about them having to have a place to go. He said to them, go. He granted their wish, go. So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water, which means they no longer had a place to go.

Which I think is really interesting, because now they had to go wander around and find their next place to go. Those tending the pigs went off into the town and reported all this. Now what's so interesting, this is a Jewish town. Jews don't eat pork. It says something about the city. Like, why is there, if you're following the law, and you're good Jews, and you're doing that whole thing, there shouldn't be a herd of pigs.

And then you run into the town, and you're all upset because the pigs are gone. Jews don't eat bacon. I'll just let you know, I know a bunch of kosher Jews, and they don't eat bacon. But here we have those pigs that tell us something about the city. Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town, and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. They talk about the pigs first, and then the demon-possessed man.

Isn't that funny? First thing they talk about. The whole town went out to meet Jesus. When they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region. Wow. To leave their region. It says, when an impure spirit comes out of, in Luke 11, 24, and I already showed this, when an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest. It does not find it. And then it says, I will return to the house in which I left.

Now one of the things I want to mention, and I have some insights from this passage. First is this, Jesus never went demon-hunting. There's no passages where Jesus is like, hey, let's get all the disciples, let's go look for some demons. And we're going to go hunt some demons tonight. Because, dude, we're going to throw them into some pigs. We're going to go off the wall. This is going to be awesome. He never does that.

But there are a lot of Christians who spend a lot of time demon-hunting. But Jesus, it's not the model of Jesus. But when Jesus was encountered by an unclean spirit, they usually came to him. Most of the issues that Jesus had, people that were healed, people that were demonically oppressed who got delivered, even people that argued with Jesus, the Pharisees. Jesus was so attractive, he didn't have to go looking for things.

They just showed up. Why would these demon-possessed men run out to Jesus? They show up and they meet Jesus. He didn't have to go looking for them. I don't know why. I think that they would hide in the cave if Jesus came. But for some reason, maybe they wanted to be free. Because that's the question. Because if you don't want to be free, those demons aren't coming out. One of the things you'll see with Jesus is when there is agreement, it's very easy for him to just cast demons out.

He never has 27-hour deliverance sessions. I had a buddy, another friend of mine, same guy in Australia, actually, it's the same character, who got into deliverance ministry. And he would do these 8- to 10-hour deliverance sessions. People would fall on the ground and they'd spit and throw up. And he would do it, like these huge sessions. And I finally just said to him, I said, bro, that's going to wear you out. I said, with Jesus, if someone wants to be free, they can be free like that.

Jesus is just like, well, then be free. You're done. We don't need to do this massive, you know, this thing. Because the devil loves, he hates the light, the spotlight, but he loves a stage. The devil loves a stage. I'm a, you know, interesting thing that happened here. My mom was there about a year or two ago. Guy walks up to the front and he's crying and yelling. And then he falls on the ground. I'm a sinner. He's just yelling and yelling and yelling.

And I forgot exactly what he was yelling. But I just, all of a sudden, I got this thought in my spirit, like, this is just a, this is, this is an act. I'm not saying he was doing an act, but this is a show that's trying to cross division. People were looking around. What's going on? If you have new, if you have new people here that aren't believers, it's weird. And he's like, oh, I just want to be saved. Save me. I want to pray to Jesus.

And he's like yelling out. And I just, and then I think four to six of our people who I really trust got around. But they all, they really wanted to help. And so they were like, well, Lord, we're praying. And they're like, we're just, you know, Jesus. And I said, I just went around every day. I said, hey, just chill out. We're not going to get this stage. I didn't say that. But I'm like, hey, stand up. And then, yeah.

And then somebody else would put their hand up. They're just, Lord, we just, we were rebuked. I said, it's not rebuke. I just said, hey, you want to, just get up, get up. Hey, peace. Peace to you. Peace. And the guy's like, peace. Sit down. What's your name? Let's talk. I'm going to pray for you right now. Let that go. That's how Jesus works. Jesus didn't do these big, like, in the name of me, I'm going to, you know, do, ah, you know, it's just not how he rolls.

He's, he's not, he, because when there's agreement and you want to be, if you want to be set free, you will be set free. The devil has no authority to stick around with people who want to be free because Jesus not only has won the victory, but you are built for this world. The devil is not, he does not have a place to go and he can only stay in a place where there's agreement. And so I think that these two men wanted to be set free because why would they run out?

There was just enough out there that they ran out, that they met Jesus, and then Jesus was able to say, go. Because if they would have been in agreement not to go, you never see Jesus healing people who don't want to be healed. It's nowhere I know of in the scripture where Jesus heals people who don't want to be healed. They might be questioning. There's a couple of times where people question, they don't understand.

And he says, he'll stand up or they're, you know, he's in a conversation with them. But if you want, if you don't want to follow him, what does he say to you? Don't follow me. Let the dead bury the bed, dead. Come back, go sell everything, then come back. Whenever you're ready, come back. I'll be here when you get back. So one thing I will say is when it comes to deliverance, especially at this church, we're not going to have a deliverance ministry.

We're going to have a counseling ministry that understands how to help people get free and not disagree with lies. We're going to, if someone has some kind of demonic thing, you want to counsel them, give them the truth. But I'm not going to do multiple sessions with people over and over again because you find out, you know, it just wears you out. I told my buddy, I said, because I had already done this. I had done a deliverance thing for a long time.

I said, this is going to wear you out. If people want to be free, they'll be free. If they don't, they don't. And you're just going to end up fighting with them, you know, over and over again. And so long story short, he came to me later. He goes, hey, I quit that deliverance ministry. You know, he said it was just too much. He goes, you're right. If you want to be free, they may be free. So, yeah, Jake, will you give me a favor?

Will you close that back door right there? It's just a little bit loud. Coming in for a landing tonight. One, he never went Jesus hunting or demon hunting. Jesus' deliverances were quick and based in authority and the breaking of agreements. Satan loves the stage, but he hates the spotlight. He does not want the light. He wants a stage. He wants, you know, some big, big thing that draws tons of attraction to cause lots of chaos.

He just is a God of, he's not a God. He's a God of the world of chaos. Jesus brings peace. And so one of the things I try to regularly tell my friends who are in the Pentecostal movement is when you're moving in the spirit, it doesn't have to be with chaos. The Holy Spirit is not the drunk uncle who comes to the party. You know, I see just, you know, go online. It doesn't take hard to find some of those things. It's just people just running all over, getting crazy.

Like, oh, Holy Spirit's here. We're just going to get crazy right now, you know. Yell out in tongues and all this crazy. Now, I've seen the Holy Spirit fall in power. And I don't want to restrain the Holy Spirit. And it takes a lot of discernment and wisdom to be like, you know, I've seen people fall and start shaking violently. I've seen people start laughing, which I think is of the Lord. When, you know, to have joy.

A woman told me once. I disagreed with the laughing thing for a long time. Then a woman came up and said, hey, I was, been divorced. My husband left me. He cheated. He's got this new wife. And I just shrug. I haven't been able to get out of it. But last night at 2 in the morning, I woke up and the Lord set me free. And I started laughing. And I laughed for like four hours. That sounded really godly to me. I'm like, really?

And she goes, I don't, all the grief's gone. Like, I feel free. I'm set free. That relationship, it's over. I was like, I can get with that. That sounds right. And since then, I've been at things where I've seen tons of those things happen. What I have found is when the Holy Spirit starts to move, the devil will always jump in. He'll send people that have demon possession, people with demonic oppression. He'll send them into the church to cause chaos.

And then Christians see the chaos. And they're like, that's not of the Lord. And they're right. It's not of the Lord. But there's other things going on. You have to realize when Jesus did ministry, there was craziness all around him all the time. You see this in Africa and different places as well. But the devil wants to create chaos. And so we need to be really wise and discerning as we do that. But Satan loves the stage, but he hates the spotlight.

And then we want things revealed in the light. Just closing now. Ephesians 5, 13 says, but all things become visible when they are exposed to the light. For everything that becomes visible is light. What we want to do is we want to bring things out into the light. One of the things my wife and I have really worked on is being honest with each other and bringing things out into the light. Just, if you're being dishonest, say, you know what?

What I just said wasn't honest. I just want to bring that to the light. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to pivot. You know, pivot so I can win an argument. Just bringing things out into the light in proper time and living in the truth and in your own self. And not hiding things from, you know, your own self. Letting scripture expose the things. Confession will start giving you strongholds as you confess. I was doing some confession yesterday.

Yesterday, all of a sudden, I had about a week of, like, just felt like the devil. Once his class started, he had a couple good weeks. And then the devil was just like, boom, he was on me. You know, he's outside attack. Things, different things happening. And then I had two kind of mediocre weeks. And I thought, you know what? I just feel like I just need to confess some things. Get back. Decide that, you know, I'm not in agreement with those things.

Let it go. Then all of a sudden, like within, it's about a ten minute prayer time. And then all of a sudden, I felt like back to where I felt two weeks ago. But it was two weeks of me meandering. Nothing major. Just enough to knock you off your game. Fear, worry, living from the outside in as opposed to the inside out. You know, too much in the news. Just all that stuff that causes me to live off balance. So we want to live in the light.

We're going to give you some opportunity tonight to do that. And then the final thing is this. I want to encourage you as my SEAL team that I have released into the congregation and into the world. To go back to the first thing we said when this workshop started. That Jesus says in verse 20 of Matthew 28. That go and teach in the Holy Spirit. Teach them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.

And the challenge was that when Jesus gave the Great Commission. He didn't say go do some of the stuff that I did and taught. He said go do it all. And so this idea that there was this group of teaching for the first hundred years of Christians. That no longer applies to us today. I think is incorrect and anti-biblical in my opinion. But we also are not called to be demon hunters. We're called to be children of light.

Children of truth. And so when I pray for people now. I like let's say somebody has a an issue and the Lord gives me a word that there's an issue. As opposed to trying to whoop up some experience. Because that feels it's more visceral. We want that experience sometimes. Now I'll just pray for people and I'll say Lord we just you know just you know brush. If they have this you know sometimes I'll say they just got this this thing on their shoulder.

It's like this this lie. You know or something like that or I've got a picture. I'll just get these pictures in my head. One time I saw a picture and they had like this sword in their back. And I remember I forgot but there was a word on the sword. It was like pride or something. And back in the day when I first started doing this I'd be like there's a sword in your back from the devil. And we're just going to pull that sword out in the name of Jesus.

It was like it was just big. And God still honored it. I mean because it was truth. God showed it to me. It was true. I did it. But it didn't need to be that big. And so now now time now if I'm there I'll just go like hey I'm just going to pray for you. And you know sometimes the devil has like little swords and daggers. You know it's fiery darts and stuff and like pride or something. It's almost like you got to pull those out sometimes you know.

And I'll just go yeah just pull it out like that. And say you know the truth of God that you know if you didn't you know you don't have to have a dart in you like that. And so that's how I do it now. I found that it's just as powerful. And that people get healed delivered just as easy without me having to whoop up some emotional experience. I don't have to have emotions go. Although sometimes God does speak in emotions.

I've been with people before where all of a sudden he gives me a compassion for them. I start crying as I'm praying for them. And inward I'm thinking why am I crying? But all of a sudden there's this deep passion that comes. So God is a God of emotions. But let's just make sure that as we're walking that we're not whooping up emotions for emotional sake. We want to walk in truth and stability. And emotions make us vulnerable.

Anger makes us vulnerable. You know joy makes us vulnerable. Anytime you express an emotion you are showing part of yourself. You are showing vulnerability. And it does make us emotional. I mean vulnerable. And so one of the things you have to do is we really need to steward that well. And as we're praying for people. And then we'll talk more about how to pray for people. I think I'll go into that next week. About how to actually pray for people.

We're going to do a workshop experience tonight. We're going to have one of you in the mush pot. And we're going to do some deliverance if you want. I'll lead that as we do that. But we want to teach you then how to pray for people. And be naturally supernatural. You don't have to do all the stuff that I did. You know and there's also some things that you will see that have become taught experiences. So you'll in the in like when I was in the vineyard people prayed a certain way.

They used certain words. It became more like a just like a way to do things that we had learned. That you had to do it that way. And that was proof that God was there. You know the shaking or the whatever. You don't have to have any of that. Although people might shake under the power of the Lord. I mean God created cold air. And when cold air comes I shake. You know what I mean? So it's like why wouldn't I expect to have my body experience God in other times.

So but we want to be really naturally supernatural. And use wisdom. Once again as I spoke a couple weeks ago. When we're walking in the spirit. The spirit if you read Proverbs. The spirit of wisdom. Well you cannot separate the spirit of wisdom from the spirit of power. The spirit of the gifts. The Holy Spirit is not the drunk uncle at the party. It's going to embarrass us. It's the spirit of God and the spirit of truth.

So he has called us to go do these things. So once again I'm not commanding. But I'm saying Jesus has commanded us to walk in this. So I want to I'll be interested to see if any of you have actually experimented. On our church yet. Or been able to pray for anybody yet. And then the final thing he sends out the 72. And with this I want to send you out. The 72 returned with joy. And they said Lord even the demons submit to us in your name.

He replied I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and on scorpions to overcome all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you. However do not rejoice that the spirit submit to you. But rejoice that your name is written in heaven. Pow. Just know this. The victory is already won. You can just go out in the victory now. Live in that victory. Walk in that victory. And then for the sake of joy.

The joy that you will get. The joy that is then set before you. Knowing that your name is written in the book of life and in heaven. So with that said we are going to take our five minute break. We do.