Holy Spirit Refresh, Ep 13

Holy Spirit Refresh

Welcome Back!  I am Dawn Simmons, host of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies and this week we are going to be discussing the Holy Spirit.  We've had a number of weeks of some heavier topics so I want to bring some light into our time together.  A refreshing for us, so we can refocus on whatever we have in our lives and step forward with the Holy Spirit ready to reclaim our lives for the Kingdom.  This will by no means be an all-encompassing discussion on the Holy Spirit.  What I want to do instead is talk about the Holy Spirit's origin and role in our lives.  There are a lot of misconceptions about the Holy Spirit.  There is doubt, which we know who perpetuates that, but let's be clear and open about the Holy Spirit in our lives and how our lives can be radically changed when we include the Holy Spirit and ask for guidance.

So let's start off with the origin of the Holy Spirit. This is important to be clear about because in my experience, new believers, in particular, have more knowledge in the New Testament than they do in the Old Testament.  I want to clarify the Holy Spirit's presence over time and the intent of the Lord in providing the Holy Spirit as a "gift" to us. 

In Genesis 1:1, we are introduced to God as he begins the process of creating the heavens and the earth.  In the second verse of the Bible, we are introduced to the Holy Spirit.  Let's read how Moses was inspired to write our introduction to God: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."  The Holy Spirit has been in existence since before the world was formed.  He has been through everything in world history, right alongside God every moment.

The Holy Spirit did assist God's people throughout the Old Testament.  In Nehemiah 9:20, “You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them, Your manna You did not withhold from their mouth, And You gave them water for their thirst."

We also read Isaiah's description, Isaiah 63:11-14, "Then His people remembered the days of old, of Moses.  Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock?  Where is He who put His Holy Spirit in the midst of them," 

So we can see here in these two examples, the Holy Spirit was heavily involved in with God's people, helping them, providing for their needs, providing comfort, focus, clarity. 

Let's talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit because this is an area of confusion for some who don't know the Holy Spirit yet.  You often hear there are two baptisms.  Some will say that is nonsense, there is only one baptism.  Both are true statements, and both baptisms are used today, but there is only one correct way.  Let's look first at baptism before Jesus started his ministry. The first baptism that occurred in the Bible was by John the Baptist and is called a baptism of repentance.  John the Baptist was Jesus' cousin and John's ministry started before Jesus' ministry.  He taught repentance and a water baptism as a preparation because the Kingdom of God was coming.  John was preparing the way for Jesus, the Messiah. John 1:23. John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”[d]  Elizabeth, while pregnant with John the Baptist, was the only person the Bible specifically says was given the Holy Spirit prior to birth, prior to Jesus, prior to a salvation in Jesus. This is found in Luke 1:39, when Mary visits Elizabeth.  "At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit." So John carried with him through his life the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Now a little tidbit of background information. This history is found nowhere else in the Bible, only in Luke.  To refresh your memory, Luke was a doctor who was a traveling companion to Paul.  He wrote with a lot of detail. Toward the end of Mary's life, tradition holds that she lived near Ephesus and John visited her, befriended her and was able to obtain a lot of background information we would not have in our Bible otherwise.  Okay back to my point, John also testified about his relationship with the Holy Spirit in John 1:32: "Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”[f]

Jesus was conceived in Mary through the Holy Spirit, Matthew 1:18. "This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about[a]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit."

So to be clear, the Holy Spirit is an integral part of God's plan for our salvation. 

Back to the discussion on the baptism on repentance.  So this baptism is done today, generally speaking when we are baptized in Christ, we are doing so as a sign of repentance.  Unfortunately for some, that is all they know of their baptism.  The Holy Spirit isn't taught in all Christian churches as a "gift" for today. So it is true that it is a baptism used today, but it is not the complete truth for believers today and not Biblical.

The second baptism is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.  The act of baptism in Jesus is intended to cover both the act of repentance and the act of receiving of the "Gift" of the Holy Spirit.  In 1 Corinthians 12:13, Paul describes it for us this way, "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit " This is the Biblical baptism where we will receive the Holy Spirit as our "gift". 

Jesus tells us before he ascended that we will receive a helper, a Spirit of truth.  John tells is beautifully three times in scripture how Jesus explained the coming of the Holy Spirit.

John 14:16: I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;

John 15:26: “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me,

John 16:13-14: But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you

For us, the Holy Spirit is received through baptism.  It was different at the ascension and which is how Pentecost occurred because the Holy Spirit came at that time and as He came upon the believers in those momentsw additional spiritual gifts were also given and received.  These spiritual gifts were then used immediately for the benefit of the non-believers and the spread of the gospel.

You may hear some who say when we are baptized we receive the Holy Spirit and, as a result, all of these changes should happen to us immediately, or we should react in a certain way, as if a small Pentecost were occurring within the person at that moment.  I am going to disagree with that idea on all levels and here is why. 

We have just we have repented and have been forgiven of our sins.  We have the gift of salvation, we have the "gift' of the Holy Spirit given to us, this is one of the best moments of our lives.  However, this is also when we are at our youngest and least mature as a believer, so many are not ready, would not understand, and may even resist any additional spiritual "Pentecostal type" giftings during this moment.  You would never hand over the keys to a Lamborghini to someone who just got their drivers license. Would you fly transatlantic with someone who just got his pilot's license? NO! Likewise, the Holy Spirit isn’t going to just start handing out spiritual gifts to people who don't take the time and have the relationship to be able to use them appropriately.  To be clear, I am talking about the spiritual gifts here as Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 12.  (wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues)  I have seen countless people baptized in my life and have never seen anyone come up out of the water and start operating in the spiritual gifts.  We should receive the "gift" of the Holy Spirit at baptism and thank the Lord for that priceless "gift".  Spiritual gifts are given freely, and the spiritual gifts are intended to be used for the Glory of God.  The idea of receiving the Holy Spirit at baptism and receipt of spiritual gifts should not be combined.  One leads to the other when we are ready and not before.

Let's dig a little deeper into this discussion on the spiritual gifts and the role of the Holy Spirit in using those gifts.  Understanding this is important because it is one of the issues that is very divisive among believers and the division is due to ignorance.  One cannot say they believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, believe in the salvation of Jesus and then also state that the Holy Spirit is not active in our lives today, and the spiritual gifts Jesus provides through the Holy Spirit are not true and intended to be active today.  Anyone who says supernatural activity, whether it is the Holy Spirit or the demonic activity, does not exist today is calling God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit a liar. Read any page in the Book of Revelation and you cannot deny the spiritual realm is active today because how can you explain the coming of Christ.  I cringe when I hear pastors in particular, and I tend to hear this more on the radio ministries than anywhere else, criticize believers who are active in the spiritual gifts. They mock them even.  I heard a nationally known pastor last week mocking groups of believers for what he considers to be sensationalism and claims of tingling feelings that have nothing to do with the Holy Spirit.  That hurt my heart to hear, and I hope that one day this pastor repents of saying those words.  A few minutes later he boasted, and yes, it was actually boasting, of how he knows when the Holy Spirit is talking to him because "one time" he felt like he wasn't supposed to go into a building.  He stated that he didn't know why, but he just felt like there was something demonic about the building.  That pastor is doing such a disservice to the tens of thousands that hear his message.  If he took the time to truly develop his relationship with the Holy Spirit, he would have those moments where he felt the joyful tingling of the Holy Spirit.  He also would have known exactly, exactly why he shouldn't go into the building because the Holy Spirit is willing to reveal to us, through spiritual discernment, the root of a demonic if we take the time and give the respect to the Holy Spirit in those circumstances to work with us and keep us from harm.

A number of years ago we were transitioning and looking for a new church.  I function in the spiritual gifts and it can be difficult to find a church when you know the Holy Spirit but the teachings of the church deny what you know to be truth.  So I will generally interview the pastor to see if it is going to be a place where I can develop and grow and help others to develop and grow.  So we went to Pizza Man Dan's for lunch, a locally owned place here in my hometown, with the pastor and after the easy chit chat, I began to ask where he stood on the spiritual gifts. I clarified my position and gave him a little snapshot of my gifts.  He didn't really have an answer, but he told me this story. Another member of the congregation, a man, told him that he was traveling out in a rural area going to visit family, so headed somewhere specific.  He was getting low on gas and was getting concerned because he was in such a rural area that there were no gas stations, stores, houses, there was nothing.  He did not have enough gas to make it to where he was headed.   Finally, after several miles he sees a gas station is on the side of the road and he is able to fill up.  After the visit they are headed back home through the rural area and as they approach the location where he was able to get gas before, he looks and there is no gas station there.  Nowhere on that entire road was a gas station.  He knows where he stopped, and it was just a flat empty space in that location.  After telling me the story, the pastor admits that he believes the man, and believes the Lord provided out of nowhere this provision, this supernatural provision.  He told me he believed that I had the giftings I was telling him but because he has never experienced it for himself, he doesn’t know what to do with it.  There was an acknowledgement that the Lord works this way, but he was unwilling to take a step forward and lean into the Holy Spirit and experience everything the Holy Spirit will provide for us.  I could not reconcile that unwillingness of my pastor in my heart and mind and was not able to stay at that church for a long period of time.  I can't be led by someone not willing to be led by the Holy Spirit.  Thankfully, the Lord led me to Journey the Church led by pastor Jeff who does yield to the Holy Spirit. 

So why do I tell you those stories?  People we generally accept to lead us, do not always have the relationship with the Holy Spirit that we assume they do or should have.  Don't let someone who doesn't fully develop their relationship with the Holy Spirit inhibit you from developing yours and receiving your gifts or acknowledging the Holy Spirit fully. 

Now as much as there is a stigma placed on the use of spiritual gifts by many "Christians". There is also a stigma placed on believers who are not operating in the gifts.  As if they lack faith.  When we operate in the gifts, we are operating through the Holy Spirit, so the thinking is that if you are not operating in gifts, then you must not be operating with the Holy Spirit or are doing something wrong.  That logic or lack of logic is not correct either. 

The gifts are not passed out to us willy nilly.  They are freely available to us, but we certainly have to want them.  We certainly have to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit and we certainly have to understand the giftings, their purpose and our responsibility with them.  They are entirely for Kingdom purposes.  The Holy Spirit is not going to give you something you are not prepared for, do not understand and are not going to be trustworthy once you have it.  That would not be a gift, that would be a problem.  The Holy Spirit does not give us problems. Luke 11:13 tells us, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”

Let me give you an example.  One of the women I work with has been developing her spiritual gifts for a few years now.  She didn't start out with that objective but the more we met, the more she learned, the more she wanted.  She didn't even fully understand what the gifts were but as she cultivated her time with the Lord, He revealed more to her and so she would dig deeper.  Once she began to ask for more, I could tell she wasn't sure she was ready.  So she would ask, but there was a hesitancy there.  The Holy Spirit isn’t going to give you something unless you truly want it.  The gift she was asking for was the gift of tongues.  She wanted it, but she was apprehensive. She didn't fully understand how it would work in her life.  She knew I spoke in tongues, but she maybe only heard it one or two times because it wasn't pertinent to our meetings.  As she asked to become more involved in some of the deliverance work I do, she was able to see more gifts in action and then she began to understand spiritual gifts in a new way.  She began to ask for tongues again.  She asked earnestly and within a few weeks, she received the gift.  A little trickle at first, and then it is slowly building.  Now this may not be a gift you want and that's ok, but the process is what I want to bring to your attention.  It took time for her to mature, and the gift wasn't given until she was mature and sought after it.  No one gift is more valuable than another.  If you are of the thinking that praying in tongues or praying in the spirit is another term for it, is not real or true, I caution you from drawing that conclusion.  One can only come to that conclusion in ignorance.  Understand it, educate yourself first.  Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth to you. The gift of tongues should always be done in an organized way if in public and the use of an interpreter if it is done corporately, but as a private prayer between you and the Lord it can be uplifting.  We will do an episode of giftings, but I want to address any prejudices here as this is a frequently criticized gift simply because it is misunderstood.

So we have addressed the origin of the Holy Spirit.  The role the Holy Spirit has played throughout Christian history.  How we can receive the Holy Spirit and that He provides us with our giftings and ??? comforter, etc. 

What else do we need to make sure we know about the Holy Spirit?  Matthew 12:31, tells us some pretty critical information.  “Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven." When we attribute evil to the Holy Spirit, Jesus, God or some working of them, that is blasphemy. In this instance in Matthew, the Pharisees were attributing Jesus' miracle to satan.  For us today, this same circumstance cannot happen because Jesus is not here with us in person, but what can happen today is we can enter a danger zone put ourselves in an unpardonable sin situation.  An unpardonable sin is when we reject the Holy Spirit who will convict us of our sin so we can repent and then be forgiven.  If we, primarily as an unbeliever, note it could happen to a believer who walks away and turns their back on the Lord, if we continually reject the Holy Spirit and are unrepentant, and therefore unforgiven, and continue to live in sin, we are committing the unpardonable sin. This is not a situation you just fall into, this is some intentional effort because the Holy Spirit will prompt us and the Lord tells us he will never leave us or forsake us, so if this happens it's our own consequence.  Remember, there will be people in heaven you did not expect to see and people you expected to see not in heaven.

Develop your relationship with the Holy Spirit.  Spend intentional time with Him daily, not divided time, intentional focused time.  As this relationship develops you will see an increase in your life.  You will notice words, people, areas where you can make an impact.  It will be easier to see the enemy coming at you for an attack and your defense will be in place and you can go on the offense.  You will see truths revealed that were set in place to harm you but the Holy Spirit intervened.  You will see miracles happen that have no explanation but the Lord heard your prayer and the Holy Spirit responded.  Seek to truly understand the Holy Spirit and include him in your decisions and you will see evidence of him in your outcomes.  The Holy Spirit never tires.  The Holy Spirit never needs a minute before he responds to us.  The Holy Spirit always brings comfort when we need it, how we need it over what we need.  Put Him on your calendar this week.  Most of us know we have the Holy Spirit but whatever level you are, seek to raise that level in your relationship with the Holy Spirit.  I can guarantee you Paul never felt like he had enough of the Holy Spirit and not many people who walked this earth outside of Jesus understood the Holy Spirit the way Paul did.  He was with Him constantly.  I think it is why Paul chose to walk and went ahead of others in his party as he traveled in his missionary journeys.  He had to have that alone time to accomplish what he did.  Not everything Paul did was successful; without the Holy Spirit he may have been too battle fatigued to carry on some days.  We have rough days too, but don't let it affect your relationship with the Holy Spirit, don't let it interfere.  The Holy Spirit never lets all the things He is doing all over the world interfere with being there for you so don't let anything in your life interfere with being there with Him.

I hope that was helpful and uplifting and motivated you for a refresh of the Holy Spirit in your life.  That was my goal.

Ok so as always let's recap the Top Show Points:

·         So let's start off with the origin of the Holy Spirit. In Genesis 1:1, we are introduced to God as he begins the process of creating the heavens and the earth.  In the second verse of the Bible, we are introduced to the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit has been in existence since before the world was formed.  He has been through everything in world history, right alongside God every moment.

·         The Holy Spirit was heavily involved in with God's people, helping them, providing for their needs, providing comfort, focus, clarity. 

·         You often hear there are two baptisms. 

o   The first baptism that occurred in the Bible was by John the Baptist and is called a baptism of repentance.  John the Baptist was Jesus' cousin and John's ministry started before Jesus' ministry.  He taught repentance and a water baptism as a preparation because the Kingdom of God was coming.  John was preparing the way for Jesus, the Messiah.

o   The second baptism is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.  The act of baptism in Jesus is intended to cover both the act of repentance and the act of receiving of the "Gift" of the Holy Spirit.  

·         Jesus tells us before he ascended that we will receive a helper, a Spirit of truth.  John tells is beautifully three times in scripture how Jesus explained the coming of the Holy Spirit. John 14:16, John 15:26, John 16:13-14

·         They are freely available to us, but we certainly have to want them.  We certainly have to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit and we certainly have to understand the giftings, their purpose and our responsibility with them.  They are entirely for Kingdom purposes.  The Holy Spirit is not going to give you something you are not prepared for, do not understand and are not going to be trustworthy once you have it.  That would not be a gift, that would be a problem.  The Holy Spirit does not give us problems

·         An unpardonable sin is when we reject the Holy Spirit who will convict us of our sin so we can repent and then be forgiven.  If we, primarily as an unbeliever, note it could happen to a believer who walks away and turns their back on the Lord, if we continually reject the Holy Spirit and are unrepentant, and therefore unforgiven, and continue to live in sin, we are committing the unpardonable sin

·         Develop your relationship with the Holy Spirit.  Spend intentional time with Him daily, not divided time, intentional focused time.  As this relationship develops you will see an increase in your life.  You will notice words, people, areas where you can make an impact.  It will be easier to see the enemy coming at you for an attack and your defense will be in place and you can go on the offense. 

We encourage you:

·         To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

·         Also, I want to encourage you to visit our website and join our Warrior community.  In the month of October I will be picking 4 people at random from our Warrior community for a one hour one to one discussion, so if you would like to be included in that random drawing make sure you join the community. 

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Root Out the Spirit of Rejection

Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be discussing Rejection.  I want to address how the Spirit of Rejection works to torment us and in contrast show how our best defense against rejection is forgiveness.  We will also discuss signs to know if you are responding with a spirit of rejection.  We can then go on the offense by responding in love, which some believe is one of the most difficult acts we are asked to do as believers, but we'll see how it's actually simple. 

Now, not all rejection is the Spirit of Rejection, let's be clear about that.  But we have all been there.  We have all experienced some sort of rejection in our lives.  One part of rejection we don't acknowledge very often in our society today is rejection does not always produce a negative outcome.  How we process rejection is what determines our ability to handle challenge and establishes who we are in Christ as individuals in a healthy way.  Not all rejection is created equal.  When we are rejected as children by our family or in a marriage by our spouse it can be much more traumatic than not being selected for a promotion.  So we also need to recognize that there is a distinction in rejection and not consider all rejection the same.

Let's talk a little bit about what Rejection is and how it works against us. Rejection is an inner wound that requires forgiveness for healing to begin.  If we don't forgive, it allows the inner wound to begin to fester and infect the rest of our heart and mind.  It will produce bitterness, anger, resentment and even hatred.  Rejection can be traumatic.  If we allow it to take root, rejection can produce lifelong sadness, depression, self-worth issues.  The Spirit of Rejection is a tormenting demon.  Its only objective is to bring you into bondage using your own pain against you. As an emotion, Rejection is frequently neglected, overlooked, hidden deep inside.  It is the root of many other issues we will deal with in our lives without realizing its original tie came out of a rejection.  For some, the original act that produced the rejection is not even remembered, only the collateral damage that results.  For others, the rejection is still raw and is like a recurrence over and over again.

When we are rejected, we feel overlooked, excluded, unloved, slighted, disrespected, undervalued, forgotten.  The natural tendency when we are rejected is to defend ourselves which may result in lashing out, covering or shielding our heart, shutting out others.  This may be an attempt to prevent being hurt again but even that response comes with a price because that self-isolation yields the same result as rejection, but you are instead choosing that for yourself.  Self rejection!  You believe you can at least trust yourself and slowly begin to distrust others.  Overtime this can develop into a paranoia if we allow it.  You begin to question the smallest of things.  Have you ever met someone who was paranoid? 

A few weeks ago we discussed a man I worked with, we called him John, tho we call everyone Jane or John.  Anyhow, John was paranoid.  I asked him questions to try to define his paranoia and find the strongman.  I wanted to see where paranoia most exhibited itself.  With John, anytime he spoke of the women in his life, he became more paranoid and made bold accusations against them.  The accusations were not logical and the more he spoke, the more we began to understand that he was "ghosted" numerous times which translates to "rejected" numerous times by these various women over a period of several years. The anger and hateful accusations made against these women were allowed to essentially percolate because the spirit of rejection had such a hold on John and deceived him into believing the odd accusations he made were true. 

Rejection can deceive you into believing anything about yourself and about others.  The idea is to keep you so wrapped up in this deceit, you can't focus on forgiving the person you believe has wronged you.  Understand, I am not even saying here that in every situation we are actually being wronged, perception can be a lie as well.  I can tell you with great certainty that John misread the intentions of some of the women he dated in the past and jumped to his own conclusions. When it didn't turn out the way he expected, he felt rejected.  When he reacted poorly, he was "ghosted".  We are all guilty of this at some level.  How we respond is the key to defending our heart and mind.  Let’s take a look at some signs of the spirit of rejection at work in our lives: 

Signs of spirit of rejection

·         The feeling no one understands you or accepts you

·         Comparing yourself to others and you are always less than others

·         Feeling overlooked when you are not acknowledged

·         Constantly seeking approval from others, sometimes going out of your way to be acknowledged

·         Becoming angry, even bitter when you are not chosen

·         Becoming easily offended or defensive when being corrected

·         Thinking everyone is out to sabotage you

·         Thinking you never fit in, so you become difficult to get along with

·         Unwilling to forgive others whether they apologize for a wrong

·         Believing you need to get back at everyone who "wrongs" you – unwillingness to forget

If you repeatedly see signs of this in your behavior, then we need to dig down and work on how to evict this spirit.  Be honest with yourself.  Only you know how you feel deep down.  We want to root out this spirit so it doesn't have a chance to continue to grow and develop. 

So how do we root it out? Forgiveness. This may require a look back to see where you may not have forgiven someone who wronged you and as a result creating this attitude or behavior.  If it's not you, maybe you see this in a family member or friend who struggles. This situation won't change until we learn how to forgive and defend our heart and mind the correct way.

Forgiveness is not easy.  Forgiveness, depending on how deep the wound is, may even feel impossible.  So let's look at how Jesus and Stephen handled pretty severe rejection with forgiveness.  

Luke 23:34 shows us how Jesus forgave when he was rejected.  This is the ultimate rejection.  They were sacrificing him.  Rejecting Him as the son of the God they claimed to worship. They had written knowledge that he would be coming and they rejected Him. Taking his very life after trying to take everything else from him first.  I don't know anyone who has faced rejection at this level.  Jesus continually faced rejection throughout his ministry and he did not react sinfully.  He never let satan get a foothold in his life.  He responded instead with forgiveness first and then love.  It is important to understand that order because until we forgive, any attempt at love may not be genuine.  I'm sure there are some people out there that can respond in love no matter what you do to them, but most of us are not that way.  We have to be honest with ourselves and our emotions so we can clear out what is preventing us from forgiveness and as a result, the full life Jesus promised in John 10:10. That was a promise, not a maybe it'll happen.  God does not lie, God cannot lie, so if he says it is what he came to give to us, then it is ours to receive.  

Another example is Stephen.  He was able to forgive when he was rejected and stoned, Acts 7:59, While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep. 

How many of us react this way? Stephen just gave a powerful, heartfelt, emotional and logical speech.  It was a message that was true, undeniable and still the evil in those men's hearts blinded them to the truth and they took his life.  Stephen was our first Christian martyr following Pentecost. 

So when we are rejected, or even if we feel rejected – meaning, if we are reacting in a way about something where nothing was intended toward us, or we misunderstand – getting to that place of forgiveness before we allow our heart and mind to become hurt is a rebuke in action.  We are defending ourselves in that manner.  Then when we are able to turn around and respond in love, going from defense to offense and spiritual warfare is taking place.  We are denying the enemy access and evicting him from moving in our lives. 

So first, we need to find a place in our hearts and minds to forgive who….everyone.  We can't single anyone out, any offense out, we have to let it all go and trust God to do what is best for us and the other person.  Think about it, have you ever offended someone, hurt them in a way they needed to forgive you? I know I have.  So what happens if they never forgave you?  Is that what you want?  What about all those people you don't even know you offended?  Maybe there's more of those out there.  Don't you want to be forgiven? So why hold back?  True, we may be holding on to ill will over something done to us where the person who did it could care less, does that change your relationship with Jesus?  Actually, yes. Matthew 6:14, "For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" 

So if that is true then the opposite is true as well.  If you don't forgive other people, then your heavenly Father will also not forgive you.  Many of us know this is the case, but we get so caught up in our rightness or wrongness of the other person that we put ourselves in the position of not being forgiven for our own mistakes.  That allows that demonic spirit the ability to get that root a nice firm place in our lives.  So find out where you lack forgiveness and give it away. Then make it a point to forgive immediately as new offenses emerge.

So now that we have forgiveness under our belt, how can we move into a place of responding in love.  Well, let’s first examine love as Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 13.  I'm starting at verse 4, "Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."  Now when we look at love here, that doesn't seem overwhelmingly difficult to do after forgiveness.  It doesn't say I have to go hug on anyone.  It doesn't say I have to go to lunch with them, it doesn't say I have to invite them to my home and become besties.  It simply says, when someone has rejected me in a way for me to be hurt, I need to first forgive them and then be patient and kind, don't be dishonoring, don't be easily angered, don't keep a record of wrongs and don't delight in evil, rejoice in the truth. That is probably a huge run on sentence my mom the English teacher would not like, but it’s a true run on sentence.  Don't make love harder than it has to be.  Don't turn love into actions or behaviors it is not.  Don't apply expectations to either forgiveness or love that are unrealistic and difficult to maintain.  Once we start doing that to ourselves, we are creating our own challenges and the enemy is right there to draw it out and torment us when our expectations are not met.  Our love reaction comes from the heart, not the mind.  The mind follows the heart.  When our heart is right with the Lord and we forgive, our hearts are free to respond in love in ways we didn't realize were possible.  I say that in full confidence because I am not one who could be described as overly loving for all the years of my life.  We moved a lot, my dad was in the military so every few years you started your life over again.  I'm an introvert, so the majority of the time I dreaded it. It didn't serve to make me the most loving and open-hearted individual because anywhere you lived, you knew it was short lived. You lost friends, there was no internet, no social media back then so generally between their moves and your moves, you lost your friends. It could be lonely, sometimes you would be transferred with people you knew and a familiar face was nice, but primarily I was on my own. So for me, forgiveness isn't as much of an issue as the love aspect.  Having children changed me for sure, but outside of that I struggled to "love" people as a whole.  I had to step back and really examine my heart.  When you have to find your new group of friends every move, there's a lot of rejection involved.  The hardest move was from Europe to Texas.  We moved to a little town called Belton and it was extremely difficult to make friends.  Those kids knew each other almost since birth so someone coming in as a teenager, someone who dressed differently and acted differently, it was a process to be accepted.  Now I love Texas, 90% of my family are scattered throughout the state, but it was a struggle in my life.  I was torn apart by some of the girls because I was different.  One day in particular I was wearing a pair of earrings I bought in Paris.  I traveled all over Europe and my wardrobe reflected that.  You guys should have seen me in my Adam Ant years.  I was a sight.  Anyhow, someone asked me about them, where I got them and I gave an honest response without thinking anything of it because it wasn't unusual to me or my friends in Europe.  That response, guys, that response traveled through so many girls and I had no idea the reaction it would create.  No one would say it to my face, which I found odd, but when I would pass or behind my back they would talk and make jokes, saying and I remember the words exactly to this day and the posture and the outfit of the girl who said it "Yeah, Paris, more like Paris, Texas."  I didn't know there was a Paris Texas at that time, but that girl was known to be just mean, mean to girls she could bully.  Not once did she ever approach me and say anything to me, always the cowardly way.  It irritated me for years.  Close minded and cowardly people do irritate me, I have to be honest.  I remember everything about it.  That was like 40 years ago.  What I don't do though is care about it.  I don't care that she treated me poorly, was rude, mean.  I forgive her and all her friends.  I respond in love, but notice it isn't hard at all to respond in love.  I don't wish evil, I remember what happened, it is part of my history, but I don't keep a record of her offenses against me.  I'm sure she did other things but even then, I knew she wasn't acting in good character, and I moved on in my life and forgot about her. Sometimes acting in love doesn't require us to go overboard.  I didn’t need to go to her and say, "I forgive you for being a jerk to me for no reason and furthermore, I love you and I want to make sure you know how I feel."  Just keep it simple. If you have multiple people to forgive, start with the easiest first and be sincere. 

Ok as always we are going to recap.

Top show points to remember:

·         Rejection is an inner wound that requires forgiveness for healing to begin.  If we don't forgive, it allows the inner wound to begin to fester and infect the rest of our heart and mind. 

·         The Spirit of Rejection is a tormenting demon.  Its only objective is to bring you into bondage using your own pain against you

·         When we are rejected, we feel overlooked, excluded, unloved, slighted, disrespected, undervalued, forgotten.  The natural tendency when we are rejected is to defend ourselves

·         Rejection can deceive you into believing anything about yourself and about others.  The idea is to keep you so wrapped up in this deceit, you can't focus on forgiving the person you believe has wronged you. 

·         We reviewed 10 signs of the spirit of rejection at work in our lives

·         So how do we root it out? Forgiveness. This may require a look back to see where you may not have forgiven someone who wronged you and as a result creating this attitude or behavior.  This situation won't change until we learn how to forgive and defend our heart and mind the correct way.

·         Luke 23:34 shows us how Jesus forgave when he was rejected.  This is the ultimate rejection.  Jesus continually faced rejection throughout his ministry and he did not react sinfully.  He never let satan get a foothold in his life.  He responded instead with forgiveness first and then love. 

·         Another example is Stephen.  He was able to forgive when he was rejected and stoned

·         So when we are rejected, or even if we feel rejected getting to that place of forgiveness before we allow our heart and mind to become hurt is a rebuke in action.

·          we need to find a place in our hearts and minds to forgive who….everyone.  We can't single anyone out, any offense out, we have to let it all go and trust God to do what is best for us and the other person. 

·         Matthew 6:14, "For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" 

·         Let’s examine love as Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 13. 

·         Don't make love harder than it has to be.  Don't turn love into actions or behaviors it is not.  Don't apply expectations to either forgiveness or love that are unrealistic and difficult to maintain.  Once we start doing that to ourselves, we are creating our own challenges and the enemy is right there to draw it out and torment us when our expectations are not met. 

·         Just keep it simple. If you have multiple people to forgive, start with the easiest first and be sincere. 

We encourage you:

·         To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

·         Also, I want to encourage you to visit our website and join our Warrior community.  In the month of October I will be picking 4 people at random from our Warrior community for a one hour one to one discussion, so if you would like to be included in that random drawing make sure you join the community. 

As always, I hope you learned something and took away some points you can apply to your life. 

I look forward to talking with you again.

Crushing Enemy Doubt Tactics through Faith, Ep 11

Welcome back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons and on this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be talking about how the enemy uses the spirit of doubt to deceive us into questioning our decisions and actions to lead us into inactivity.  We will also discuss the importance of faith in conquering our unseen enemy of doubt. 

The spirit of doubt is a creeper spirit.  It doesn’t show up in your face, instead it slowly makes its way toward you taking every opportunity to exploit challenges around you to its advantage.  It waits for a moment of weakness or takes the time to carefully craft circumstances to get you to a moment of weakness and then it begins to use your own words and thoughts against you.  It takes innocent and mean-spirited things others intended and spoke toward you and twists them to create new meaning that will turn to attack your heart and mind.  You don’t see it coming because it uses disguises making it appear the circumstances are against you when in fact nothing of the kind exists. 

The spirit of doubt is dangerous because it is a counterfeit to logic and reason.  It will use what you think is your God given ability to discern and counterfeit your process of decision making to drive you to do nothing rather than move forward.  The spirit of doubt makes you think you are better off in your comfort zone, that no one will listen to you, that no one cares, that you cannot do what God has in truth given you the gifts to do and to do very well. 

Doubt will frequently be the strongman, the leader, in demonization.   

The spirit of doubt will parade alongside you as support, silently waiting for the moment to tell you how weak you are and pull you down so that you will listen to the spirit of doubt and believe it is trying to keep you safe. In those moments as it suspends you in doubt, it is opening the backdoor to your mind and heart and quietly waving in other demonic influences to come on in and get situated.  With doubt as the strongman, getting rid of him is incredibly difficult because the person will question everything during the eviction process and that questioning allows that spirit as the strongman to remain. 

So why does it work so well.  It specializes as all demons do, but it specializes at worm holing its way through our faith.  If we cannot maintain the integrity of our faith, it will crumble, it will be eaten away and what will you have left to stand on for support?  Faith in our walk with Jesus is crucial.  We have to protect our house, we have to protect our faith.  No believer has ever had a life where our faith wasn’t challenged.  We need, to a certain degree, to be challenged for our faith to build.  Once we see victory after victory we get stronger, but still, most of us deal with that spirit of doubt somewhere in our life.  Once it’s creeped into one area it moves into the other areas and we will see downward changes happen in our marriage, in our work, in our relationships and most importantly in our relationship with the Lord. For some it seems like the whole world is coming down on them and they cannot understand it or seem to find a way out of it.  Unfortunately for some, it will lead them to thoughts of harming themselves and suicide.  As a strongman, doubt is incredibly powerful and its aftermath can be devastating.  Often times we think of the in-your-face demonic influences as the worst, but no.  The in-your-face demons like anger, for example, are showing their colors then and there as they appear.  You know they are there, they don’t exactly have the ability to hide because their nature requires an activity on their part to be revealed.  We generally know when someone is angry even when they try to hide it.  Doubt on the other hand, doubt hides and we can even find ourselves playing into someone else’s spirit of doubt and coming into agreement with them without realizing it. 

Doubt erodes trust.  Doubt destroys creativity.  Doubt builds walls. Doubt shuts doors.  Doubt ends friendships.  Doubt ends businesses.  Doubt breaks contracts.  Doubt builds fears.  Doubt conceals talent. Doubt shreds love. 

Now that we are clear on who doubt is, have an understanding of how strong doubt can be and recognize the amount of destruction it is capable of rendering in our lives, what now?

We have briefly discussed the opposite of doubt is faith.  I want to talk to you about faith.  I want to tell you a story. It’s part of my story.  I want you to know that I am where I am because I’ve had to walk through fire, I’ve been in the desert, I’ve had to use spiritual warfare to get the outcomes promised to me and I want you to benefit from it and do the same in your life wherever you may need it.  So the story I am going to share illustrates the spirit of doubt attacking me during an incredibly stressful time.  This situation required a level of faith I had not needed to access before in my 53 years of life.  It starts with a YT video I did in February/March of this year titled, "3 examples of strength in the Lord". In it I talk about Job, Peter and Joshua.  The discussion on Peter centered around his faith and strength in getting out of the boat and walking on the water toward Jesus.  I wondered to myself what would I do if I had a “getting out of the boat moment”.  What would a getting out of the boat moment look like today?  I felt like I’d had a lot of challenges in my life, some pretty serious, some not so much but nothing that required me to have that walk on water type of faith and strength.  Fast forward about 4 weeks later and I was working on a course I was about to record called “Moving Mountains thru Prayer”, now this is not a commercial for either of the YT channel or the course, but it’s important to the story.  As I sat at the computer on a Sunday afternoon finalizing the course information, I got a text.  My daughter in law was letting me know my son was in the ER, but it didn’t seem like anything serious, she was just letting me know.  I asked the Lord about it and he said a few things I didn’t yet understand, but what I did understand was that he said my son would survive and he would be better than he was before.  Looking back that should have registered with me a little more, but in the moment since the Lord said he would survive then it must not be anything I need to be concerned about.  Within an hour my daughter in law called and she asked me to come to the ER.  After I arrived, more tests revealed  my son had a major stroke at some point within the last 12-24 hours and the blood flow to his brain was shutting down, he needed surgery immediately.  He was then transferred to the stroke center at a hospital 10 minutes away. Because of the late hour and somewhat due to Covid, we were not allowed to go but we could see him the next morning. 

He had an MRI on that next morning, a Monday, and it confirmed the severity of the stroke and a plan for surgery was set which would occur Tuesday morning.  Surgery Tuesday went well, no complications, he was alert and able to move everything once he was awake.  All seemed to have gone smoothly and it was just about recovery at this point.  He was complaining a lot about pain, however and nothing seemed to work to control the pain.  We left him that night at 7:25, just after the shift change so that we could talk to the nurse who would be watching him throughout the night.  We, my daughter in law and I, were not allowed to stay with him.  As we left, I spoke to him, but he did not speak to me, he seemed different.  I remember clearly how he seemed to be looking at me, but not looking at me.  I thought the medications were finally giving him some peace.  The new nurse let us know she was changing his CT scan from the morning to that night so as we left he was being taken away for the CT scan.  They made sure they had our numbers and would call my daughter in law with the results.  To this day, well, I will never forget the look, that distant look.

We drove home, we only live about a mile apart.  I had just settled into the couch and finished texting everyone to let them know the surgery was a success and thanking everyone for prayers. It was about 8:10.  I sent the last text, I remember watching my arm as it came to rest on the couch still holding my phone and it rings.  My daughter in law was calling and I answered the phone to “Dawn, we need to go back to the hospital, he is going back into emergency surgery and they don’t think he is going to make it”

This was not in alignment with what the Lord told me, so how could it be true.  I couldn’t deny what was happening in the natural, but how could it be true.  Did something happen that allowed the enemy access to my son’s life?  It didn’t matter, I stood in faith on what the Lord told me and that was my truth and that was my son’s truth, no matter the doctors thought or believed. 

I began to act as we raced back to the hospital. Everyone I had just texted got a rather fervent phone call.  If you were in my call list, well you got a call too, as many as I could in the 10 minutes it took to get back to the ER.  My daughter in law arrived at the hospital about the same time and we were escorted from the ER to ICU by a security guard.  He took us the back way so we were not familiar with the path we were on and not really even focused on the walk. We were going through the motions and didn’t realize we were walking a back way into the ICU.  Going the back way dropped us off almost directly at his room which we were not expecting, so we were not prepared for what we saw.  As far as the doctors and nurses were concerned, he wasn’t going to survive and they were giving us our last minutes with him before he passed.  He wasn’t conscious, he was intubated, he looked lifeless.  He was positioned to be taken to the OR for an emergency surgery that was expected to take 6 hours, but we were well advised they didn’t expect him to make it.  Again, that was not in alignment with what the Lord told me so I couldn’t understand why we were here. I only kknew I couldn’t believe it, I wouldn't believe it and I couldn’t allow myself in any way to come into agreement with what the doctors were telling us.  My daughter in law had held up well throughout this whole process but the shock of what we walked into was taking its toll.  We came into agreement together and rebuked what the enemy was trying to do and I prayed over my son from head to toe.  The irony of me having just finished writing the course on Moving Mountains thru Prayer and here I was with this huge mountain that didn’t belong.  I didn’t care what anyone else thought, my son was not dying that night, he was not dying from this, he was going to be better than he was before because that is what the Lord said, and the Lord only speaks truth.  I stood there in that ICU room and I prayed over my son with everything I had in me.  I was loud and I only knew one thing, Jesus had the victory I needed, and I was claiming it for my son.  My daughter in law was worried I was too loud, but I told her we were bringing Jesus in this place and everybody in ICU needed Jesus and kept going.  It was actually a faith-based hospital, so prayer was pretty usual there.  One of the doctors kept telling us what we should expect throughout the night and he would end each sentence with “God willing”. After a few times of that I started saying, “He is willing” in response just to make sure his tentative statement wasn’t allowing doubt a foot in the door.  

Nearly all the family in the area was allowed into the ICU waiting room and we all settled in for a long night.  We told stories and cherished that time together.  It wasn’t pleasant by any means but we were comforted by the Holy Spirit in that waiting room in ways I can’t share yet.  Doubt was not allowed to enter into our time that night.  

Prior to the first surgery I told the Neuro surgeon, Dr Oni, best in the world, that the Lord had specifically chosen him for this surgery.  I have no idea if he is a believer, he looked perplexed when I said that but that’s ok, it’s true.  The Lord showed me in a vision how His hands took over Dr Oni’s hands as the surgery began and then I could see the surgery begin.  At the time the Lord showed me the vision it was during the first surgery, but the position of my son in the vision was not the position for that surgery so I was confused.  As I waited during the second surgery, the Lord reminded me of the vision and it made sense because it was the position described for the second surgery. 

My son made it through the surgery, he was critical for a week and remained in ICU for about 3 weeks, then transferred to rehab unit.  It wasn’t easy, by no means was it easy.  He had brain damage and that affects everything, but that was April.  Today, September, he is considered a miracle by Dr Oni.  He is back at work full time, he is playing golf again.  This stroke happened in California but he was in escrow on a house in Texas during all this and he was able to move into his new house last month. You would never know by looking at him or talking to him that anything ever happened.  That is the truth of Jesus.  Faith can hold you up through all things.  Faith can build you in your hardest days.  Faith can tear down the plans of the enemy. 

Let’s see what the Bible says about doubt and faith using the story of Peter I referenced earlier. Here we have Peter responding to the Lord calling to him to come out to him on the sea and join him.  Peter did, but then lost his faith, his focus for a moment. In Matthew 14:31 we see Jesus respond in this way, immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”  As I waited for my son in the waiting room during that second surgery, the Lord let me know that it was my time, my Peter moment right there.  Notice that Jesus immediately responded to Peter and He will do the same for us. Also, notice that Peter was required to act in faith.  If we let doubt win, we cripple our faith.  It will inhibit our ability to reach for Jesus which is what the enemy is counting on as our response.

Let's look at another example Jesus gives us about faith and doubt.  Matthew 21:21-22, Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

Listen, doubt is one of the strongest of the demonic strongmen.  Our faith has to be bigger than the strongman and through Jesus it can be.  It is a choice we make because of our relationship with Jesus.  Never let the circumstances you see, dictate your outcome.  If Jesus had done that, how could He have been resurrected?  That required faith on his part, but we never talk about the faith of Jesus, do we?  He had to have faith in His Father or He would not have been able to do any of the miracles, or stand up to the pharisees or prevent a woman from being stoned just by His words.  I say this a lot, but if you take nothing away from this podcast, take away the thoughts of Jesus and the level of faith He had to have to live out his life.  If He can do it so can we. He was human just as we are.  Trust Him. 

This episode was emotional for me, it brought back a lot of memories both painful and amazing. 

As a side note, I want to share that I am also putting a link in the notes.  It's a link to this past week's message at my church with my pastor, Jeff Rodriguez.  The message was about discouragement which ties closely to doubt.  It is the best message I have ever heard in my life.  If you don't currently have a church family, consider trying my church online to get your feet wet and until you can find a Bible Based church in your area. 

Ok, let's do our recap:

Top show points to remember

The spirit of doubt is a creeper spirit.  It doesn’t show up in your face, instead it slowly makes its way toward you taking every opportunity to exploit challenges around you to its advantage

The spirit of doubt is dangerous because it is a counterfeit to logic and reason.  It will use what you think is your God given ability to discern and counterfeit your process of decision making to drive you to do nothing rather than move forward.

It specializes as all demons do, but it specializes at worm holing its way through our faith.  If we cannot maintain the integrity of our faith, it will crumble, it will be eaten away and what will you have left to stand on for support?  Faith in our walk with Jesus is crucial.  We have to protect our house, we have to protect our faith. 

As a strongman, doubt is incredibly powerful and its aftermath can be devastating. 

The opposite of doubt is faith.  Faith can hold you up through all things.  Faith can build you in your hardest days.  Faith can tear down the plans of the enemy. 

Referencing Matthew 14:31, Peter was required to act in faith.  If we let doubt win, we cripple our faith.  It will inhibit our ability to reach for Jesus which is what the enemy is counting on as our response.

doubt is one of the strongest of the demonic strongmen.  Our faith has to be bigger than the strongman and through Jesus it can be. 

We need to have the same level of faith in our lives that Jesus exhibited in His.

We encourage you:

·         To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment.

 Link to sermon of my Pastor Jeff Rodriguez discussing discouragement.

Listen here: https://clovermedia.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/store/d65d8052-295e-4d8e-a3aa-4862bf146eb3/5da769fbcf/audio.mp3

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·         Send us your questions and stories to share on an upcoming show. Send them to contact@conqueringourunseenenemies

How demons Work to Control Us, Ep 10

Welcome back! My name is Dawn Simmons and I am your host for Conquering Our Unseen Enemies.  In this episode we are going to discuss how demons work to control us and discuss techniques you can use that will serve to not only defend but give you some offensive power in the name of Jesus. We will examine one process of control satan uses against us for his purposes.  Specifically, we will be examining how possessiveness, manipulation, and dominance all work together to bring us to a place where satan controls the incomes and outcomes of our lives.  I'll also share some of my experiences working with a young man who has allowed satan to control him but is trying to regain his life with Jesus.  I am letting you know now, this is a hard episode for me, a dark episode to share because I want to give you a look into the reality of another person without trying to be sensationalist or scary.  It is a scary place for someone already there, and I want to keep as many people as I can from being in this position. 

Let's first talk a little about control and apply the concepts we discussed in the last episode, demon groupings.  If you haven’t had a chance to listen to that, try to get that in because it lays some groundwork that is important to understand.  One thing I did discuss in that episode that I want to bring up again is demons function as experts, specialists, in a particular area.  So in the area of control, the demon of control will get some help in possessiveness, manipulation and dominance from other demons that frequently are associated with insecurity, sadness, fear, inferiority, rejection, accusation, guilt, and anger may make an appearance but not always.

In the beginning of the process of control, demons will seek to be very possessive over someone.  I don't mean possess; I mean to behave possessive towards the person.  This can be done by creating a false sense of comfort.  A familiar spirit is particularly well equipped for this role.  In many cases, this feeling of possessiveness from the enemy is welcomed because the person has encountered rejection and may feel inferior and insecure.  The moment the person feels a sensation of something, no matter what it is, wanting to be possessive over them, that sensation is wrongly interpreted as love.  The blinders are being put on the person through this one act of possessiveness.  The income is a comfort which begins through manipulation.  A counterfeit of love begins to permeate the landscape of the heart and mind of the individual.  If you are wondering how this could possibly happen, think of how many people are truly starved for affection, devotion, true love in their lives, not just romantic love.  Their childhood lacked the support and love one would ideally receive from their parent.  A marriage or relationship is torn apart.  Have you ever met someone who goes from relationship to relationship and cannot be alone?  Those weaknesses are being exploited and the deception has created a counterfeit love to open the door for additional demons to enter.  These demons begin to plant their seeds of doubt and fear and paranoia frequently joins the group.  The outcome is this person begins to pull back from usual social circles and is instead accompanied by all the demons for emotional support.  This begins subtly to pull the person into a sense of safety but in reality, the noose is being placed to begin to remove the life they have left and begin bondage.  The use of manipulation to create this atmosphere is done with precision until they have achieved complete domination. 

The use of control against us cripples our minds and our hearts.  Our bodies soon follow.  Why is this so important?  The enemy needs to strip you of your free will in order to get you positioned to accept what will ultimately happen when you are completely dominated.  I know this sounds dark, I hate that this is so dark, coming out of my mouth, but I want to tell you this so you will never end up here.  I recently worked with a young man, let's call him John, who was completely controlled by the demonic.  Every aspect of John's life was in bondage.  The demons had already done so much damage that his mind only had moments of clarity to acknowledge and describe what was happening.  He asked for help to be rid of these demons and he asked for it to happen within a few days.  John is easily the most severe case of demonization I have ever seen or of which I have any personal knowledge. 

As we began to talk during our second meeting, John was intermittently clear minded.  The more we discussed and identified specific demons the more erratic the thoughts, speech and his body became.  The prework I require, he did not bring.  The team was assembled however, and the Lord said to continue so I continued to ask questions.  I was trying to discern who the strongman was and who all were demonizing him.  At no point was John in complete control of his mind. He would move in and out of answers that made no sense to the average person.  Understand that to others John just looked like someone who was not very social, nervous, stressed, just a little different.  There was nothing physically wrong with him.  The more we talked, demons were being identified and you could see distinct physical reactions to their identification.  John walked through all the steps to move forward in evicting these demons.  Understand I do nothing lightly and John's safety is always most important as is our own safety. Also, on my team and present is a licensed behavioral health specialist.  Thankfully, several demons were evicted with John's help.  I will generally try to keep a record for the person I am working with, but it was impossible in this case.  It was very a difficult, long process and the more progress we made, the more difficult it became, the resistance was stronger.  Listen to me, please listen to me, if you hear nothing else in this entire podcast, please hear this.  You have got to hold onto your heart, you have got to maintain control of your mind.  1 Peter 5:8 tells us, 'be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.'  Build your mind of Christ and protect it in the name of Jesus.  It is so valuable to Jesus and sometimes we don't understand how valuable.  If you fall, and find yourself in sin, GET UP.  Get up and get back to the Lord.  The torment I saw in John you do not want.  If you don't know how to get back up, email me! Email me please!  I want no one to endure what I saw happening with John.  1 John 5:19 tells us, 'We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one' but we are not the world, we are not under the control of the evil one unless we quit protecting our own house.  1 Thessalonians 4:4, tells us 'that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable'.  Most who read this think it means restrictions.  This is the lie satan wants us to believe, because the truth is by living with control of our bodies and minds, we will live in freedom, the freedom of Jesus and not the bondage of the enemy.  The spirit of control has a long far reach once it gains dominance.  The key is to recognize the signs and symptoms before dominance occurs.

I want to switch gears a little and talk about manipulation. The main tool used in manipulation is guilt.  It keeps our wounds alive and demons will keep pressing into it.  The pressing methods can be both direct and subtle.  Demons cannot directly come at someone to manipulate them each time, the process has to change.  For this to work, the demons have to give the person a false sense of security and then begin to move in with subtle advances to manipulate and bring the person to their knees.  Regardless of the conversations or interactions, the guilt tool will always come back around so that the person is never truly free.  There are false senses of freedom but there is always a noose there, present to yank them back in line periodically to remind them of their bondage of sadness, fear, insecurity, and inferiority.  It doesn’t start out this way but that is the hole you are being taken into slowly.  The person will soon lose perspective.  He or she will soon not see light as the darkness pervades their mind.  The idea is the dark is meant to overtake the mind so that soon you will only recognize darkness and will find comfort and solace in what you know and are becoming familiar with.  Through that process the person will become a slave.  The bondage will not end. It is like King Zedekiah with his eyes being gouged out as he was led away in chains to Babylon and you know nothing but the bondage. This is where satan seeks to take you in their domination. 

Being possessive and manipulative are controlling, but domination is where the act of control eclipses all else and the person is no longer able to think clearly for themselves.  Demons will let you function for the most part in your life, but you may not be able to keep a job, keep your marriage, or worst of all keep yourself together.  We have all seen people on the streets talking to themselves and seemingly in another world.  If we don't keep our house in order and keep control of our minds, that is the end result.  It will wreck you financially, emotionally, physically and intellectually. 

John was specifically dealing with issues of sadness, nervousness, paranoia, confusion, tension, sexual sin, with anger appearing at times.  There were many more but these were the ones driving most of the behaviors and were controlling him.  There were several manifestations of the demonic presence which would change depending on who was in control.  We will have an episode just on manifestations, it's not our focus here so I'm not going into detail at this time.  I want you to understand that while John's level of control and demonization is extreme, it is out there.  Satan is out there to what, well Jesus told us "to steal, kill and destroy" If you had even one of these areas to contend with, you would have real difficulty.  We know that you will likely, I mean the chances are so rare that I can't even name a number statistically, but you will likely never have just one demon attacking you.  John's story hasn't ended yet.  Unfortunately, John isn't yet willing to give up everything.  Remember the podcast dealing with familiar spirits?  Well, John also had familiar spirits that he would not let go of in order to be free.  In the episode on familiar spirits we talked about:

o   The first way these spirits integrate is more difficult to discern.  The familiar spirit uses deception by appearing to be a good companion or providing some sort of benefit, useful information for example. 

Familiar spirits use manipulation.  In this case, because John is not married, they are providing companionship.  It's not a healthy companionship, but if John won't let them go, the demons get to stay.  One interesting thing I want to point out in this case with John, usually when a familiar spirit uses a person we know, it's a person who has passed.  With John, it was all people who were still alive.  Very uncommon.

So where do we go from here?  You now know about John and his difficult battle to regain control.  We need to do as Peter advised us and be alert and of sober mind.  Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 2:16 'But we have the mind of Christ'.  Make sure you do, truly make sure you do.  How are you handling demonic influences coming at you?  Are you rebuking them immediately?  Are you pondering on them a while? If you aren't rebuking them immediately you are beginning to play with fire.  You have the matches in your hand essentially.  Let's go through some techniques you can use that will serve to not only defend but give you some offensive power in the name of Jesus. 

1.      Rebuke in the name of Jesus.  If this is all you can do, this is a good start to building up a defense.  As soon as you have any sense of something coming at you to tempt or attack simply say "I rebuke that in the name of Jesus."  Think of it like tennis, be like Serena and when it's coming at you, rebuke.  It will come back at you again another way, rebuke it.  Just keep rebuking and eventually the enemy will realize it needs to move on and you can celebrate like Serena!

2.      Add scripture to your rebuke.  These are easy ones to remember and pull out of your mind quickly.  If this is all you can do, this is a good start to building up your offense.

a.      Isaiah 54:17, No weapon formed against me shall prosper

b.      Luke 10:19,  I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.

c.       Romans 14:11, As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue with acknowledge God.

d.      Romans 16:20, The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. 

3.      Give thanks to the Lord.  A thankful heart is a protected heart.  This will begin the process of creating an atmosphere around you that will over time keep the enemy from wanting to be near you and he will move on, away from you. 

a.      1 Corinthians 15:57, Thanks be to God! Gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

b.      1 Thessalonians 5:18, In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

c.       1 Chronicles 16:8, Give praise to the Lord, proclaim His name; make known to the nations what He has done.

d.      Psalms 100:4, Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise: give thanks to Him and praise His name.

4.      Scriptures to build up your strength.  Adding this will position you not only to keep your house clean but help someone else with their house. 

a.       Ephesians 6:10-17 – The Armor of God

                                                               i.      Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

b.       Psalms 31:3

                                                               i.      Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me.

c.       Job 42:2

                                                               i.      I know you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

d.       Joshua 23:14

                                                               i.      You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed.  Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.

These scriptures are just to get you something easy to have readily available.   A scripture journal is an even better way to start building up your weapons to start conquering our unseen enemies. 

That was a lot to take in, I know.  Let’s do a recap to hit on the highlights:

Top show points are:

·         Demons function as experts, specialists, in a particular area

·         In the area of control, the demon of control will get some help in possessiveness, manipulation and dominance from other demons that frequently are associated with insecurity, sadness, fear, inferiority, rejection, accusation, guilt, and anger may make an appearance but not always.

·         In the beginning of the process of control, demons will seek to be very possessive over someone.  I don't mean possess; I mean to behave possessive towards the person.  This can be done by creating a false sense of comfort.

·         Weaknesses are being exploited and the deception has created a counterfeit love to open the door for additional demons to enter.  These demons begin to plant their seeds of doubt and fear and paranoia frequently joins the group. 

·         The main tool used in manipulation is guilt.  It keeps our wounds alive and demons will keep pressing into it.  The pressing methods can be both direct and subtle. 

·         Being possessive and manipulative are controlling, but domination is where the act of control eclipses all else and the person is no longer able to think clearly for themselves. 

·         We need to do as Peter advised us and be alert and of sober mind. 

·         Some techniques you can use that will serve to not only defend but give you some offensive power in the name of Jesus. 

o   Rebuke in the name of Jesus.  If this is all you can do, this is a good start to building up a defense. 

o   Add scripture to your rebuke.  These are easy ones to remember and pull out of your mind quickly.  If this is all you can do, this is a good start to building up your offense.

o   Give thanks to the Lord.  A thankful heart is a protected heart.  This will begin the process of creating an atmosphere around you that will over time tire the enemy out and he will move on, away from you

o   Scriptures to build up your strength.  Adding this will position you not only to keep your house clean but help someone else with their house. 

o   Create a scripture journal to start building up your weapons to start conquering our unseen enemies. 

We encourage you:

·         To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

·         Just for fun.  If you want to start building your scripture journal, of course you can use any journal or notebook, but if you want to have a cool looking Conquering Our Unseen Enemies journal, we have one in the Warrior Shop on the website.  I personally think it looks cool, of course I am biased because I designed it, but it also helps support the podcast which we appreciate as well.

  What we ask of you:

·         Subscribe! Subscribe! Subscribe! Share with friends

·         Give us a review

·         Follow us on social media….

·         Send us your questions and stories to share on an upcoming show. Send them to contact@conqueringourunseenenemies

Demons…What are Demon Groupings, Ep 9

Welcome back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to lay some groundwork for understanding demon groupings.  We will also talk about how demon groupings can form, I will be sharing some of my experiences in working with people to deliver them from the bondage of demons and going over some demon groupings. 

In our episode on demons, we talked about a demon being a spirit, a person without a body, otherwise called disembodied.  We discussed demons are in Satan’s hierarchy and have roles and ranks.  As well as explaining demons need a place to indwell and they prefer humans but will take an animal.   We saw an example of this in Matthew 8:29 when Jesus casts out the demons from the two demon possessed men and permits the demons to enter a herd of pigs.  That example is also discussed in Mark and we find out that the leader of those demons referred to himself as Legion because the number of demons was 2000. So Jesus gave us a remarkable example of a demon grouping that He was able to cast out all at one time.  In my experience, it doesn't always work that way nor have I seen someone with that many demons at one time. That might actually overwhelm me.  I appreciate that we do have that Biblical example available to us so that we know what we face will generally be easier to manage.  The reason I say that is because as we also discussed in the demons episode, demons have characteristics that identify their role in the kingdom of satan.  The characteristic also identifies their name.  In reality, this makes it far easier on us to deal with than if say these demons were named Bob, Mary and Jennifer.  With those names I don't know anything about what I am dealing with and quite frankly the less I have to actually deal with the demon directly the better.  By having them be named by their role or we could even say responsibility because once a demon indwells, they have to perform their responsibility, we can quickly get to the heart of an issue and know why we are dealing with a particular demon.  This will ensure we are addressing the root of the issue.  Once we get to the root of the issue, then we know we are likely dealing with the strongman. 

Let's break all that down a bit so we can walk through a demon grouping from the beginning and see how demon groupings form.  I want to be clear about demon roles.  Demons function as experts, specialists, in a particular area for example anxiety.  Their entire purpose is to create anxiety in you at any opportunity and if there aren't enough opportunities then they will help to create opportunity.  The way a demon anxiety functions may be through several different processes, but they will find multiple ways to get their end result.  Their process will change depending on the person, the place, circumstances and external factors.  Demons know the person they are demonizing very well.  Do not assume that you are being demonized one day just out of the blue.  Do not assume that one day you are being demonized and the next day you are not.  Their sole purpose is to work you into the worst possible state they can possibly achieve to ultimately have control, domination over you.  The entire objective of satan is domination.  To dominate each of us, to ultimately dominate this world and then to overthrow the Lord and dominate God.  They plan to achieve their goal one person at a time.  When we talk, act, think or do anything with any other perspective than satan is there to dominate us, then we are lying to ourselves and you are positioning yourself to be dominated without the ability to put up much of a fight.  Denial of them and their purpose is the beginning of a loss. This is not conspiracy theory discussion.  This is truth.  Jesus is very clear in John 10:10 when He tells us, "the enemy came to steal, kill and destroy…"  If nothing else I say in our time here today resonates with you, at least take away this one point.  The enemy is real and he exists to dominate and destroy you.  This is not a game, this is not me trying to scare you, this is reality.  Ok, that is more than one point but nonetheless, I need you to understand the severity of the condition the enemy is working to get you into their negative domain every single day. 

I stated before that the demon knows the person they are demonizing well.  I want to explain something about that.  Let's use an analogy.  Have any of you ever gotten a call from the best restaurant in your country advising that the chef is out sick and they need you to come in and cover him for the night?  More than likely, unless we have a world class chef listening along with us right now, the answer is probably no.  Why is that?  Well, I can do a few good things in the kitchen that my husband enjoys but if I want to make a good beef wellington, I'm probably going to pull up a Gordon Ramsay recipe to follow along.  I took cooking classes from Damiano Carrara, he used to be on Food Network, he and his brother have Carrara's, he's Italian, so if I wanted to make Italian pastries, I'd refer to those recipes he gave me.  No way could I show up at a restaurant, put on an apron and start yelling at the sous chefs to speak up or how long for the risotto.  Right, it just wouldn't happen that way.  To get that call I would have needed to prepare for that for a while.  Similarly, a demon takes time to get to know the person they demonize.  They need to know weaknesses, relationships, how to manipulate us to deceive us into making poor choices.  So how do they do this so well? 

Generally speaking, if we use this demon, anxiety as an example, anxiety isn't working alone.  Once we open a door that allows the demon legal access to us then the demon of anxiety will come and indwell.  Anxiety typically will then become the strongman, not always, but usually the first one in is the one to set up shop so to speak and create opportunities for us to allow other legal access through our sin or words.  Most frequently I see others were allowed in because of words spoken, which we will discuss in another episode on choosing our words wisely. 

Let's get back to our example, so anxiety comes in and begins to bring in others that are tied to anxiety like fear.  As they create opportunities for others to enter, and we oblige because we are caught up in their deception and lies, then the group begins to form.  You can think of it like a chain.  They join together and create a demonic chain of influence that over time will get bigger and stronger and pretty soon has us in a bondage.  These groupings can also be called colonies, clans or families.  A particular grouping will form that will control a particular area of a person's life.  Let's look back at the example Jesus gave us, let's examine this demon called Legion.  How do you think he got his name? His name doesn't sound like a characteristic as we have discussed, so why Legion.  A grouping covers a particular area.  Do you know anyone with "baggage" that affects only one area of their lives?  I don't.  So you may have a grouping formed from anxiety, but this person may also have issues or "baggage" because of rejection.  Rejection can come in and bring along their demon associates and now we have 2 groupings in one person.  So when we have strongman called Legion responding to Jesus, his role is to oversee the 2000 demons function and controlling or ruining everything in this man's life.  The chances are very slim that someone is being demonized by only one demon.  They work best together and in particular combinations.  So with anxiety you frequently will see the demons of fear, worry, apprehension.  These are frequent but never assume it's always the same.  I didn't really enjoy statistics but I can tell you that the number of demon combinations possible are closer to infinite and I hope I never have to meet a Legion or anything similar. 

Let's talk a little more about the strongman.  Jesus introduces the strongman to us in Matthew 12:29, "Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house."  As I said, usually the strongman is the first one to indwell.  A strongman is essentially the ruler of the groupings.  In a situation where the demons become challenged, you may only hear from the strongman and the others in the group will simply hide behind the strongman and remain silent.  The strategy is that if they hide behind the strongman and you don't know they are present, you will miss their presence and they can remain even if others are evicted.  The opposite can also be the case where maybe you know the name of a lesser demon, but you don't know the strongman. The lesser demon may be evicted but if the strongman remains. The lesser demon will be better positioned to come back at a later date.  Those are the instances where you will see they could return with even more demons in tow.  We read that in Matthew 12:43-4, " When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”  That scripture also begins to discuss outcomes of a deliverance, which we will discuss in a future episode.   

What we can discuss now related to deliverance is the groupings I have seen.  From my experience there is a strongman, but it will take some digging sometimes to identify who it is.  The reason for that, again, from my experience so it won't be this way for everyone, the strongman can be difficult to identify because it has been there so long.   Most of the time the strongman was able to enter during childhood when we are the most vulnerable and often times are not protected.  From the time of our childhood to adulthood, others have since joined and that childhood demon is somewhat suppressed.  It becomes suppressed because we push it back and try to forget about it or because the demon itself can function just fine in the background with the others in the foreground. Like an orchestra.  It’s almost like they can function as a puppet master with us as the puppet.  Now not everything we do or that happens to us is demonic.  Sometimes we are just making bad choices, so do not misunderstand what I am saying. We are ultimately responsible for our decisions, demon influenced or not because we are also responsible for cleaning out our "house".  There would be very few exceptions to this. Mental incapacity, children, those types of things would create an exception. 

About 2 years ago I was working with a woman and I was trying to identify the demons that were influencing her.  She was willing to admit to some, but not all that she was aware she had been dealing with.  The Holy Spirit revealed to me two of the demons that she did not reveal.  Her unwillingness to address all the demons was part of the issue.  There were multiple groupings and one of the things I noticed that I want to share with you is that you can have multiple groupings but in each grouping you can have duplicates.  For example, she had the demon of fear in multiple groups. That fear had managed to work its way through so many areas of her life, it became a part of who she was.  She both acknowledged it and accepted it.  When you get to that place where you know it and allow it to stay and permeate your existence it prevents you from moving forward.  It prevents you in those areas of your life you want to move forward in and you have allowed the enemy to dominate you.  In those situations, I cannot help the person, I could not help her.  She would not let go of the demons.  We have to want to evict and be willing to evict. 

I have another woman I was working with who was able to identify the specific demons she was dealing with.  She also had a demon of fear, but she knew what she had been living with for so many years and was willing to address her demons head on and evict them.  There were several issues to address and  the strongman had a hold on her to the very end.  In her case, she had one strongman and the demons, there were about 20, and they formed what appeared to me to be more of a web around her heart and her mind.  When you have something like that it can be difficult to hear and understand the truth.  They are specifically trying to blind you, so you are not able to evict them. 

Let me give you some examples of groupings so you can understand how they can operate against you and hopefully you can begin to identify them all when you encounter a situation, whether for yourself or someone else.  The truth is, it's not something to be ashamed of or embarrassed by, we all deal with this.  The number of demons isn't really an indication of anything in and of itself.  If someone thinks they only have one demon, they are not being honest with themselves.  On average, it is not uncommon for demons count to be in the 20 or even 30 range because they are so specialized.  They gain strength in numbers, so it is to their benefit to join forces.

So here are some examples of common demon groupings:

Pride: ego, vanity, self-righteousness, haughtiness, Importance, Arrogance

Guilt:  Condemnation, Shame, Unworthiness, Embarrassment

Control:  Possessiveness, Dominance, Witchcraft

Depression:  Despair, Suicide, Hopelessness, Defeatism, Discouragement, Insomnia

Paranoia: Jealousy, Envy, Suspicion, Distrust, Persecution, Fears, Confrontation

Indecision: Procrastination, Compromise, Confusion, Forgetfulness, Indifference

I tried to choose different types of issues to show how they can link together and create that web effect to dominate multiple areas of our lives.  The more you know about groupings and how they work against you, the easier it will be for you to identify them and position yourself to evict them.  This is just a small sampling.  There are over 50 groupings that I use when identifying demons and the strong man.  Even just looking at these you can see how if we take Depression for example.  Depression is specific, yet all of these others: despair, suicide, hopelessness, defeatism, discouragement and insomnia can create their own web, but when they feed off of each other the demons can take you to a place where you don't see a way out.  I will tell you the last time I helped someone evict their demons, I gave them some time afterwards to be alone.  When I came back, the woman told me how clear her mind was without all the voices.  That was awesome.  She had been living with that for years, hiding it, and now she was free. 

We can all be free and we can stay free. 

Ok, so let’s recap where we have been today.

Top show points to remember:

·         Demons are disembodied spiritual persons who are a part of the Kingdom of satan.  They have characteristics that reveal their role in their warfare against us.

·         Demons function as experts, specialists, in a particular area for example anxiety.  Their entire purpose is to create anxiety in you at any opportunity and if there aren't enough opportunities then they will help to create opportunity. 

·         Their process will change depending on the person, the place, circumstances and external factors.  Demons know the person they are demonizing very well.

·         the strongman, not always, but usually the first one in is the one to set up shop so to speak and create opportunities for us to allow other legal access through our sin or words.

·         As they create opportunities for others to enter, and we oblige because we are caught up in their deception and lies, then the group begins to form.  You can think of it like a chain.  They join together and create a demonic chain of influence that over time will get bigger and stronger and pretty soon has us in a bondage

·         These groupings can also be called colonies, clans or families.  A particular grouping will form that will control a particular area of a person's life. 

·         The chances are very slim that someone is being demonized by only one demon.  They work best together and in particular combinations.

·         A strongman is essentially the ruler of the groupings.  In a situation where the demons become challenged, you may only hear from the strongman and the others in the group will simply hide behind the strongman and remain silent.  The strategy is that if they hide behind the strongman and you don't know they are present, you will miss their presence and they can remain even if others are evicted. 

·         Not everything we do or that happens to us is demonic.  Sometimes we are just making bad choices, so do not misunderstand what I am saying. We are ultimately responsible for our decisions, demon influenced or not because we are also responsible for cleaning out our "house".

·         You can have multiple groupings but in each grouping you can have duplicates.

·         On average, it is not uncommon for demons count to be in the 20 or even 30 range because they are so specialized.  They gain strength in numbers, so it is to their benefit to join forces.

·         There are over 50 groupings that I use when identifying demons and the strong man. 

  We encourage you:

 ·         To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

 What we ask of you:

·         Subscribe! Subscribe! Subscribe! Share with friends

·         Give us a review

·         Follow us on social media….

·         Send us your questions and stories to share on an upcoming show. Send them to contact@conqueringourunseenenemies

What is a Soul Tie, Part 2 of 2, Episode 7

Welcome back! This is Conquering Our Unseen Enemies and I am your host Dawn Simmons.  Today we are going to talk about something you may already be familiar with, Familiar Spirits! 

We will discuss how these harmful counterfeits to the Holy Spirit develop relationships specific to an individual and what you need to do to evict these spirits and their influence in your life.  Before I begin, I do want to say that this episode will have content that is inappropriate for children.

Let’s start off with clarifying what is a familiar spirit?  It’s likely you have actually heard of this spirit more often than you realized.  This is a specific type of spirit who functions in a relationship with a human taking on the characteristics of a familiar person.  This can be a real person or even an imagined person or personality.  This could be taking on the appearance of a family member or friend who has passed away.  We discussed in an earlier podcast that a demon is a disembodied person, they have personalities.  Generally they take on a personality that is specific to their function, for example anger, depression, sadness and bring those characteristics in our lives to influence our behaviors.  This spirit, however, functions a little differently.  It plays on our heart more, our weaknesses.  It’s almost like a slot machine at times or even like a genie in a bottle.  That is what makes it so powerful and dangerous in our lives. 

I would say for the most part, people do not want to communicate with demons.  Let’s focus on Christians in particular here, if you ask a Christian if they would want a relationship with a demon, we should have pretty close to 100% no.  I would say anyone who answered yes, already does.  I would also say that of that 100% that said no, it’s highly likely that a percentage of them actually do have a relationship with a demon and don’t realize it.  Why on earth would I say such a thing?  It’s a terrible thing to say, right? It is terrible.  It’s terrible because it is true. Why do I know it is true? Because a familiar spirit is a counterfeit to the Holy Spirit and plenty of Christians can’t tell the demon apart from the actual Holy Spirit.  These demons are good at what they do and we don’t have enough Christians properly equipped in knowledge of the spirit realm to know the difference.  

Let’s talk about how these the familiar spirit works.  The biggest tool they use is communication.  Personally, I am more aware of this spirit affecting women than men.  Women like to communicate a lot more than men do. We talk things out more.  Communication develops relationship.  A familiar spirit will be more than happy to accommodate our communication needs especially if they can exploit a weakness in the process.  The familiar spirit becomes attached or associated to the individual person.  Just as we have a cell phone or a work space, the familiar spirit is identified with us as individuals.

There are two main ways you will see familiar spirits operate.  The first is one on one as a companion to a human.  The human knows the spirit is there, likely sees it as a good companion and either knowingly or in ignorance has created, fostered and developed that relationship.  This is the genie on the bottle.  This frequently manifests as a relative who has passed. The second way is through someone who serves as a public medium.  The public medium provides a “service” to others.  This functions like a slot machine of whoever people want to access. In both instances, the human is a medium, but one is for individual or private purposes and the other is for public purposes.  We will go through examples, but first let’s take a look at three scriptures in the Bible referring to these spirits:

First, Leviticus 19:31 tells us “give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; seek after them to be defiled by them, I am the Lord your God.”

Second, Leviticus 20:6, “and the person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute himself with them, I will set My face against that person and cut him off from his people.”

Third, Leviticus 20:27, “a man or a woman who is a medium, or who has familiar spirits, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them.”

It’s pretty clear, there is no grey area here.  It is black and white what God tells us about these familiar spirits and our involvement with them.  So let’s talk more about how these spirits integrate into lives, with people willingly and unknowingly inviting them into multiple aspects of their lives.

The first way these spirits integrate is more difficult to discern.  The familiar spirit uses deception by appearing to be a good companion or providing some sort of benefit, useful information for example.  The human erroneously believes that because this spirit has been helpful that it must be a good spirit, it must be from God.  So the human, let’s call this human by a name from here forward for ease of conversation.  Let me think, let’s call the human…we’re just going to say Jane to be as generic as possible.  Jane gets what she considers helpful information and sees this spirit as a companion.  If I met Jane and discerned what was really happening and explained it to Jane, she might decide to believe or not believe me but she likes the companionship and she isn’t going to get rid of this familiar spirit.  Sometimes a person is reluctant to give up or evict a spirit of this kind because of the comfort they feel they are receiving, but that comfort is a lie.

Let’s look at this another way.  Jane has this same familiar spirit, but in her mind she thinks what is happening is her imagination or a fantasy.  She doesn’t recognize that it is a spirit being at all.  Sometimes you will even hear this rational described as accessing God through the mind.  There has been quite a bit of study lately on accessing God though our brains that quite frankly is just a waste of time and money.  All of this is orchestrated by satan as a tactic to draw us away from the true Holy Spirit and counterfeit access to the Holy Spirit.

Probably the most commonly recognized avenues of integration is through attempting to communicate with the dead.  This is frequently done with a medium.  We will get into more detail about that as we progress through our discussion.

So why are humans drawn to activities that knowingly or unknowingly open the door to a familiar spirit?  The easy answer to that is a lack of a relationship with the true Holy Spirit.  Anyone who has the Holy Spirit has all of the guidance, knowledge, wisdom they need to live a life pleasing to the Lord.  Look at King Saul.  God made him the very first King over Israel.  He had everything but yet he consulted with the witch of Endor for insight and that did not end well for him.  Humans have a desire to know everything or be involved in the supernatural as if they will have some supernatural powers or special knowledge and all of that is driven by evil.  Anytime we want to ignore God or step outside of God, we are stepping into a trap.

Let’s look at some specific activities so you can begin to recognize warning signs.

First, divination.  Divination has become so mainstream now and it is really quite scary how well it has been integrated into our culture.  People continue to seek a medium to know their future.  Quite honestly, if you are using a medium to know your future, it’s not good.  Here are people that are categorized as mediums:  a psychic in person or on an 800 number, Voodoo priests, Medicine Men, Shaman, Witches, Warlocks.  These mediums will engage in the use of tarot cards, casting spells, crystal balls, palm reading, automatic handwriting, potions, sacrificial or occult ceremonies, water witching, trances, seances.  Unfortunately there is a new category out there for mediums now and they call themselves wellness coaches.  They use “intuitive” practices to claim they are teaching healing.  We need to call it what it is, an avenue straight to hell if we are involved in any of this.  I know that’s blunt but it’s also true. If you hear someone near you talking about any of this, especially if they are inviting you to participate, call it what it is right then and there and rebuke it.

Second, games and toys. We all know a Oiuja board is purely Satanic but there are plenty of new gaming activities that are satanic in nature.  When we start identifying as characters and dressing up, melding who we are with a fictional character you open a door to losing your identity and partnering with a familiar spirit.  People think this is harmless fun, but unfortunately when worlds begin to blend our minds become influenced to accept a deception as a truth.

Third, us of drugs or alcohol.  This can be either prescription or hallucinogenic drugs.  All will alter our state of mind to accept a deception as a truth.  Now I am not referring to a temporary need to take a prescribed drug, this is addressing abuse of a prescription.  A familiar spirit will use the altered state to make an appearance and begin communication. 

Fourth, the use of the practice of Visualization.  This may not be something you see often, at least I hope not but it is a tool often used in inner healing situations.  A few years ago I was hosting a meeting of believers with spiritual gifts.  These are generally smaller meetings and it would be rare that someone comes to the meeting that I have not spoken to ahead of time.  In this case, one of the men brought his wife as she was not working due to a Covid shutdown.  I knew the husband was a believer so I didn’t say anything to the contrary when he advised he was bringing his wife.  As the host, I was responsible for what happened at the meeting and that meant I needed to make sure everything was scripturally based.  At one point in the meeting, the wife, let’s call her Jane also, so Jane began to talk to another person in attendance about inner healing. We did not conduct inner healing sessions at our meetings.  As the conversation continued, I began to hear the Holy Spirit telling me this was not correct.  She was discussing and trying to use this visualization technique for an inner healing.  This technique has been used for hundreds of years as a tool in witchcraft.  Christians have adopted the technique as a way to contact God or to receive some spiritual insight.  Again, if we are not going through the Holy Spirit, then we are using a counterfeit with a demon and it is forbidden by God.  I will over time share with you other stories of interference as a result of having Jane in meetings.  I want to share these types of encounters because often times we are in a situation and we don’t know how to handle it.  As believers we can be very sensitive to not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings or embarrass them.  When we see something happening not of God in a public setting, or even in a private setting, we still need to call out demonic.  You always follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  He will guide you as to how He wants it handled.  To tell you how this meeting was handled, the inner healing process did not continue.  I was then instructed by the Lord what needed to be said to her after the meeting and to specifically advise that our meetings were not intended to be a place for inner healings. 

Fifth, communicating with the dead.  The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 18 :9-12, “When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the [d]abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass[e]through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are [f]an abomination to the Lord,” That is pretty clear.  So any involvement in communicating with the dead is off limits.  We talked about the use of a medium already, and we mentioned Oiuja boards but let’s go a step further than that.  An overlooked issue in these instances is when we allow the deceased person to become an idol in our lives.  Combine that with attempting to communicate with the dead and you might as well have dinner ready because you will have a familiar spirit visiting you real quick.  Here is where it gets touchy, but I will try to explain it so we are all on the same page to know when it is a problem.  So, I want to explain this in a situation without the use of a medium.  When we have objects or pictures of a loved one and those items become an idol, then we need to question if how we are feeling or if the attention we are directing at the item is healthy.  If it is then no problem.  As I write this I have a huge collage of my grandfather, the man I consider to be the greatest man I ever met, on the wall behind me.  I respected him immensely, you will hear why over time, and the collage was a gift.  I have no soul tie, I do not overly focus on, I have never tried to contact him, not would I ever.  It’s a healthy situation for me to have his photos hung.  I am happy for him having passed the way he did and that he is where I will see him again one day.  If something tries to show up and tell me it’s my grandpa because he had one last thing to say to me, that’s a no.  Get out in the name of Jesus.  Now, I am going to broach a subject that will not sit well with some, but it is true and I have to share what I am being asked to share.  I’m going to start with a few scriptures:  John 14:6, Jesus tells us, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

We see the same message in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and One Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”  Praying to Mary, the mother of Jesus, or any of the apostles or people designated as saints, is not biblical.  I recently visited the site of where Mary, the mother of Jesus, is believed to have lived her remaining years outside of Ephesus.  The structure there is clearly not first century, there are first century ruins under that structure.  Anyhow, when we asked if our museum pass would cover the entrance fee I was surprised to be told no because this isn’t a museum, it’s a shrine.  As I was walking up to the location of where her house would have been I passed a bronze statue of Mary.  I didn’t think anything of it, I see a lot of bronze statues and marble statues everywhere we go when we visit archaeological sites and the museums.  Just after I passed this statue, a woman runs up behind me and she starts crying, kissing the feet of this statue, huge sobs as she kisses this statue, speaking in Spanish talking to Mary and completely overwhelmed by the sight of Mary in this statue.  Not discussing the woman, but the actions of that woman were acts of idolatry and necromancy, praying to the dead.  I am convinced that if Mary were alive today and she saw all of the idolatry that is happening of her, she would be the first to tell people to stop, she is not to be worshipped and prayed to, only Jesus.

Sixth, transcendental mediation, which is associated with Hinduism, or any form of trance producing meditation where chants or mantras are used to receive enlightenment or revelations of hidden or secret knowledge.  Yoga is associated with the use of these meditation techniques and this technique combined with visualization discussed earlier are open doors.

Seventh, imaginary friends. I think a lot of us have had imaginary friends when we were kids.  Unfortunately, there are times when opportunities that may not be ideal in a child’s life produce an imaginary friend.  This friend is in fact real and it is a demon that this child feels it can rely on particularly in unstable environments.

Eighth, music.  The lyrics we sing are invitations and even declarations that allow familiar spirits to attach to our lives.  Be careful what you say, know what you are saying in the lyrics.  Sometimes meanings are hidden in symbolism, sometimes they are right out there in the open and we still sing along.

Before I go further, this is an adult content warning.

Lastly, and there’s a reason this one is last, I don’t want to even think about this, but we have to because it happens.  I have in my lifetime only heard of this a handful of times.  I will say the most recent example I can think of where a woman described this was attempted was maybe 3 years ago. So what I am talking about are unclean spirits, male and female, who visit with the purpose of having sex with that person.  This would be horrible, absolutely horrible.  Where this tends to come up is with people who were promiscuous, involved in adultery or other sex related behaviors that would invite spirits to engage in behaviors associated with lust or perversions. 

So how do we get rid of a familiar spirit. 

There are 5 simple steps

1.       The first thing we need to do is identify the when, where and how we came into relationship with the familiar spirit.  We need to understand how it happened because that is a weakness we will need to address immediately and going forward.  If we don't address it, we will leave the door open for a repeat.  I think writing it down to keep a record for ourselves is a best practice. 

2.       Second, we need to confess this to the Lord and ask for forgiveness

3.       Repent and renounce our involvement with the activity or whatever the circumstances were that created that relationship.  This includes any ongoing supporting activities.  Commit to no longer engage in any activity that fosters the relationship with the familiar spirit.

4.       Command the Spirits, and you can name them if you have a name for them, but otherwise just refer to them as a demon, and evict them in the name of Jesus.  Confirm that you are no longer allowing them access to you and you no longer want them there.  You are renouncing and severing all ties in the name of Jesus.  

5.       Invite the Holy Spirit to come in and reside with you and be your Comforter and Counselor in the name of Jesus.

That was a lot to take in, I know.  Let’s do a recap to hit on the highlights:

Top show points are:

·         A familiar spirit is a specific type of spirit who functions in a relationship with a human taking on the characteristics of a familiar person.  This can be a real person or even an imagined person or personality. 

·         The biggest tool a familiar spirit uses is communication.  I am more aware of this spirit affecting women than men.  Women like to communicate a lot more than men. We talk things out more.  Communication develops relationship.  A familiar spirit will be more than happy to accommodate our communication needs.  The familiar spirit becomes attached or associated to the individual person. 

·         There are two main ways you will see familiar spirits operate.  The first is one on one as a companion to a human.  The human knows the spirit is there, likely sees it as a good companion and either knowingly or in ignorance has created, fostered and developed that relationship. 

·         The second way is through someone who serves as a public medium.  The public medium provides a “service” to others. 

·         how these spirits integrate into lives, with people willingly and unknowingly inviting them into multiple aspects of their lives.

o   The first way these spirits integrate is more difficult to discern.  The familiar spirit uses deception by appearing to be a good companion or providing some sort of benefit, useful information for example.  The human erroneously believes that because this spirit has been helpful that it must be a good spirit, it must be from God. 

o   A second way: tricking our minds to think what is happening is her imagination or a fantasy.  She doesn’t recognize that it is a spirit being at all.  Sometimes you will even hear this rational described as accessing God through the mind. 

o   Probably the most commonly recognized avenues of integration is through attempting to communicate with the dead.  This is frequently done with a medium. 

·         Specific activities so you can begin to recognize warning signs:

o   Divination has become so mainstream now and it is really quite scary how well it has been integrated into our culture.  People continue to seek a medium to know their future. 

o   Second, games and toys. We all know a Oiuja board is purely Satanic but there are plenty of new gaming activities that are satanic in nature. 

o   Third, us of drugs or alcohol.  This can be either prescription or hallucinogenic drugs.  All will alter our state of mind to accept a deception as a truth.

o   Fourth, the use of the practice of Visualization.  This may not be something you see often, at least I hope not but it is a tool often used in inner healing situations.

o   Fifth, communicating with the dead. 

o   Sixth, transcendental mediation, which is associated with Hinduism, or any form of trance producing meditation where chants or mantras are used to receive enlightenment or revelations of hidden or secret knowledge.   

o   Seventh, imaginary friends  This friend is in fact real and it is a demon that this child feels it can rely on particularly in unstable environments.

o   Eighth, music.  The lyrics we sing are invitations and even declarations that allow familiar spirits to attach to our lives. 

We encourage you:

·         To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

·         Warrior Words on website

Familiar Spirits you do not want to be familiar with! Episode 8

Welcome back! This is Conquering Our Unseen Enemies and I am your host Dawn Simmons.  Today we are going to talk about something you may already be familiar with, Familiar Spirits! 

We will discuss how these harmful counterfeits to the Holy Spirit develop relationships specific to an individual and what you need to do to evict these spirits and their influence in your life.  Before I begin, I do want to say that this episode will have content that is inappropriate for children.

 Let’s start off with clarifying what is a familiar spirit?  It’s likely you have actually heard of this spirit more often than you realized.  This is a specific type of spirit who functions in a relationship with a human taking on the characteristics of a familiar person.  This can be a real person or even an imagined person or personality.  We discussed in an earlier podcast that a demon is a disembodied person, they have personalities.  Generally they take on a personality that is specific to their function, for example anger, depression, sadness and bring those characteristics in our lives to influence our behaviors.  This spirit, however, functions a little differently.  It’s almost like a slot machine at times or even like a genie in a bottle.  That is what makes it so powerful and dangerous in our lives. 

 I would say for the most part, people do not want to communicate with demons.  Let’s focus on Christians in particular here, if you ask a Christian if they would want a relationship with a demon, we should have pretty close to 100% no.  I would say anyone who answered yes, already does.  I would also say that of that 100% that said no, it’s highly likely that a percentage of them actually do have a relationship with a demon and don’t realize it.  Why on earth would I say such a thing?  It’s a terrible thing to say, right? It is terrible.  It’s terrible because it is true. Why do I know it is true? Because a familiar spirit is a counterfeit to the Holy Spirit and plenty of Christians can’t tell the demon apart from the actual Holy Spirit.  These demons are good at what they do and we don’t have enough Christians properly equipped in knowledge of the spirit realm to know the difference.  

 Let’s talk about how these the familiar spirit works.  The biggest tool they use is communication.  Personally, I am more aware of this spirit affecting women than men.  Women like to communicate a lot more than men do. We talk things out more.  Communication develops relationship.  A familiar spirit will be more than happy to accommodate our communication needs.  The familiar spirit becomes attached or associated to the individual person.  Just as we have a cell phone or a work space, the familiar spirit is identified with us as individuals.

 There are two main ways you will see familiar spirits operate.  The first is one on one as a companion to a human.  The human knows the spirit is there, likely sees it as a good companion and either knowingly or in ignorance has created, fostered and developed that relationship.  This is the genie on the bottle. The second way is through someone who serves as a public medium.  The public medium provides a “service” to others.  This functions like a slot machine of whoever people want to access. In both instances, the human is a medium, but one is for individual or private purposes and the other is for public purposes.  We will go through examples, but first let’s take a look at three scriptures in the Bible referring to these spirits:

First, Leviticus 19:31 tells us “give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; seek after them to be defiled by them, I am the Lord your God.”

 Second, Leviticus 20:6, “and the person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute himself with them, I will set My face against that person and cut him off from his people.”

 Third, Leviticus 20:27, “a man or a woman who is a medium, or who has familiar spirits, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them.”

 It’s pretty clear, there is no grey area here.  It is black and white what God tells us about these familiar spirits and our involvement with them.  So let’s talk more about how these spirits integrate into lives, with people willingly and unknowingly inviting them into multiple aspects of their lives.

 The first way these spirits integrate is more difficult to discern.  The familiar spirit uses deception by appearing to be a good companion or providing some sort of benefit, useful information for example.  The human erroneously believes that because this spirit has been helpful that it must be a good spirit, it must be from God.  So the human, let’s call this human by a name from here forward for ease of conversation.  Let me think, let’s call the human…we’re just going to say Jane to be as generic as possible.  Jane gets what she considers helpful information and sees this spirit as a companion.  If I met Jane and discerned what was really happening and explained it to Jane, she might decide to believe or not believe me but she likes the companionship and she isn’t going to get rid of this familiar spirit. 

 Let’s look at this another way.  Jane has this same familiar spirit, but in her mind she thinks what is happening is her imagination or a fantasy.  She doesn’t recognize that it is a spirit being at all.  Sometimes you will even hear this rational described as accessing God through the mind.  There has been quite a bit of study lately on accessing God though our brains that quite frankly is just a waste of time and money.  All of this is orchestrated by satan as a tactic to draw us away from the true Holy Spirit and counterfeit access to the Hoy Spirit.

 Probably the most commonly recognized avenues of integration is through attempting to communicate with the dead.  This is frequently done with a medium.  We will get into more detail about that as we progress through our discussion.

 So why are humans drawn to activities that knowingly or unknowingly open the door to a familiar spirit?  The easy answer to that is a lack of a relationship with the true Holy Spirit.  Anyone who has the Holy Spirit has all of the guidance, knowledge, wisdom they need to live a life pleasing to the Lord.  Look at King Saul.  God made him the very first King over Israel.  He had everything but yet he consulted with the witch of Endor for insight and that did not end well for him.  Humans have a desire to know everything or be involved in the supernatural as if they will have some supernatural powers or special knowledge and all of that is driven by evil.  Anytime we want to ignore God or step outside of God, we are stepping into a trap.

 Let’s look at some specific activities so you can begin to recognize warning signs.

 First, divination.  Divination has become so mainstream now and it is really quite scary how well it has been integrated into our culture.  People continue to seek a medium to know their future.  Quite honestly, if you are using a medium to know your future, it’s not good.  Here are people that are categorized as mediums:  a psychic in person or on an 800 number, Voodoo priests, Medicine Men, Shaman, Witches, Warlocks.  These mediums will engage in the use of tarot cards, casting spells, crystal balls, palm reading, automatic handwriting, potions, sacrificial or occult ceremonies, water witching, trances, seances.  Unfortunately there is a new category out there for mediums now and they call themselves wellness coaches.  They use “intuitive” practices to claim they are teaching healing.  We need to call it what it is, an avenue straight to hell if we are involved in any of this.  I know that’s blunt but it’s also true. If you hear someone near you talking about any of this, especially if they are inviting you to participate, call it what it is right then and there and rebuke it.

 Second, games and toys. We all know a Oiuja board is purely Satanic but there are plenty of new gaming activities that are satanic in nature.  When we start identifying as characters and dressing up, melding who we are with a fictional character you open a door to losing your identity and partnering with a familiar spirit.  People think this is harmless fun, but unfortunately when worlds begin to blend our minds become influenced to accept a deception as a truth.

 Third, us of drugs or alcohol.  This can be either prescription or hallucinogenic drugs.  All will alter our state of mind to accept a deception as a truth.  Now I am not referring to a temporary need to take a prescribed drug, this is addressing abuse of a prescription.  A familiar spirit will use the altered state to make an appearance and begin communication. 

 Fourth, the use of the practice of Visualization.  This may not be something you see often, at least I hope not but it is a tool often used in inner healing situations.  A few years ago I was hosting a meeting of believers with spiritual gifts.  These are generally smaller meetings and it would be rare that someone comes to the meeting that I have not spoken to ahead of time.  In this case, one of the men brought his wife as she was not working due to a Covid shutdown.  I knew the husband was a believer so I didn’t say anything to the contrary when he advised he was bringing his wife.  As the host, I was responsible for what happened at the meeting and that meant I needed to make sure everything was scripturally based.  At one point in the meeting, the wife, let’s call her Jane also, so Jane began to talk to another person in attendance about inner healing. We did not conduct inner healing sessions at our meetings.  As the conversation continued, I began to hear the Holy Spirit telling me this was not correct.  She was discussing and trying to use this visualization technique for an inner healing.  This technique has been used for hundreds of years as a tool in witchcraft.  Christians have adopted the technique as a way to contact God or to receive some spiritual insight.  Again, if we are not going through the Holy Spirit, then we are using a counterfeit with a demon and it is forbidden by God.  I will over time share with you other stories of interference as a result of having Jane in meetings.  I want to share these types of encounters because often times we are in a situation and we don’t know how to handle it.  As believers we can be very sensitive to not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings or embarrass them.  When we see something happening not of God in a public setting, or even in a private setting, we still need to call out demonic.  You always follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  He will guide you as to how He wants it handled.  To tell you how this meeting was handled, the inner healing process did not continue.  I was then instructed by the Lord what needed to be said to her after the meeting and to specifically advise that our meetings were not intended to be a place for inner healings. 

 Fifth, communicating with the dead.  The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 18 :9-12, “When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the [d]abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass[e]through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are [f]an abomination to the Lord,” That is pretty clear.  So any involvement in communicating with the dead is off limits.  We talked about the use of a medium already, and we mentioned Oiuja boards but let’s go a step further than that.  An overlooked issue in these instances is when we allow the deceased person to become an idol in our lives.  Combine that with attempting to communicate with the dead and you might as well have dinner ready because you will have a familiar spirit visiting you real quick.  Here is where it gets touchy, but I will try to explain it so we are all on the same page to know when it is a problem.  So, I want to explain this in a situation without the use of a medium.  When we have objects or pictures of a loved one and those items become an idol, then we need to question if how we are feeling or if the attention we are directing at the item is healthy.  If it is then no problem.  As I write this I have a huge collage of my grandfather, the man I consider to be the greatest man I ever met, on the wall behind me.  I respected him immensely, you will hear why over time, and the collage was a gift.  I have no soul tie, I do not overly focus on, I have never tried to contact him, not would I ever.  It’s a healthy situation for me to have his photos hung.  I am happy for him having passed the way he did and that he is where I will see him again one day.  If something tries to show up and tell me it’s my grandpa because he had one last thing to say to me, that’s a no.  Get out in the name of Jesus.  Now, I am going to broach a subject that will not sit well with some, but it is true and I have to share what I am being asked to share.  I’m going to start with a few scriptures:  John 14:6, Jesus tells us, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

We see the same message in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and One Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”  Praying to Mary, the mother of Jesus, or any of the apostles or people designated as saints, is not biblical.  I recently visited the site of where Mary, the mother of Jesus, is believed to have lived her remaining years outside of Ephesus.  The structure there is clearly not first century, there are first century ruins under that structure.  Anyhow, when we asked if our museum pass would cover the entrance fee I was surprised to be told no because this isn’t a museum, it’s a shrine.  As I was walking up to the location of where her house would have been I passed a bronze statue of Mary.  I didn’t think anything of it, I see a lot of bronze statues and marble statues everywhere we go when we visit archaeological sites and the museums.  Just after I passed this statue, a woman runs up behind me and she starts crying, kissing the feet of this statue, huge sobs as she kisses this statue, speaking in Spanish talking to Mary and completely overwhelmed by the sight of Mary in this statue.  Not discussing the woman, but the actions of that woman were acts of idolatry and necromancy, praying to the dead.  I am convinced that if Mary were alive today and she saw all of the idolatry that is happening of her, she would be the first to tell people to stop, she is not to be worshipped and prayed to, only Jesus.

 Sixth, transcendental mediation, which is associated with Hinduism, or any form of trance producing meditation where chants or mantras are used to receive enlightenment or revelations of hidden or secret knowledge.  Yoga is associated with the use of these meditation techniques and this technique combined with visualization discussed earlier are open doors.

 Seventh, imaginary friends. I think a lot of us have had imaginary friends when we were kids.  Unfortunately, there are times when opportunities that may not be ideal in a child’s life produce an imaginary friend.  This friend is in fact real and it is a demon that this child feels it can rely on particularly in unstable environments.

 Eighth, music.  The lyrics we sing are invitations and even declarations that allow familiar spirits to attach to our lives.  Be careful what you say, know what you are saying in the lyrics.  Sometimes meanings are hidden in symbolism, sometimes they are right out there in the open and we still sing along.

 Before I go further, this is an adult content warning.

Lastly, and there’s a reason this one is last, I don’t want to even think about this, but we have to because it happens.  I have in my lifetime only heard of this a handful of times.  I will say the most recent example I can think of where a woman described this was attempted was maybe 3 years ago. So what I am talking about are unclean spirits, male and female, who visit with the purpose of having sex with that person.  This would be horrible, absolutely horrible.  Where this tends to come up is with people who were promiscuous, involved in adultery or other sex related behaviors that would invite spirits to engage in behaviors associated with lust or perversions. 

 That was a lot to take in, I know.  Let’s do a recap to hit on the highlights:

 Top show points are:

·         A familiar spirit is a specific type of spirit who functions in a relationship with a human taking on the characteristics of a familiar person.  This can be a real person or even an imagined person or personality. 

·         The biggest tool a familiar spirit uses is communication.  I am more aware of this spirit affecting women than men.  Women like to communicate a lot more than men. We talk things out more.  Communication develops relationship.  A familiar spirit will be more than happy to accommodate our communication needs.  The familiar spirit becomes attached or associated to the individual person. 

·         There are two main ways you will see familiar spirits operate.  The first is one on one as a companion to a human.  The human knows the spirit is there, likely sees it as a good companion and either knowingly or in ignorance has created, fostered and developed that relationship. 

·         The second way is through someone who serves as a public medium.  The public medium provides a “service” to others. 

·         how these spirits integrate into lives, with people willingly and unknowingly inviting them into multiple aspects of their lives.

o   The first way these spirits integrate is more difficult to discern.  The familiar spirit uses deception by appearing to be a good companion or providing some sort of benefit, useful information for example.  The human erroneously believes that because this spirit has been helpful that it must be a good spirit, it must be from God. 

o   A second way: tricking our minds to think what is happening is her imagination or a fantasy.  She doesn’t recognize that it is a spirit being at all.  Sometimes you will even hear this rational described as accessing God through the mind. 

o   Probably the most commonly recognized avenues of integration is through attempting to communicate with the dead.  This is frequently done with a medium. 

·         Specific activities so you can begin to recognize warning signs:

o   Divination has become so mainstream now and it is really quite scary how well it has been integrated into our culture.  People continue to seek a medium to know their future. 

o   Second, games and toys. We all know a Oiuja board is purely Satanic but there are plenty of new gaming activities that are satanic in nature. 

o   Third, us of drugs or alcohol.  This can be either prescription or hallucinogenic drugs.  All will alter our state of mind to accept a deception as a truth.

o   Fourth, the use of the practice of Visualization.  This may not be something you see often, at least I hope not but it is a tool often used in inner healing situations.

o   Fifth, communicating with the dead. 

o   Sixth, transcendental mediation, which is associated with Hinduism, or any form of trance producing meditation where chants or mantras are used to receive enlightenment or revelations of hidden or secret knowledge.   

o   Seventh, imaginary friends  This friend is in fact real and it is a demon that this child feels it can rely on particularly in unstable environments.

o   Eighth, music.  The lyrics we sing are invitations and even declarations that allow familiar spirits to attach to our lives. 

 We encourage you:

 ·         To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

 What we ask of you:

·         Subscribe! Subscribe! Subscribe! Share with friends

·         Give us a review

·         Follow us on social media….

·         Send us your questions and stories to share on an upcoming show. Send them to contact@conqueringourunseenenemies

What is a Soul Tie, Part 1 of 2, Episode 6

Welcome to Conquering Our Unseen Enemies, I am your host, Dawn Simmons and today we are going to discuss biblical and demonic soul ties.  We will explain what a soul tie is and the nature of how it is formed. We will give Biblical examples of healthy soul ties and examples of demonic soul ties the Bible warns us against.  In the second episode we will continue the discussion of demonic soul ties and we will also go through the four steps to break demonic soul ties.  I do want to say upfront that while this show isn’t intended for children, this episode, in particular, has some content that children should not be exposed to so please be aware of that before we begin.

Let's get started. There are not a lot of discussions in Christian circles about soul ties.  I don't know of any churches that have taught on this matter from the pulpit, if you do, I'd be interested to know about it.  I think on the surface it sounds mystical, like something we shouldn't be talking about.  If you go deeper, I think the Christians today don't talk about it because satan doesn't want us to talk about it.  If we do, he is going to lose some of his control over people.  So the weirder it sounds, the less mainstream Christians will pursue it.  Ok, enough jibber jab, let's get into what we mean by a soul tie and break it down biblical versus demonic.

A soul tie is formed when two, but could be more, people are bonded together.  There are healthy soul ties and there are unhealthy soul ties.  Some are natural soul ties and some are unnatural.  There are soul ties based on love and there are soul ties based on sin. 

There are 4 types that are healthy, natural, based on love and biblical. 

The first is through marriage.  God created Eve for Adam, so it is the first biblical bond in recorded history in the book of Genesis.  It set the example of husband and wife.  Now, they weren't a great example.  They sinned and caused the fall of man, and they weren't the best parents with one son killing the other, but they are where we begin.  The Lord is very clear about the marriage bond, or soul tie.  He creates the boundary around the married couple.  Paul refers to the old testament when he writes to the Ephesians in 5:31, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

Note that this is a new soul tie formed as two others are broken off, leaving the father and mother.  Then Jesus also quotes the old testament when asked about marriage and divorce in Matthew 19:6, So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Paul then gives us an idea of how that marriage should function with Ephesians 5:28, " In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself." That soul tie makes sense, it's healthy and based on love, in the same way our relationship with Jesus is based on love.  Sex was intended to a gift to us as married couples.  God wants us to have a healthy sex life in our marriage.  He created everything about it and we should enjoy it.

The second healthy soul tie is friendship.  The bible gives us one of the richest examples of friendship I have ever seen. We first see it in  1 Samuel 18:1, "After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. "

David and Jonathan had an instant bond, a brotherly love that served to keep David alive.  These are friendships that are unmistakable.  I think these days we would joke that they were "brothers from another motha" Have you had a friendship like that. When I was younger, and I mean jr high, I had a friend like that.  We were instantly connected.  Then one day, this boy decided he liked her and she liked him.  The only problem was, there was another girl that already had her eye on him.  Well, Christine wasn't daunted by that.  What she was daunted by were all this girls' friends who were now letting her know if they caught her alone, it was going to be a bad day.  Christine had, um, me. Since you haven't seen me, let me tell you I am all of about 5'2", but I am 5'2" of "not today little girls" if you want my friend.  Nonetheless, we knew we were slightly outnumbered, just by about 3 to 1, no biggie, so we needed a plan.  Now there was no such thing as the internet back then, so Christine went to the library and checked out a book.  She brought it home and showed it to me one day after school and asked if I would "help her practice."  I looked at the book, it was a how to on karate, with all kinds of pictures.  Now keep in mind, we are living in Europe so there isn't a dojo around the corner for us.  So every day we "practiced" at her house since her parents weren't home for a few hours. We sometimes had to stop to see if we looked like the pictures or not.  After a few days, we honed our skills and wore our bruises in pride.  But that wasn't all Christine had up her sleeve.  One day she said, "hey, why don't we go ask that guy at the gym"  "What guy?" I asked.  The guardian angel, see if he can give us some moves.  Now this guy was from New York, he was huge and he was an actual guardian angel that did not look exactly angelic, if you understand me here.  He was always in the gym lifting weights, so we knew how to find him.  I wasn't crazy about approaching this guy, but we did.  He gave us some good info and from then on he was all smiles for us and looked out for us.  Super sweet guy.  Christine, if you are out there somewhere, contact me.  I have been looking for you for years.  You have given me some funny stories to share with my kids. 

Ok, well Christine and my friendship was not quite what David and Jonathan had, but what we are talking about is the type of friendship that is based on the Lord, the kind of friendship that's gonna pull you aside and give you that lift up you need when you don't know what you need.  The one that is going to be honest with you and love you through the desert.   Proverbs 18:24, says it like this: "One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." Another well-known proverb that is applicable is Proverbs 17:17, "A friend loves at all times,"

The third biblical soul tie is between a parent and a child.  This makes sense to most of us.  When we create that child there is a necessary physical bond between the mother and the child for the 9 months during the pregnancy.  A bond can also be created with the father, I know there are newborns that recognize their father’s voice and respond.  Throughout the child’s life there is a dependency on the parents.  Our responsibility as parents to raise our children, teaching them responsibility, respect and to know the Lord.  In doing that we provide a stable environment.  Obviously this is not the reality for many children or maybe even for you, but this is what the Lord’s intention was for us since the beginning.  Likewise, the child has a responsibility to the parent as we see in Exodus 20:

Exodus 20:12, “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. We don’t talk enough about this and I see it play out in our culture in pretty evil ways.  When I travel to other countries, I don’t see the level of disrespect toward parents that I do here in the US. The parents are responsible to teach this and it’s not happening in our country. It’s sad and it needs to change.  Satan has definitely made tremendous progress in tearing apart the bonds of parents and children.  This tie isn’t intended to remain in place forever.  Of course, we will always have a love for our children and want to support them in life, but the Bible tells us there is a natural progression of when the soul tie should end.  Let’s look again at Ephesians in 5:31, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”  When a parent doesn’t let go of their child once they become married it creates issues in the new marriage.  I tend to see this more with mothers not letting go of their sons and accepting the new wife.  The role of the wife is not respected.  The Lord designed our relationships to follow order so we can have a full life.

Lastly, a soul tie between Christians is biblical.  This soul tie is different than a friend because this is referring to Christians as a group, the church. We are meant as the body of Christ to support each other.  We can’t each do it on our own, sometimes we need help, sometimes we are the help.  We need to help others grow and mentor them to be strong in the Lord.  Paul continually worked on developing this with all of the churches he planted and supported. It is because of his tireless effort that we have most of our New Testament and I do think Christians as a whole don’t realize how difficult it was for first century Christians to learn how to be Christ like, and the level of commitment Paul had for our benefit today.  In his letter to the Ephesians, he says this: Ephesians 4:16, "From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." The Corinthians had to learn the same lesson because Paul shares this with them: 1 Corinthians 12: 24-26, “But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”  I think most of us will admit we could make some improvements in this arena.  The church today does not function like it did in the first century.  They didn’t come in sit for an hour and be done for the week.  They had church, an all day event where they were taught, they ate together, it was a true gathering together.  They weren’t perfect, but it was more unified that what we see at least in the US today. 

So that is what we needed to talk about for the healthy ties, now we need to talk about the unhealthy ties and this is where the conversation becomes more dark just so you are prepared. 

Demonic soul ties are perversions of healthy soul ties. The first one we will address are ties formed through fornication.  There are several types of fornication so we will go through each.

The first is adultery or unmarried couples.  The demon attached to this tie typically is lust.  Ties are formed between two people that are not united in marriage, whether that is adultery or an unmarried couple.  In adultery, the marriage union is destroyed and can be extremely difficult to restore.  Satan doesn’t care if the secret of an adulterous affair is revealed.  He just wants to make sure he can drag the people down, he doesn’t care who he hurts by exposing it. The Bible shows us what happens when we have sex out of marriage in 1 Corinthians 6: 15-16, "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh" So the sex act may be over but the soul tie has been formed and it does not end when the sex act ends. A second demonic soul tie is formed when there is same sex relations.  God declares same sex relations as unnatural and it is addressed in Romans 1:24-27, "Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error." A third demonic soul tie is when a man or woman has sexual relations with an animal, I think most of us see the perversity of that pretty readily, but what you may not see so readily is when companionship reaches a level that is perverse. Unfortunately, there are situations where people have some unhealthy connections with their pets. I know a woman who went to a psychic to speak to her dog after it passed and believes she was able to connect with it. That is demonic behavior on many levels, and it illustrates my point that we should not be that dependent or tied to animals.

Ok, our next category of demonic soul ties are evil companions.  We can be influenced by who we choose as friends.  1 Corinthians 15:33 puts it this way: “Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character” I led a Bible Study a number of years ago and this topic came up.  One of the men in the study asked if it was wrong for him to continue to go hang out at the bar with his friends the way he did before he was saved.  He reasoned that he was now a good influence for them if they asked him questions.  He tried to use Jesus as an example that Jesus went to places where prostitutes were and helped them.  We need to understand that when Jesus went where prostitutes were or any person heavily involved in sin, he didn’t go there and do what they were doing to hang out with them.  He went there doing what he did so they could change and become more like him.  We need to be honest with ourselves about the company we keep and how it affects us and our relationship with the Lord. Proverbs 22:5 says this: "In the paths of the wicked are snares and pitfalls, but those who would preserve their life stay far from them." Further down in verse 24-25 we read, “Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn their ways and get yourself ensnared.”

This is where we are going to end the first of the two episodes on Soul Ties. 

Let’s go ahead and do our reap from episode one and don’t forget to join us for episode two where we will continue the discussion on demonic soul ties and reveal how we can break those ties.

Top show points for this episode are:

·         A soul tie is formed when two, but could be more, people are bonded together.  There are healthy soul ties and there are unhealthy soul ties.  Some are natural soul ties and some are unnatural.  There are soul ties based on love and there are soul ties based on sin. 

·         There are 4 types that are healthy, natural, based on love and biblical. 

o   The first is through marriage.  God created Eve for Adam, so it is the first biblical bond in recorded history in the book of Genesis.  Note that this is a new soul tie formed as two others are broken off, leaving the father and mother. 

o   The second healthy soul tie is friendship.  The bible gives us one of the richest examples of friendship I have ever seen. David and Jonathan had an instant bond, a brotherly love that served to keep David alive.  These are friendships that are unmistakable. 

o   The third biblical soul tie is between a parent and a child.  This makes sense to most of us.  When we create that child there is a necessary physical bond between the mother and the child for the 9 months during the pregnancy.  A bond can also be created with the father, I know there are newborns that recognize their father’s voice and respond. 

o   this is referring to Christians as a group, the church. We are meant as the body of Christ to support each other.  We can’t each do it on our own, sometimes we need help, sometimes we are the help.  We need to help others grow and mentor them to be strong in the Lord.

·         Demonic soul ties are perversions of healthy soul ties.

o   The first is adultery or unmarried couples.  The demon attached to this tie typically is lust.  Ties are formed between two people that are not united in marriage, whether that is adultery or an unmarried couple.        

o   A second demonic soul tie is formed when there is same sex relations

o   A third demonic soul tie is when a man or woman has sexual relations with an animal, I think most of us see the perversity of that pretty readily, but what you may not see so readily is when companionship reaches a level that is perverse.

o   Another category of demonic soul ties are evil companions.  We can be influenced by who we choose as friends. We need to be honest with ourselves about the company we keep and how it affects us and our relationship with the Lord.

We encourage you:

·         To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

What we ask of you:

·         Subscribe! Subscribe! Subscribe! Share with friends

·         Give us a review

·         Follow us on social media….

·         Send us your questions and stories to share on an upcoming show. Send them to contact@conqueringourunseenenemies

We have Authority over Demons, Episode 5

Welcome to Conquering Our Unseen Enemies, I am your host, Dawn Simmons and today we are going to discuss the scriptural basis for the authority Jesus gave us.  I felt like we needed some time with a topic more uplifting.  This begins to lay the groundwork for building confidence to act in faith in our authority.  We need to get this understood in our mind, body and spirit to be able to conquer and cancel the plans of the enemy, evicting him from our lives.  

Before we start, I want to say something really important about authority.  While we are going to discuss our authority laying the framework and foundation of how we have our authority scripturally, we first need to approach the subject with our hearts.  All the reading and scripture in the world will do nothing to convince you if you need to be convinced.  As we start this, pray and ask the Lord to reveal it to you in your Spirit.  Then you must believe by faith that you have the authority.  When we don't believe in faith, we limit our ability to operate with the authority Jesus gave us. 

Alright let's get started.  The first thing I want to say is that there is a misconception out there among Christians.  It functions as an excuse to do nothing, and it is definitely a lie from the enemy.  The lie is not everyone has authority.  As if it is reserved just for pastors or for a special few.  One thing that belief will do is keep someone from moving forward.    Every believer has authority.  Whether you feel like you have it, whether you exercise it, whether you understand it, we all have it.  It was a gift given to us from Jesus.  Remember that satan does not want us to learn about our authority because he doesn't want us to use it.  He will fight us more on this issue than anything else in our lives.  If it is that important for satan to want to keep it from us, we need to be that much more diligent to know about it. 

Let's take a look at some scripture.  I want to show the progression from God giving it to Jesus and then Jesus giving it to us.

We are going to start in John 3:31. Let me set the scene here.  We are with John out in the Judean countryside, he is baptizing people.  Now remember that John was given the Holy Spirit when he was in the womb, so he already has what is not yet available to anyone at that time, but what we have available to us now.  Anyhow, John is explaining he is not the Messiah but was sent ahead of the Messiah.  Now let's see what he says about Jesus specifically: 31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 33 Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 34 For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God[i] gives the Spirit without limit. 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

I think this scripture gets overlooked.  It is the Holy Spirit in John testifying to the relationship between God, Jesus and discusses the Holy Spirit being given without limit.  It also tells us God has placed everything in the hands of Jesus.

Here are 3 places where Jesus is telling us the Father has given all authority to Him.  Let's start with Matthew 11:27, “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

Now Matthew again 28:18 "Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. "

Here is another Luke 10:22, “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Does that sound familiar?  It confirms Matthew 11:27.

Here is Paul writing to the Colossians, explaining authority to them. Colossians 2:10: "and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority"

These scriptures give us the foundation we need to know Jesus has been given control of everything from God.  There is no doubting that relationship, nothing missing, it's everything.  The Creator of the Universe, the Great I Am, the one who Was before there "was" anything, or one of my favorite names for him, The Ancient One, put everything in the hands of Jesus.  Now let's see what Jesus did with it.

As believers, we know that Jesus took our sins, sacrificed himself on the cross to redeem us for those sins.  A lot of Christianity that is taught focuses on the cross and we get stuck there at the foot of the cross.  Yes, we do need to come to the cross, nothing happens without that, but Jesus did not remain at the cross, and neither should we.  He was resurrected and he ascended to be with his Father. When He ascended, He left us with gifts.  He left us the tools we need to use in order to accomplish what He asked of us for Him and the glory of His Father.  

Here is Paul again, describing what was done at the cross and where we stand now.  Colossians 2: 13, " When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you[d] alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross"

So yes, the cross made everything possible, but Jesus triumphed over the cross.  He didn't stay there.  If he had, none of us would have the gift of life that he gave us. He had to overcome death.  Paul describes it this way in Ephesians Ch 1:20, "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way."

Complete Victory, that's what Paul is telling us here, Victory in the name of Jesus!

He goes on to say this in Ephesians Chapter 2:4, "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."  Jesus then ascended to the right hand of God and God has raised us there with Jesus.

Recently I had lunch with a young woman. I am beginning to mentor her and we are starting with some baseline discussions. I need to understand who she is and where she wants to go with the Lord.  The Lord gave me a word of knowledge about her situation, so I knew what she was experiencing started when she was about 3-4 years old.  The Lord revealed to me the issue, but I needed to know how that impacted her so we could deal with all of it, not just bits and pieces.  It broke my heart when she spoke, her spirit was wounded, you could see it, hear it and feel it.  She appeared defeated, but I knew she wasn't.  I watched her look down and move her falafel around (we were at a Mediterranean restaurant) and I'm having to wait to speak.  I want to tell her she can overcome this, but I'm having to wait until the Holy Spirit tells me I can talk. 

As a sidenote, there is baggage we carry around, most of us for years, and it becomes a part of us, shapes our personality and affects our relationships.  I would say we generally have more than one piece of baggage we are carrying around.  A lot of times, I have found the biggest piece of baggage is the one we started carrying first and then the smaller ones came after as a result. 

Ok, back to the story, finally, after she said all the things she needed to say, I understood why I needed to wait.  She laid out all the places where demons had been attacking her and confirmed how it affected her generationally.  When I was able to reveal to her what the Lord told me, she completely lit up.  You could see this belief sprouting and the deeper we spoke about how the Lord can remove this from her life, the lighter her countenance became.  She was more than happy to do the homework she needed to do so we can deal with all of it, not just the bits and pieces.  An eviction notice is coming!

Exercising the authority that Jesus gave us isn't some ethereal discussion.  This really should be our everyday conversation among believers.  This is something we need, something we use, something that defeats the enemy and kills his plans, activities, tactics and evict him from our lives.  This is how we conquer our unseen enemies.  That's what we need, so let's get back to what Jesus has to say about giving us authority in His name.

In Matthew 10:1 "Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness."

In Luke 10:19 Jesus tells us "I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you."

Jesus had all the power from God, and he delegated that authority to us to use against satan.  We need to know that satan coming against us is real.  We see it every day in our schools, in our government, regardless of which side you are on and unfortunately in our churches.  Peter tells us in 1 Peter 5:8, "Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour"

Jesus tells us the same thing in John 10:10, the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy.."

Because satan's attacks are real, we need to have these conversations out in the open and know your authority.  Jesus expects us to use it and to do so without fear. 

Mark 16:16 tells us, "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

We know from 1 John 4:4 "You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world."

As a result of sin, Adam gave satan the right to rule this world.  Adam didn't give satan the right to rule over us.  I have heard so many times how we are helpless here until Jesus returns.  I have even heard someone say that after they've been told the authority is theirs.  That attitude and belief is nonsense.  You can't help people who don't want to believe.  We need to believe and know we are victorious because Jesus is victorious.  And 1 Corinthians 6:17 tells us, "But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit".  We are seated with Christ.

A few things about authority I want to be clear about. 

·         Our authority rests entirely in the name of Jesus, so when you use it, we need to be very clear on that and say the authority is in the name of Jesus.  Leaving Jesus out will result in no change.

·         We only use our authority in places where Jesus would use his authority, for kingdom purposes

·         Our authority is only over satan and his demons. We cannot wield authority over others, including other households or to control behaviors of someone we don't agree with.  Attempting to use it as manipulation is witchcraft.

·         We can stand in the gap for others who are baby Christians and not yet spiritually mature enough to use their authority

·         We should not continually stand in the gap or pray for someone not willing to pray for themselves.  God expects us to walk, grow and start doing things for ourselves. 

·         Anyone, believer or non-believer who states the authority believers have in Christ is not real or does not work or is dead is speaking contrary to the Word and ultimately calling God a liar.  As a believer, we would simply rebuke that lie from satan.

·         We cannot use our authority to direct angels what to do

·         Most importantly, we must always depend on the Holy Spirit to direct us in using our authority.  He may give you a word of knowledge or give you a specific action to follow.

There is a lot more we can discuss on authority.  Our authority in Jesus complements and supports Spiritual warfare principles, so we will continue to build on our foundation of authority when we discuss the Armor of God.  I hope this has helped to built your faith as we continue to focus on conquering our unseen enemies and evicting satan from our lives. 

Ok, we are ready for our recap.

Top show points for episode 5 are:

·         Every believer has authority in the name of Jesus  

·         Scriptures which illuminate God has given all authority to Jesus are: John 3:31-36, Matthew 11:27, Matthew 28:18, Luke 10:22, Colossians 2:10     

·         Jesus redeemed us at the cross, but we need to remember he didn't stay there and neither should we.  We aren’t meant to remain at the foot of the cross to bring glory to God's kingdom.       

·         Scriptures that reveal Jesus is no longer at the cross: Colossians 2:13, Ephesians 1:20- 23

·         Jesus is seated at the right hand of God and so are we. Ephesians 2:4    

·         We should be discussing our authority with believers everyday

·         Jesus gave us His authority to be used for God's kingdom in His name. Matthew 10:1, Luke 10:19

·         Satan is here to destroy us: 1 Peter 5:8, John 10:10

·         Jesus expects us to use his authority Mark 16: 16-17, 1 Corinthians 6:17

·         Clarification points of our authority and ways we should use it and ways we should not try to use it and its limitations

 We encourage you:

·         To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

 What we ask of you:

·         Subscribe! Subscribe! Subscribe! Share with friends

·         Give us a review

·         Follow us on social media….

·         Send us your questions and stories to share on an upcoming show. Send them to contact@conqueringourunseenenemies

Misconceptions on Demonic Topics, Episode 2

Welcome back to Conquering Our Unseen Enemies.  Today I want to address some questions that will also serve to clarify some misconceptions.  So we will be discussing:  What is a Demon? What is a Believer? Can believers be demon possessed?  Is casting out demons real and can we really cast out (evict) demons the way Jesus did?  What authority do we have to tell evicted demons where to go?  Can we evict demons in non-believers?

 Alright, let’s get started and kick it off with:

 What is a demon?

A demon is a spirit, a person without a body, otherwise called disembodied.  Generally speaking we cannot see demons, but they can choose to make themselves visible as both darkness and disguise themselves as an angel of light.  There are instances where they can be seen by individuals who have been given the gift to see into the spirit realm, they are called Seer’s, but also at times the Holy Spirit will allow you to see a demon spirit if necessary.  Demons are in Satan’s hierarchy and have roles and ranks.  Demons need a place to indwell and they prefer humans, but will take an animal.  An example of this is in Matthew 8:29 when Jesus casts out the demons from the two demon possessed men and permits the demons to enter a herd of pigs.  When a demon indwells in a person, it considers that person to be its “house”.  Jesus gives us a picture of this in Matthew 12:43-44, “when an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid and dry places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, I will return to the House I left”.  A demon is a spiritual enemy of all believers, but also of humanity in general. Their objective is to keep people from knowing Jesus as their savior.  If you already are a believer, then they want to keep you from knowing your authority and being effective.  The way they achieve their objective is through tempting, deceiving, accusing, condemning, pressuring, defiling, resisting, opposing, controlling, stealing, afflicting, killing and destroying.  Jesus told us in John 10:10, “the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy”  Mark 9:17, gives us an example of a man who brings his son to Jesus because a demon has taken away the child’s ability to speak. Luke 4:33, gives us another example demonic activity of a man who was possessed by an impure spirit and the demons began to cry out at the sight of Jesus “Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are-the Holy One of God!”  That same event is given to us in Mark 1:23. Mark 5:2 gives us a picture of a demon possessed man that was incredibly violent and would not only harm others, but would cut himself, something we see today as well.  Demons have characteristics that identify their role in the kingdom of satan.  The characteristic also identifies their name.  For example, someone who has addiction issues may have an indwelling of a demon named Addiction.  So their name corresponds to their role, or their job. We will break down these demon names more on our episode discussing demon groupings and even further when we talk about specific groupings. 

 We need to clarify here when I refer to a believer what I am specifically saying.  A believer is someone who has accepted Jesus as their savior.  Someone who believes that Jesus is the son of God, who died for their sins, was resurrected and ascended back into heaven at the right hand of God.  A believer is someone who has repented of their sins and is faithful and committed to serve Jesus.  I don’t particularly like to use the term Christian because many religious groups refer to themselves as Christians but are not believers.  For what we are discussing in this podcast, the distinction is necessary and requires clarification. Our authority comes from Jesus so someone who is a Christian but not a believer in Jesus will not have the authority.  We discussed that in Episode 1, but the scriptural reference for that is Mark 16:17. which states…in my name they will drive out demons.”  Luke 9:1, reveals “when Jesus has called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons” and Matthew 10:1 where Jesus gave his authority to drive out impure spirits.

 Ok, let’s move onto the next question. Can believers be demon possessed?

Most people will answer this question no, which is correct.  Once we belong to Christ, we cannot be possessed by Satan as we belong to Jesus because satan does not have the legal right to “possess”.   However, what isn’t well understood or accepted is that believers can be demonized.  Believers can have demons indwell to demonize them and not realize that is what is happening.  Again, Matthew 12:43 addresses the fact that demons indwell in a person.  Once we get to a mindset where we don’t defend our “house”, we are allowing the demons to work unchallenged against us.  I would say if you ask anyone sitting in church today if they have any demons they need cast out, after you got past the looks of insult, you would hear a resounding “NO!”  In reality, the answer should be, “Yes, please and thank you!”  We all have at one time or another demons that are working against us demonizing us.  Sometimes over little knit picky things and sometimes over big sins we are carrying in our lives.  It’s not something to be embarrassed about, it’s reality.  If we look at the delivery ministry of Jesus, he didn’t just cast out demons for “those people” the ones we shun in public.  He addressed demons in the lives of everyday people.  For years I used to wonder why Jesus had such an active deliverance ministry and yet we don’t see active deliverance ministries like that today.  Were demons more prevalent in ancient days?  The truth is we have the same demons today they had when Jesus walked the earth, but today we are more willing to embrace them, hide behind them or not bother to address them at all.  There are people active in deliverance ministry, but we are more likely to cast the deliverance minister out of our lives than the demons. 

 At some point you may hear me use the word evict instead of cast out.  I prefer evict because it better defines for us what needs to happen.  To evict someone is to force them to leave a place, supported by law.  Cast out is more to exclude someone from a group or place.  We need to go into it with the idea of forcing those demons out with the message, “and don’t come back!”

 Moving onto the next question.  Is casting out demons real and can we really cast out (evict) demons the way Jesus did?

Casting out demons is very real but generally not as crazy and dramatic as the movies make it out to be.  The Holy Spirit is always in control so you need to make sure you are yielding to the Holy Spirit.  Speaking to whether we too can evict the same way Jesus did, we refer back to Matthew 10:1, where Jesus gave his authority to drive out impure spirits, and Mark 16:17, which states…in my name they will drive out demons..”  We have the authority and the responsibility to evict these demons in the name of Jesus. Paul gives us a really good example in Acts 16:16, when he is on one of his missionary journeys and staying in Philippi.  He was being followed around by a woman who practiced divination.  She followed him for a time before the Holy Spirit directed him to say, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to depart from her!” This led to the beginning of a number of problems for Paul and Silas, which is not our focus, but understand that Paul doing that took incredible faith and courage.  We can be just as effective as Jesus was and in some ways more so because he was only with us for a short time.  If you are interested in learning more about the history behind this type of demon Paul evicted, I did a video on this on my YouTube Channel, Life Journey with Dawn Simmons where I visited Delphi, Greece and share that visit and explain what Paul was addressing. It’s titled “How Delphi shaped the history of the world.

 Next question, What authority do we have to tell evicted demons where to go? 

The short answer to this is very little. Let me explain what the Bible reveals to us about this issue.  There is a set time and place for when demons are sent to be tormented.  Only God knows the set time.  In Matthew 8 we see several instances of Jesus evicting demons and healing people.  This chapter is full of his miracles, he also calms the storm here, just a magnificent chapter.  Let’s look closer at 8:29 where Jesus encounters two demon possessed men who were out casts from their community, living in tombs, so they were set apart already in the natural.  In this particular case the demons caused these men to be violent.  Starting with verse 28, “When he (Jesus) arrived at the other side of the region of the Gadarenes, 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. (So these demons recognized Jesus) “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?” The Book of Revelation explains what that appointed time will be like, but from this we see that there is an appointed time at which these demons will no longer be allowed to torment you and me.  Let’s go back now and take a look at how Jesus responds, some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding.  The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.” He said “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”. This story used to puzzle me.  These poor innocent pigs were living their life, doing what pigs were supposed to be doing and then..bam…they are dead, a pretty violent death in my opinion.  I’d get stuck on that point and miss the other points that are revealed here.  First, we see Jesus took care of these 2 men and evicted the demons.  Second, the demons tried to talk and stall the inevitable.  Third, the demons tried to negotiate, and Jesus let them. Fourth, when the demons left, they transferred themselves to pigs because pigs are better than nothing.  The demons claimed not allowing them to make that transfer qualified as premature torment for them.  Fifth, a herd of pigs, these men had several demons indwelling, not one or two.  The same account in Mark actually reveals the number of demons was 2000.  Sixth, Jesus surely knew the end result with the pigs.  Seventh, even the pigs did not want these demons, they were scared and chose this end rather than a life with these demons.  Animals sense demons better than we do.  Whether logic was applied, I have no idea, but something made these pigs run, a natural reaction to a huge group of demons running at you.  Eighth, demons were permitted to go into the pigs for the benefit of the men being tormented. Lastly, demons are unclean. Jesus confirmed that to us by allowing them to transfer to these pigs which are considered unclean animals by Jewish law, which is what was still being practiced at that time.

 So now back to that original question.  We cannot in our authority send demons to hell.  We can command them to leave, but unless the Holy Spirit tells you something specific to say at that time, we cannot tell them where they should go.

 Ok, we are on our last question now.  Can we evict demons in non-believers?

The answer here is technically yes, but let me explain how that would have to happen.  We touched on this earlier, but the issue comes down to legal rights.  When we accept Jesus as our Savior and become a member of the Kingdom of God, we belong to Jesus.  Legally, Satan cannot stay with us if we use our authority and command him to leave.  We are then responsible to keep our “house” clean.  In a situation where the person requesting the demons be evicted is not a believer, the eviction must be done by someone does have that authority, a believer.  As long as the non-believer explicitly states they want the demon gone, then the demon has to leave once directed to do so.  The question really becomes one of whether it should be done.    Someone who has not accepted Jesus does not have access to the legal right of protection from Jesus.  If that non-believer is not then equipped with authority to keep demons out once they are on their own a day later, a week later or a year later.  Setting someone up for a Matthew 12:44 scenario is not what we should be doing.  The better approach is to lead that person to the saving grace of Jesus first and then address the demons being evicted.  Just don’t forget a new believer will need support until they can stand on their own.  Not many new believers will know how to fight off demons, they are still learning what the Bible is and may not know much about the Holy Spirit.

 Ok, so let’s recap where we have been today.

 Top show points to remember:

·         Demons are disembodied spiritual persons who are a part of the Kingdom of satan.  They have characteristics that reveal their role in their warfare against us.

·         We need to clarify here when I refer to a believer what I am specifically saying.  A believer is someone who has accepted Jesus as their savior.  Someone who believes that Jesus is the son of God, who died for their sins, was resurrected and ascended back into heaven at the right hand of God. 

·         Believers cannot be demon possessed because we have salvation in Jesus and therefore cannot be possessed by someone or something not of God.  Believers can be demonized, and can be indwelt. 

·         Casting out, or evicting, demons is very real. The Holy Spirit is always in control so you need to make sure you are yielding to the Holy Spirit. 

·         We have very little authority to tell evicted demons where to go, but the Holy Spirit may give us specific instructions so we need to listen always

 ·         Demons can be evicted in non-believers but it is not the best long term solution.  It is better to bring that person to salvation and then evict.

 We encourage you:

·         To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

·         Watch the video on our YouTube channel, Life Journey with Dawn Simmons for additional background on the demon of divination Paul was addressing.

 What we ask of you:

 ·         Subscribe! Subscribe! Subscribe! Share with friends

·         Follow us on social media….

·         Send us your questions and stories to share on an upcoming show. Send them to contact@conqueringourunseenenemies.com

What is a poltergeist and how to get rid of it, Pt 2 of 2, Episode 4

Welcome Back to the 2nd of two episodes on Poltergeists.  In the first episode we discussed:

 Top show points to remember:

·         The word poltergeist literally means knocking spirit.  It comes from German verb “poltern” which means to knock and “geist” which means “spirit”.  Its objective is to cause fear, harass, and hinder the lives of the inhabitants of the property.  

·         Common manifestations are objects moving.  Most of the time you don’t see them move, but you may hear them move.  Also, the sound of chains, footsteps, there may be shadows present, glass shattering, lights on and off, doors and cabinets open and shut, cold spots 

·         Our scriptural references for open spiritual doors are: Exodus 20:3-5, Deut 4:15-19, Acts 17:22, Acts 19:17-20 

·         A poltergeist is a demon that has a legal right to inhabit a property and as long as the condition exists that allowed the demon to enter, it maintains the legal right to stay.

·         Poltergeists are initially brought in through sin, idolatrous or occult related practices.  It may or may not be our own sin sometimes it is related to previous inhabitants, family members, someone living with you and may have nothing to do with you.

 So now let's pick up where we left off and list out some things found in our lives or homes that create the legal right.  From there we will examine how to break that legal right including how to clean out hospital rooms or hotels where you may be located temporarily.  I will also be sharing some more personal experiences from a house we lived that had an unwelcome inhabitant.

 Items in our lives that give demons the legal right are things where we have mixed our relationship with God with the knowing or unknowing worship of or paying homage to demons:

 Involvement with astrological signs or horoscopes, palm reading, tarot cards, the use of crystals, games such Ouija boards, hypnotism, charms.  Anytime we seek a source other than God for wisdom, knowledge, guidance or power we are giving demons a legal right.  So anything involving the occult is a spiritual door.

 This past year I was involved in a business group where we were all working on goals and other topics to grow our businesses.  We were tasked with discussing our information with the group and then providing feedback to each other to help shape our plans forward.  We were sorted by business category and I was placed in a group that had 2 occult businesses and 1 New Age business.  I was a little surprised that I was placed in this group because the company who organized these was owned by a Christian.  Many of the staff were Christian.  There was no way I could provide feedback to any of these people to give them helpful information to assist them in growing their businesses.  Nor could I allow them to speak anything into mine.  Thankfully I was able to exit the group and I was placed in a coaching category.  Had I participated, I would have opened doors into my life, my business, my house, my office.  While that is a pretty black and white example, we should be mindful of situations where we may be asked to participate in events or activities that involve the occult, and some will be more subtle.  The lesson here is do not rely on others to respect a boundary, it is our responsibility to protect ourselves. 

 Another area that opens spiritual doors for demons is superstition and the belief that someone or something will bring you good luck or bad luck.  Common examples of this are black cats, Friday the 13th, rabbits' feet, or wearing the same jersey because your team keeps winning.  There are all sorts of crazy things people do for superstitious reasons and they are really all ridiculous.  The only thing these superstitions serve to do is pay homage to demons. 

 Now we need to address the issue of idols.  This is not an easy topic to discuss because no one wants to admit they have an idol in their life.  An idol is something that becomes more important than God or replaces Him in some way.  In our modern world, we are surrounded by idols.  It can be as simple as calling someone our idol, or saying we idolize someone.  Those words are real and believers need to be careful of our word choice.  It's one thing to say" I deeply respect and admire Winston Churchill.  I use him because I do have a lot of respect for him and I have met some of his descendants that live here in my town.  It is entirely different to say, Winston Churchill is my idol.  Those words carry impact and meaning, and by declaring someone as an idol we have just come into agreement with the enemy, replacing God's place in our life with someone else.  We are accountable for our words. 

 Other idols we rarely consider are the time we spend on television, social media, at work or playing sports.  Activities that take our time and give us reasons to no longer have time for our relationship with the Lord.

 Now, onto the topic that by far generates the most push back in dealing with opening of spiritual doors:  Items in our home.  Some of these items have little traps associated with them so we will not necessarily see what is attached to them, and therefore we are agreeing to allow in our home. 

 Let's list off a few:

·         There are plenty of games that our kids want to play that have demonic characters, involve crimes or even mimic occult practice.

·         Souvenirs from foreign countries.  We travel quite a bit and as an example, going to Greece, a lot of the souvenirs there are the Greek Gods, or the evil eye.  It was difficult to buy gifts for people that didn't include things that are dishonoring to the Lord.  Not only do I not want to participate in purchasing these types of items, but I also certainly don't want to be responsible for giving a gift that is elevating an object of idol worship no matter how long ago it was used for worship. 

·         Anything relating to the Freemasons or other secret societies.  These secret societies that require oaths fall under the demonic.  We will get into this in other topics as well.  Literature or the freemason ring are generally the culprits here aside from the oath.

·         American Indian jewelry sometimes has rituals performed over the pieces before they are sold

·         Antiques, you don't know their history, how they were used

·         Vintage items, again, you don't know their history

 I know this list seems long and intense, like how will you ever find all of these among your possessions, but bear with me and we will get to how to address all of this.  It's important to be familiar with these objects going forward. 

Where it becomes really touchy for people is when they have items given to them as gifts or have some sentimental value.  I know of someone who was a collector of artifacts from all over the world.  In his collection were witch masks from Africa used in ceremonies.  Allowing these in his house opened a spiritual door and he began to feel a change in everything in his house.  Irritability, loss of sleep, brain fog, not as effective at work, his children were affected and began to have behavioral issues.  He had no idea of the significance of what he brought into his house, but once he was made aware, he struggled to get rid of it.  The collection was more important.  Months later, once he understood what some of the artifacts represented he cleared it out of his house.  The issues were resolved once his house was cleaned out.

 In Acts 19 we see a similar situation occur in Ephesus.  Ephesus, like many areas in Asia Minor and Greece was known for their idol worship, in Ephesus it was the goddess Artemis.  Paul preached all over the area about the Kingdom of God and about the Holy Spirit.  There was an incident in verse 13 where some believers were trying to cast out demons but were ineffective and the demons came out and beat these men.  It scared so many people they became believers and repented from practicing sorcery.  After openly confessing they then burned their books of divination.  We will touch on this again when we address witchcraft, but I wanted to share that this issue has been affecting mankind for centuries, it's not new.

 Now let's talk about situations where the poltergeist is there, and you have done nothing to allow it or invite it.  You don't have any idols; you haven't opened any spiritual doors but yet there is a poltergeist in your space.  There could be several reasons for that.  Think back to the story I told you in the previous episode about the quanset hut. The poltergeists I experienced were attached to that quanset hut, it didn't matter where it was relocated, that was their domain for whatever reason and where it went, so did they.  The only thing I could do was control it in the authority Jesus gave me when I was present. 

 Several years ago, we decided to sell our house and live in base housing for a while.  My husband is in the military, so it was an option available to us.  We moved into a house we thought was great.  It had a HUGE lot, the largest that I saw of any of the houses on base.  We had our choice of 4 available house.  I was actually surprised it was not snatched up.  I have 4 kids so a big yard, front and back is a huge bonus.  Right after we moved in, my husband deployed to the Middle East, so I was working, taking care of kids, kids I just moved and who had to change schools so there was a lot of change happening for us.  My two younger boys were the first to notice something, they were about 4/5th and 6/7th grade at the time.  They didn't mention it to me right away, but they were experiencing odd things going on in the house.  My youngest loved to stay up late and in the summer, I let him stay up and watch TV after I went to bed.  Not my wisest move.  Anyhow, one of the nights he was watching TV in the living room and heard a noise in the kitchen.  He walked into the kitchen and all the pots and pans from the cabinets were on the middle of the kitchen floor.  We had many things happen in that house, which I will share over our time together.  I definitely could have handled that situation better.  Anyhow, we found out that in the year preceding us moving in, 4 other families had moved in and out of the house due to some peculiarities.  It had a reputation of being haunted but when we moved in nobody said a word to us.  We were there maybe 2ish years before we decided it was time to buy a house again and move out.  There was an escalation in activities from that poltergeist, but it was evicted while we were there.  We don't know why it was there, but there are three possibilities I can name to give you a starting point if you have this issue.  The first is similar to the quanset hut story.  Something occurred in the home or was invited into the home at some point in that house history.  When this happens, as long as the conditions still exist that allowed it to enter, it can legally remain in the property.  So a prior tenant or prior owner can be the culprit.  Also, if you have someone renting from you, or a family member living with you that is involved in something, the door is open, and you won't even know it. 

The second possibility is that it may not be the actual house structure, but something related to the land where the house is located.  In both of my examples, it is easy to think that at some point that land would have been American Indian land, we still have tribes in the area, but anything happening between when it was Indian land in the 1700's and what I did know was a mystery.  The military base has been there a very long time.  I hope it is clear I am not singling out American Indians.  I have American Indian in me on both sides of my family, but the truth is many tribes have occult practices.

 The third possibility that allows a poltergeist to remain is easily forgotten.  If you have had a guest visit or a family member live with you and they have moved out, passed away, whatever the case is, but they have left behind some objects.  It could be a magazine, or items that have some tie to what they were involved in, that allows the poltergeist to stay put.   When there are reports of a cold spot, a lot of times that cold spot is the location where the person spent their time.

 The point to take away from those situations is there is a reason for all of these events.  A poltergeist doesn't wander the neighborhood and look for the nicest house or make their own decision on where they will take up residence.  There are spiritual laws and just like we can't just show up and move into a place because we want to without a legal right to dwell in that home, neither can a demon. 

 What about hotels, hospitals, other public places.  For those situations where it is a revolving door of different people inhabiting and you may only be there temporarily, there is a resolution.  For the time period that the space is yours you have authority so you will follow part of the simple process I am going to give you. 

Now that we know what a poltergeist is, a general idea of what they do and what allows them access, let’s over simple steps to clear out the house.  These are steps, by the way, you can use to clean out your house in general, not just for a poltergeist.  I also do it in my office outside my home.  If you are in a hotel or hospital, you can do steps 3 and 4 for the time period you are inhabiting those spaces.

 There are just 4 steps:

1)      Destroy everything that gives any right to the devil.  Now let me explain this so we are all on the same page.  If you have some carving of something demonic, yes that you would destroy.  What we don't want to do is donate it or give it away to create a problem for someone else.  If you have literature contrary to or involving a false religion, example a Mormon Bible, destroy it.  Freemasonry or secret society paraphernalia destroy it.  If you aren't sure about something, ask the Holy Spirit and do whatever the Holy Spirit tells you to do.  What we aren't' trying to do is go through our house on a witch hunt, being obsessive about destroying everything.  When we do that, we are taking the focus away from God.  We need to be balanced.  Obsessive behavior is not balanced.  Seeking the Holy Spirit and as we go through our houses.  We talked about this in depth so you will recognize and think about things in your home that could be problematic in general.  You may not have a poltergeist, but we still need to be cognizant of this now. 

2)      Okay, step number two and three are combined but I want to talk about them separately to make sure we hit all the points.  So step two is to walk through your house and anoint it with oil on the walls and doorways.  I will do this also when I move into a new house, believe me I did this when we bought our house after moving off base.  It's not a bad idea to do this periodically.  Although when we do this, we are creating protection so it will actually serve to keep new demonic from entering, there are times when something will enter that is attached to a family member.  So a periodic cleansing could be warranted.  We will discuss this more when we discuss demonization, but it's worth mentioning here.  When I begin, I like to put on worship music on to create an atmosphere welcoming to the Holy Spirit and unwelcoming to the demons.  I will generally pray while I am doing it.  I like to focus on windows and doors, the openings to the home.  I have a woman I mentor, and it was necessary at one point for her to anoint her house.  I was giving her instruction on this and we talked about oils, (which there are specific anointing oils out there you can buy with different scents or whatever that come in cute little bottles, but really you can just use regular olive oil.  If you don't have olive oil, don't worry about it, the Lord knows your heart, whatever oil you have is sufficient.  We don't want to be legalistic on what oil we use.  God is a God of grace and he can still work if all we have is vegetable oil.)  Anyway, so I was instructing her on what to do and I'll tell you the one thing I forgot to tell her was how much oil to use.  In her fervor, her lovely fervor, she apparently used quite a bit.  Now her husband is not a believer, so he didn't know she anointed the house.  Months later when they were replacing their sliding glass door, he commented rhetorically about oil dripping everywhere.  Then about a year later he was looking out a window while talking on the phone.  At one point she heard him he heard him tell the person he was talking to that apparently oil exploded all over his house.  I'm sorry but when she told me I had to laugh.  He knows as a believer she does things he doesn't understand, and he gives her the freedom she needs to do it.  I think it's wonderful and, in this case, hilarious that he accepts it and doesn't make her feel bad.  So anyway, we just need a light dab, we don't need it dripping down our walls. Some people will anoint in the shape of a cross, that is fine to do as long as we aren't putting our faith in the oiled cross and treating it like it is our protection.  Our protection and authority is in the Name of Jesus.  Anything else becomes an idol.

3)      As you are walking through you house you command every demonic spirit to leave in the name of Jesus.  We are executing our eviction notice.  You may not know the name of what is there, and we certainly don't ask it, we just tell it to leave in the Name of Jesus. Renounce any known or unknown involvement with any idols or anything that allowed the demons to enter and remain.  I tend to go through each room, garage, my yard, you could even walk the perimeter of your property if you have a larger property.  

4)      Finally, you want to dedicate the place, and everyone associated with it to the Lord and invite the Holy Spirit to reside there permanently. 

The scriptural references for anointing can be found in Matthew 6:17, Mark 14:3-9, Mark 6:13, James 5:14

 Ok, we are ready for our recap.

Top show points for episode 2 are:

·         Idols in our home are an open doorway.  We need to eliminate these items from our homes, even if they are gifts, souvenirs or a prized collection. 

·         Items in our lives that give demons the legal right are things where we have mixed our relationship with God with the knowing or unknowing worship of or paying homage to demons: astrological signs or horoscopes, palm reading, tarot cards, the use of crystals. Anytime we seek a source other than God for wisdom, knowledge, guidance or power we are giving demons a legal right. 

·         Our scriptural references are: Acts 19:17-20 

·         We discussed 3 possibilities for a poltergeist having a legal right. An invitation from someone in the home at some point in time, the land the home is built upon belongs to a demonic entity and a prior guest or family member leaving an object of occult or other demonic paraphernalia.

·         There are 4 simple steps to clean out our house from poltergeists but you can also do it just to clean out your house in general and invite the Holy Spirit to reside with you there. 

·         The scriptural references for anointing can be found in Matthew 6:17, Mark 14:3-9, Mark 6:13, James 5:14    

We encourage you:

·         To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

·         Watch the video on our YouTube channel, Life Journey with Dawn Simmons for additional background on Ephesus.

 What we ask of you:

 ·         Subscribe! Subscribe! Subscribe! Share with friends

·         Follow us on social media….

·         Send us your questions and stories to share on an upcoming show. Send them to contact@conqueringourunseenenemies

God’s Kingdom vs satan’s kingdom

Welcome to the first episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies!  Because it's our first episode I want to take a few minutes to give you a rundown of what we are going to be examining during this journey to develop spiritual discernment and conquer our unseen enemies.  I'm going to let you know now, where we are going together is considered controversial by many.  For some, discussing demons is scary, for some, understanding curses should be off limits, for some, exposing witchcraft will be convicting. I will be sharing stories of how to develop spiritual discernment and experiences with both the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of satan.  I welcome you to share your experiences as well, you can submit those to me at contact@conqueringourunseenenemies.com.  We will go deep into understanding how Satan works, and answer questions like how do demons group, how do demons enter people, why do poltergeists exist, and do people really see their relatives who have passed? 

So why do I, as a believer, want to have these conversations?  The misguided will say that we should not focus on such things, but instead focus on the Kingdom of God.  Well, by exposing how Satan works so we can begin to exercise the authority the Bible says we already have is by its very nature focusing on the Kingdom of God.  Where we need to go is to a place where we no longer fear the devil like he is the big bad wolf or see him as a red cartoon character we joke about.  We need to go to a place where our discernment enables us to see, know and understand what he is, what his minions are doing and how we can get their influence out of our lives.  Eliminating demonic influence will reduce conflict and chaos and clear your path for a better life.  You will hear stories you may not believe, at least not at first.  The deeper we go, the more we will expose the lies and deception the enemy consistently uses against us.  There is so much darkness out there in the world.  Together we can position you to be able to send the devil packing. 

Before we step out and begin our journey, I want to lay out a few ground rules for us:

First and Foremost, all that we discuss is grounded in the Word.  We have scriptural references for the Biblical principles we are applying in our discussions.

Second, we will be discussing a lot of demon activity, but our focus is how to defeat the devil.  We are not so focused on demons that we see a demon around every corner.  Demons are not responsible for every bad thing that happens to us, sometimes our negative consequences are a result of bad choices.  So, we aren't going in with a victim mentality and everything is the not the devil's fault. 

Third, these issues we discuss are black and white – literally and figuratively.  There is no gray.  We are not to be like the church in Laodicea, lukewarm, where we get spit out of the Lord's mouth.

Fourth, these issues we will be discussing are polarizing in the Christian community.  Because we are grounded in the Bible, we are grounded in Truth.

Fifth and Finally, this is a challenging area to address in our lives.  Stepping into this is real and you will find out more about yourself than you realized. We will do this together, and this journey will strengthen you and develop your Spiritual discernment to conquer our unseen enemies.   

Are you ready? 

To go into all of the places we will need to go in order to Conquer Our Unseen Enemies, we need to create our foundation and clarify the worlds in which we are living.  We have a natural world and a spiritual world.  These worlds have two kingdoms.

The first is the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Light

People living in this Kingdom are believers. We have our salvation in Jesus and this kingdom is built on the Word of God, Truth. Those living in this kingdom know where they are because it is light, they can see.  Anyone who is a citizen of God's kingdom is automatically at war with the kingdom of satan and most don't even know it.  This Kingdom is everlasting, and it is where God and Jesus rule forevermore.

In terms of where it is located, we'll start with referencing Genesis 1:1, which states "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  Notice it says God created the heavens, plural so we know that the Kingdom of God functions in more than one area, and that God created these areas.  Paul describes Jesus' ascension in Ephesians 4:10 and again describes heavens in the plural.  In 2 Corinthians 12:2, Paul tells us he knew a man caught up in the third heaven. In 1 Kings 8:27, King Solomon is speaking to God and also talks of multiple heavens "The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you."  And again, in verse 35 referring to the heavens shut up, referring to a lack of rain.  So, from this we know that there are at least 3 heavens in which God's kingdom functions.  We will dig into this more when we discuss battles the Bible describes but for our purposes here understand that there are 3 levels of heaven revealed to us in scripture.

So who has access to these heavenlies?  Based on Daniel 10, we can see that both God's Kingdom and satan's kingdom have access to at least one of the heavens. The Angel appearing to Daniel describes a battle with the prince of the Persian Kingdom. The Angel further tells Daniel he was held back from responding to Daniel's prayer sooner by the king of Persia. The battle was so difficult, that Michael, one of the chief princes, another Angel from God's kingdom, had to come to help him.  So in this we also hear about the structure of the kingdoms.  There is a hierarchy with the Angels and both God's kingdom and Satan's kingdom have access to at least one level of the heavens at the same time.  Another place we can gain some understanding of the heavens is in Job 1:6.  The scripture says " 6 One day the angels[a] came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan[b] also came with them. 7 The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

This scripture is huge for us, we gain an understanding of satan's activities and a hint at his objective.  So, let's talk about the kingdom of satan.  

The Kingdom of Satan is a kingdom of darkness, deception, people cannot see truth in this kingdom.  Jesus tells us in Luke 10:18 that he saw satan fall like lightning from heaven.  When Jesus says this he is referring to Isaiah 14:12 "How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!"  So, this tells us that the kingdom of satan is a created kingdom, created by God originally before the fall where satan was cast out of heaven.  When Satan was cast out, the angels under him fell with him.  Revelation 12:4 reveals that one third of the angels went with satan in the fall which are now what we refer to as demons. So now we know the size of the kingdom of darkness in relation to the Kingdom of God. In John 10:10, Jesus tells us the objective of satan: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. Believers can participate in this kingdom even though they are citizens of God's kingdom, sometimes it is by choice in turning from God, other times it is in ignorance as a result of falling for satan's deception. 

So now comes the question, in which kingdom do you spend your time?  I certainly hope you said the kingdom of God, but the truth is even though we live in the kingdom of God, we are influenced daily by the kingdom of darkness.  Some influences are obvious and those can be pretty easy to avoid, but it’s the subtle, deceptive, disguised influences that get us into the most trouble.  This is where the kingdom of darkness will try to cloud issues and make what's dark appear grey, or even worse, deceive us enough to think darkness is light. 

In each episode we will breakdown more of the kingdom of darkness and reveal the truth so that we know how to get out of dark situations, and also how to recognize deception as it approaches you.  The challenge in doing this is not to become so obsessed with hunting down demons, destroying idols or, letting fear grip you. Fear can prevent you receiving the information you need to be able to grow in understanding and wisdom.  Similarly, when we become obsessive, even if it is for the right reason, it will create an obstacle for you to grow.  We need to remain balanced and open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and we need to remain consistent in the Word, which is our source.  If you don't have a consistent Bible reading schedule, now is a great time to start one.  Spiritual discernment cannot be developed without it.

In Ephesians 4:27, the Bible tells us "never give a place to the devil."  Well, if we leave the devil alone, we are permitting him to continue his deception completely unchallenged.  The result is more people will be brought down into his world. More lives will be lost through suicide or drug addiction, more marriages ripped apart through adultery or domestic violence, more violent crimes will tear our communities apart and terrorize innocent people, more…well you know all the terrible things we have in this world; we hear about it daily in the news.  It doesn't have to be this way.  For some, it will unfortunately, because they choose that path even after being given an opportunity to know the truth. But for others, gaining understanding and wisdom in satan's tactics can be the difference between a life of misery or a life free of bondage.  Satan is all about bondage.  As long as he can keep us suspended in unbelief or prevent us from understanding we have authority over him or even challenging us so we won't use that authority, he will beat us every time.

Bad theology perpetuates common misconceptions among believers that keeps satan in business so to speak. One of those misconceptions is the belief that if we have enough faith, God will automatically take care of demons.  Maybe calling that a misconception was not the right word, it is actually a lie.  It's a lie satan wants us to believe but Jesus told us otherwise.  In Matthew 10:1, Jesus gave his disciples authority to drive our impure spirits and heal every disease and sickness.   It is repeated in Luke 9:1, and in Mark 16:17, Jesus says " 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

As believers, we have been given both the authority and the responsibility to rid ourselves of demons.  If we were not able to do so, Jesus would not have left us here alone to fend for ourselves.  He gave his life for us, so he clearly cares for our wellbeing.  He gave us what we need to take care of the devil ourselves, not to rely on God to do the work for us.  To be passive and not take a stand and confront satan's deceptions and tactics in our lives will keep us in bondage.  Faith does become integral in this process by believing in the authority we have received from Jesus, in acting on that authority in the name of Jesus and in trusting in that authority to take care of the problem in Jesus' name.  So, we are required to act, and have faith in our action, but the power is in the name of Jesus. Jesus gave us authority to use and we need to use it, not expect someone else to do it for us.   

We will talk much more about authority in other episodes, but I wanted to at least lay some groundwork here, so we are all in the same starting point.  We will be building each week. 

Coming up in the next few weeks we are going to continue to clear up misconceptions, lies, myths, whatever we want to call them.  This is really important to get these out of our way because they can interfere with you being able to apply Biblical wisdom and understanding.  When we carry manmade religious beliefs that are not based on the Bible, those beliefs will counteract the truth the bible reveals about satan's tactics.  That is how satan works to keep us confused. Many churches do not teach on the topics we will cover.  The denominational church I was raised in didn't address the spirit realm or the Holy Spirit.  Not teaching the body of Christ about the Holy Spirit is robbing the body of the head.  Not teaching the body of Christ that "we do not wrestle against flesh and blood" is equally disastrous.  Jesus never told us that demons will disappear and cease to be when he ascends.  To the contrary, we know that if we read the Book of Revelation that there is warfare to come.  The Spiritual realm was there in the beginning when God created everything, and it will be there throughout eternity, so we need to understand it is in existence today where we are right now.  We may not know when satan was thrown down from heaven, but we know he is still roaming the earth, so we have work to do. Ok, enough of my soap box, what I was telling you was some of the topics we have coming up in the next few episodes.

We will talk about ways demons enter, we will address discernment, explain strongholds and how we defeat the strongman, explain poltergeists and how to clean out our houses.  We will also begin to breakdown how demons group and how demon groups function.  I think at the top of my list are the demon groupings of Pride, that is such a huge issue people don't realize.  Pride is what caused satan to be thrown out of heaven so believe me he will use that to mess with us.  High on my list of areas to discuss are the demons of control, the demons of perfection and the tools used in witchcraft.  Some of these topics are so heavy they will take more than one episode to get through. I hope too that as we go through these you will send in your questions and experiences.  We need to elevate our understanding and one way to do that is by sharing experiences. I hope to develop some episodes as well that are purely question and answer so don't be afraid to send things in, privacy can always be protected and nothing is stupid, nothing is silly, nothing is too scary.  We need to get this darkness in the open, into the light and understand it through the Holy Spirit giving us wisdom and understanding.

Ok, so let's recap where we have been today. 

Top show points to remember:

·         New Podcast, Conquering Our Unseen Enemies

·         We are Bible based focused on developing our spiritual discernment understanding satan and his tactics

·         Your knowledge in understanding satan and his demons will strengthen you and help you build those around you so we can send satan packing in the name of Jesus!

·         There are 2 kingdoms, God's Kingdom, which is light and Truth and Satan's Kingdom which is darkness and deception. God created both kingdoms, satan was thrown out of heaven and there are at least 3 heavens.

·         Believers live in the kingdom of God, but we are influenced daily by the kingdom of satan

·         We are responsible for and required to use our authority in the name of Jesus to conquer our unseen enemies, satan's kingdom.

We encourage you:

·         To have an active bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

What we ask of you:

·         Subscribe! Subscribe! Subscribe! Share with friends

·         Follow us on social media……

Send us your questions and stories to share on an upcoming show. Send them to contact@conqueringourunseenenemies.com

What is a poltergeist and how to get rid of it, Pt 1 of 2, Episode 3

 Welcome back! I am Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be spending some time talking about something pretty common and greatly misunderstood…Poltergeists.  We’ll break it down and I will be sharing some personal stories of my encounters with poltergeists. The causes and how we get rid of them.  There is so much to discuss here that this is going to be split into two episodes, so make sure you listen to both episodes!!

 So let’s start from the beginning and define a poltergeist.  The word poltergeist literally means knocking spirit.  It comes from German verb “poltern” which means to knock and “geist” which means “spirit”.  Its objective is to cause fear, harass, and hinder the lives of the inhabitants of the property. The difference with a poltergeist is that it is not trying to indwell in a person or animal, but rather this type of spirit is satisfied with property or a location being their “house”. Once they have a legal right to be there, it will not leave unless it is legally forced to vacate in the name of Jesus.  The difficulty with poltergeists first off is often we don’t even know they are there. 

 When I was 17-18 years old, it was my senior year of high school and I worked at a place called Frozzy’s, a frozen yogurt shop in Southern California.  I worked late afternoon to close shifts several days a week and I think I worked one weekend day.  It was a small strip mall, there were only 5 or 6 businesses in this L shaped strip mall, we were the biggest square footage wise, the small part of the L.  There was a Little Caesars pizza that always seemed to have a high turnover and a Fantastic Sam’s, they do haircuts if you aren’t familiar with them.  I got a really bad perm there, don’t ask me why but perms were in back then.  It burned my hair, it was miserable, anyway, I don’t recall what the other businesses were in the mall.  The yogurt shop had a pretty large front customer area, way bigger than we really needed.  There was a counter when you walked in and back then you did not serve yourself the toppings, we did the toppings for you. Toppings were priced per item; not weight the way it is done now.  Anyhow, we had empty space for tables, and we had a long window that ran parallel to the street that had a bar where you could sit and eat.  There were 10-12 stools along the bar, which was probably 15 feet long.  Then we had a ridiculously large back area, a lot of fridges, a private office, just way too much room if you want to be profitable.  Sorry, I digress on things as I remember details.  Well, because I closed the shop at night and whatever business next to us was a 9-5 place.  There was no other business adjacent to us.  Some nights when I was up in the front, I would hear people talking in the back room and I would hear footsteps.  You couldn’t get to the back room without passing me, but I would still go in the back to check and when I entered the back room the talking would stop.  There were no businesses behind us but I would still check.  I would confirm the business next to us was closed and walk outside to make sure no one on the sidewalk playing games.  It happened several times, it got to where I decided I would sneak up on it and try to listen without being seen.  Finally, one night I did just that and I caught the voices.  I couldn’t tell you now what they were saying, but they were speaking English.  It was with an accent tho, it was a long time ago so I am remembering British or Irish, male voices, 2 of them talking about something as if they were people living a real life, discussing something serious.  I remember the hair on the back of my neck and arms standing straight up and I barged in there and they stopped talking.  I yelled at them something about Jesus not knowing what to say. I was utilizing the principle from Joel 2:32, “for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” which was all I could think to do. I was working with instinct from prior experiences where I had used the name of Jesus when encountering the demonic.  I just cleaned up that night as quick as I could and got out of there. 

 Now across the street from the strip mall were some old houses and at one of the houses an older gentleman sat everyday outside just watching the world pass by and usually there would be one or two other men with him chatting the day away.  I lived not far from there, so I had to pass by on my way home. So I generally saw him several times a day.  One day I decided I wanted to know what was on that property before this strip mall.  The owner of Fantastic Sam’s didn’t know so I figured the only person who might know was this older gentleman.  I walked over, asked him, didn’t tell him why I was asking, and he happily told me that the land before had an old quanset hut on it.  I didn’t really know what to do with that information at the time, there was no internet, there was no one else to ask.  I wondered if it were Indian land, but with the accents, I decided against that.  I hit a dead end so for years I settled with that. Before I left that job to leave for college I was casually talking with the manager and he began to mention he wasn’t happy there, he felt like he was losing his mind.  He then began to describe how the stools that lined up to the bar would all be set in place, he would go to the back and when he came back to the front, they would all be moved to the other side of the room.  He talked about things missing and hearing odd noises and that some of the other employees had mentioned to him they had weird things happening to them as well.  He was becoming anxious, confused and he looked disturbed.  I still remember his distress and the dark circles under his eyes.  I didn't see him often so when I did, it was a noticeable change in his appearance.  He didn’t stay there long, but neither did Frozzy’s, they closed within a year and shorted employees their last few weeks of pay. 

 Fast Forward to today. I was able to spend a few minutes researching the location and the quanset huts:  I now know that quanset huts were used during WWII, sent overseas and were hospitals, housed soldiers, housed supplies and whatever else they needed.  After the war, these quanset huts were sent to Port Hueneme, CA, not far from where I live today, and auctioned off, with many of them going to Ventura County (the high school gym where my kids attended is a quanset hut, many were also sent LA County, and Orange County, where the yogurt shop was located. I am convinced what was happening at that yogurt shop was tied to that quanset hut and how it was used in WWII.  As we dig deeper into how poltergeists operate, you’ll see why I came to that conclusion.

 So, let’s address manifestations.  What are some of the common manifestations?  If you have had some experiences, don’t forget to send them in and we can discuss them.  So similar to my story one of the common things you will find are objects moving.  Most of the time you don’t see them move, but you may hear them move.  Also, the sound of chains, footsteps, there may be shadows present, glass shattering, lights on and off, doors and cabinets open and shut, cold spots.  Those would be considered like level 1 type manifestations.  You may be highly disturbed, but generally speaking you aren’t fearing for your safety.  They do get worse depending on why they are there.  So let’s take a look at why poltergeists locate themselves in certain places.

To fully understand why they are there, we need to go back, way, way back a few thousand years and learn about legal rights.  So we are going back to about 1480ish BC in the Old Testament references.  There are a few different ways to calculate the date none of which are important in our discussion.

Exodus 20:3-5  You shall have no other gods before[a] me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God,

This is Moses receiving from the Lord:  Ex 34:12-17, Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. 13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles.[a] 14 Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

15 “Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.

17 “Do not make any idols.

Moses is giving the people the laws that they are to follow as they get ready to cross the Jordan and take possession of the land He is giving them.

 Deut 4:15-19,  15 You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, 16 so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, 17 or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, 18 or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. 19 And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. (side note, Jewish art different that Roman or Greek art, Jewish art used fruit, plants, etc to obey this law of no graven images.)

Deut 7:25-26, 25 The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the Lord your God. 26 Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Regard it as vile and utterly detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.

Now lets move forward  to 51 AD, Acts 17:22 and see how Paul handled idols. 16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

In Athens, Paul was addressing their superstitious beliefs.  The Agoura was lined with sculptures of hundreds of their gods.  They created gods for different functions, much like the structure of demons.  They were so superstitious that there was even a god they named unknown in case they forgot someone so they would not upset the gods.  It had to have pained Paul to see how lost these people were in their belief in gods they created themselves that offered only destruction for them 

If you want more information on Paul's visit to Athens, check out our YT channel, Life Journey with Dawn Simmons, we have several videos……titled……

So are you starting to see a theme here?  Issues with demons who function as poltergeists are initially brought in through sin and idolatrous, or occult related practices.  It may or may not be our own sin sometimes it is related to previous inhabitants, family members, someone living with you and may have nothing to do with you.  At some point, a spiritual door was opened.  Often in these types of situations you have no idea this is happening or has happened in your home, but a legal right has been established.  As long as the condition exists that allowed the demon to enter, it maintains the legal right to stay.  Think too about hotels, hospitals, public places, they are all equally available to a poltergeist. 

 So this is a good stopping point for this first episode.  On the next episode we will list out some things found in our homes that create the legal right.  Then we will review simple steps you can take to break that legal right including how to clean out our homes and include hospital rooms or hotels where you may be located temporarily. 

But let's recap what we have covered so far on poltergeists:

 Recap for first episode:

Top show points to remember:

·         The word poltergeist literally means knocking spirit.  It comes from German verb “poltern” which means to knock and “geist” which means “spirit”.  Its objective is to cause fear, harass, and hinder the lives of the inhabitants of the property.  

·         Common manifestations are objects moving.  Most of the time you don’t see them move, but you may hear them move.  Also, the sound of chains, footsteps, there may be shadows present, glass shattering, lights on and off, doors and cabinets open and shut, cold spots 

·         Our scriptural references for open spiritual doors are: Exodus 20:3-5, Deut 4:15-19, Acts 17:22

·         A poltergeist is a demon that has a legal right to inhabit a property and as long as the condition exists that allowed the demon to enter, it maintains the legal right to stay.

·         Poltergeists are initially brought in through sin, idolatrous or occult related practices.  It may or may not be our own sin sometimes it is related to previous inhabitants, family members, someone living with you and may have nothing to do with you.

 We encourage you:

·         To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment

·         Watch the video on our YouTube channel, Life Journey with Dawn Simmons for additional background on Mars Hill

 What we ask of you:

 ·         Subscribe! Subscribe! Subscribe! Share with friends

·         Follow us on social media….

·         Send us your questions and stories to share on an upcoming show. Send them to contact@conqueringourunseenenemies.com

Conquering Our Unseen Enemies Podcast Introduction

Hello! My name is Dawn Simmons and I want to Welcome you to the Conquering Our Unseen Enemies Podcast, the introduction episode.  Before we embark on this journey together I wanted to share a little bit about myself and how this podcast is full of life changing conversations.

First off, I am a wife, my husband is active duty Air Force.  I am a mother of 4:  my oldest son is days away from turning 27, my second son is 23, my third son is 22 and my daughter is days away from turning 21.  My oldest and youngest have the same birthday.

 I am a believer, I was raised in a Christian home and baptized at 11 years old.  I also work in the financial industry.  I have been teaching and mentoring for over 19 years now.  I am an author, speaker and I have a YouTube Channel, Life Journey with Dawn Simmons where we focus on Bible Based topics which include traveling to locations of biblical importance such as Corinth, Delphi.  Coming out this year on the channel we are sharing our recent trip to the area the Bible refers to as Asia Minor including a visit to each of the location of the seven churches mentioned in the Book of Revelation.  My focus in all that I do is to bring the life in the pages of the Bible  out and support our relationship with the Lord.   In this podcast you will hear Bible Based topics devoted specifically to develop our spiritual discernment.  Believers need to be better equipped to understand the strategies and tactics of the enemy.  Only then can we can evict him from our lives and the lives of our family.  We need to know how to fight those battles for ourselves and over our families.  When we can evict satan’s influence we will reduce conflict, chaos and stress. We will be able to build the abundant life Jesus intended.  So my time here with you is to guide you through understanding the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Light and Truth versus the Kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of darkness and deception.  We will talk about topics such as: what is a demon, what is a soul tie, what is our authority in Jesus, are poltergeists real, how to use praise as a defense and an offense, what is a familiar spirit.  There are so many ways we are under attack every day and we need to know how we can take Biblical authority over our households and evict Satan once and for all.  These are life changing conversations.  I look forward to being on this journey with you. 

 I want to also ask you to check us out on social media.  We’d love to hear from you.