Dawn Simmons 2/19/23 Dawn Simmons 2/19/23

Understanding Curses & Blessings Pt 3, Ep 2-8

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be discussing behaviors and activities we do that result in Curses having a legal right to operate in our lives. We have already discussed what is a curse and what is a blessing. We reviewed Deuteronomy 28 discussing obedience and disobedience relating to blessings and curses, and last week we discussed events or occurrences that suggest or reveal a curse may be operating in our lives. This is the third part of our series "Understanding Blessings and Curses" and before this series ends, you will know how to break curses and usher in blessings that are being blocked by curses.

So let's review again the definition of a curse. A curse is defined as: a solemn utterance intended to involve a supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something. One of the things we discussed in part 1 was Deuteronomy 28 and verses 1-14 reveal the Blessings for Obedience, while verses 15-68 reveal the Curses for Disobedience.

One of the wonderful things we can know about God is that He is just. One of the most terrifying things we can know about God is that He is just. Another way to say that is found in Proverbs 26:2, "Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest" Essentially, if there is a curse in effect, it has a legal right to operate. Our job is to find out why, and eradicate or break that legal right thereby evicting that demonic influence in our life. If it were easy, we'd be breaking things off left and right like popping bubbles. It's not that easy, but it is simple. So let's get into what is allowing the enemy the right to operate.

When we did the episode "Why Our Words matter" one of the things we talked about was Self Imposed Curses. When we say things like, "You're killing me!" "I can never win!" When we say those things we are speaking out in the natural what we are coming into agreement with in the spirit realm. It's as simple as that. It doesn't mean every single time we say something the devil is right there to pick up our words and move on them, but it does mean that sometimes they are there and they will pick up what we say and if we say "I will never win!" they are all too happy to say "okay, I'll make sure that you don't". So we need to be mindful what we say and if that is a habit, turn it around and change your habit to something that will bless you.

One of the areas prevalent today that our world is struggling with is Authority. Every one of us has to deal with authority in one way or another in the natural realm. There is no difference to how the spiritual realm operates. God alone has absolute authority. Even whatever power or authority the enemy has is because God has allowed it. In Matthew 28: 18, Jesus tells us, "All authority has been given to Me on heaven and on earth." Over the last 4 to 5 years there has been an increase in rebellious, revolt type behavior. Crime worldwide has increased at an alarming rate and not just little crime, volent crime has become almost the norm in some cities. So this attitude is what will allow a curse to begin or continue. Anytime we participate in activities overtly or secretly that are an act of rebellion against an authority that we are subject to, we are opening a door. For most of us, this isn't a huge issue, but if we have family members where this is an issue, especially if they are living under the same roof with us, then we could be impacted. Now understand that this includes our work situation, if we are being contrary to the authority figure at work, we are allowing the enemy to move in and operate in our lives. If we are not recognizing and respecting the legal and social and cultural authority figures in our lives, a door opens. To be clear, if someone in authority over you is abusive, or what they are doing over you is unethical, immoral or illegal, we are not opening a door. We will not be held accountable for not accepting authority under those type of conditions.

Along that line, let's discuss illegal activities. If we participate in any way in activities that are illegal, immoral, unethical, then we are opening a garage door for the enemy to enter through. I say garage door to be a little sarcastic because anytime we knowingly participate in these type of activities you should expect there to be a consequence not just in the spirit real, but certainly in the natural realm. Lying, cheating, stealing, even little things we wouldn't think were stealing like lying on our tax returns will allow the enemy the right to say "Hey, this person is not being honest, therefore, I have the legal right to interfere and add to what they are already doing." I don't really think this requires too much of an explanation, but every now and then I come across someone who doesn't see the correlation between sinful activity of this nature and curses.

The next category is one which will seem odd to lump all together but in essence they all are the same, they derive their source from the enemy. So first we will talk about legalism, and in this I am referring to Christians who are so focused on their ideas of what Christianity is based on their legalistic ideas of salvation. This thinking ultimately puts salvation in the hands of the sinner and the focus away from God. I watched from the sidelines a debate earlier this week between Christians that became a little heated and let me tell you why. The Legalist made a statement in effect that we are not saved by grace but that we had to do works in order to illustrate faith. The way this guy said it was so aggressive that it right off the bat started off questionable, not to mention the content and context of what he was saying was incorrect. A few people gently tried to explain where the Bible indicated otherwise, but this guy came firing back even more aggressively and twisting the Bible more. In all truth, this guy is not a Christian. He was discounting what Jesus did on the cross and was putting his "salvation" in his own hands but trying to put it back on the Bible that it said it was this way. Completely demonically twisted thought process. If you do not know the Bible, you are open to this warped legalistic theology. Similarly, someone who knew God or was saved by Jesus at one point in their life but then turned away and renounced their salvation is putting themselves under a curse. Do not think that someone who does this will see the inside of heaven. Once you turn your back on the Lord and renounce yourself as His, you are no longer His. Finally in this category we will talk about those who are carnal in nature and are all about their fleshly needs. I am not trying to sound prudish here, this isn’t about sexual needs, this is about always wanting worldly needs met. When that is our focus we are not kingdom focused and we will easily compromise to get what we want, cars, clothes, recognition, whatever it is people want these days. Pride would fall in to this category actually. Narcissists also fit here.

There are 2 more categories to address in this episode and the next one we are going to discuss is something that has been around for thousands of years. It will not end until Jesus rules and reigns forever. One of the most important things you should remember in your life is this verse. It is Genesis 12: 3. Chances are you don't have this verse memorized by address so any guesses on what it is? It's early Old Testament. We have already seen many out pourings from this verse, including Jesus. Give up, ok, I'll admit those were not great hints, but I tried. Genesis 12: 3 reads, "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” God's chosen people will always be God's chosen people. They can deny Him, they can be angry at Him, they can anger Him, but they are still His and we are to respect that. What God cares about, we should care about. Never, ever, ever, wish harm, do harm, or speak harm or evil against one of his people. I don't care if it is someone who is evil. Leave that alone. Let God take care of it and move on. It's one thing to do something whether knowingly or in ignorance that allows the enemy to enter and carry out a curse over you. It is entirely different to curse one of God's chosen people and have a curse fall on you from God Himself. Just don't even go there. I am actually headed to Israel this week, I will be there when you hear this and I plan to bless left and right because the other side of what God says in Genesis 12 is I will bless those who bless you. So be aware and don't allow anyone to curse them in your presence. I have a rabbi as a neighbor, Orthodox, and a Chabad center within walking distance to us, and we are always watching over their house for anything unusual. Not in a stalking way, I know that sounds weird, but they have A LOT of kids and so sometimes they are I'm going to say forgetful. So sprinklers left on for several hours, cars left open, flat tires, all of those things that they don't seem to notice right away, we try to help them out. They are His people, so they are my people too.

So the final category for this episode we need to address is addressed in the first two commandments. If you don't know it off the top of your head, the 10 commandments are in Exodus 20, and the first 2 commandments are that we are to have no other gods before Him, and that we are not to make any idols, idols to replace Him. That seems simple enough, but the enemy works so hard to get us to put everything in our lives before God. This whole me society and there is a popular saying now "Live your truth" "Be true to yourself" was the old version of it. Our truth is in Him, anything else is demonic. Apart from God, the Lord, I have nothing and I can do nothing, that's in John, so being true to myself means nothing. I could wash my shiny new car every week but if my heart is corrupted, who cares about my car. If I spend more time on my makeup each day than I spend with the Lord, then I am not making myself pretty in the sight of the Lord. If I am spending more on hair products than I will give to the kingdom then I should expect my hair to rot while others are enjoying treasures they have built in the kingdom. Sounds harsh huh? I just wanted to be real about it. That's the world we live in and there's not much to distinguish the church from the world. All of those behaviors are rolling out the welcome mat for the enemy to operate a curse in your life.

So these are all the areas I wanted to address and all of these are within our control. There is no reason why we should from this point forward be participating in activities that invite, encourage, engage, entertain, illicit, provoke, I'm out of verbs, but you understand. Curses should not have any room to have a place with us and we want to keep it that way. We have a few more categories to discuss in our next episode and some additional discussion on curses before we move on to blessings.

I hope this has been helpful to you. If you know anyone who is experiencing any of the issues, please share this podcast. Addressing these demonic influences and getting them out of our lives is life changing if we are willing.

As always let’s recap Top Show Points:

· Discussing behaviors and activities we do that result in Curses having a legal right to operate in our lives

· A curse is defined as: a solemn utterance intended to involve a supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something.

· Deuteronomy 28 verses 15-68 reveal the Curses for Disobedience

· God is Just, Proverbs 26:2, curses do not operate without a right

· If there is a curse in effect, it has a legal right to operate. Our job is to find out why, and eradicate or break that legal right

· Self Imposed Curses.

· God alone has absolute authority. When we participate in activities overtly or secretly that are an act of rebellion against an authority that we are subject to, we are opening a door. Matthew 28:18

· Illegal activities

· Legalism, apostasy (turning our back and renouncing God) carnality

· Genesis 12:3, Antisemitism, God will bless those who bless His people and curse those who curse His people.

· Exodus 20, 1st and 2nd Commandments, no other gods before him and no idols

· We can control whether these curses have a right to operate

· Continue this discussion on causes next week.

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

Our Journals can be found on Amazon at :

https://www.amazon.com/author/mountainmovermedia-dawnsimmons

Also, I want to encourage you to visit our website and join our Warrior community. I am working on planning some live events and the only way to be included in that is to be a part of our Warrior Community. Just visit our website, www.conqueringourunseenenemies.com, and join from the Home page or the Resources page.

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

Dawn Simmons 2/12/23 Dawn Simmons 2/12/23

Understanding Curses & Blessings Pt 2, Ep 2-7

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be discussing Curses, specifically events or occurrences that suggest a curse is operating in our lives. We will talk about some real-life examples of people dealing with curses or at least suggest a curse is present over their circumstances. This is the second part of our series "Understanding Blessings and Curses" and before this series ends, you will know how to break curses and usher in blessings that are being blocked by curses.

So let's start with just reviewing what is a curse. A curse is defined as: a solemn utterance intended to involve a supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something. One of the things we discussed in part 1 was Deuteronomy 28 and verses 1-14 reveal the Blessings for Obedience, while verses 15-68 reveal the Curses for Disobedience. So as we discuss Curses today, those are the scriptures we are obtaining much of our discussion from as we identify events or occurrences that suggest a curse is in operation. So you can use that to reference in our discussion.

Now before we begin I want to say one thing that I try to remind us of periodically. Not every bad thing is from the enemy. We don't have a demon hiding around every corner waiting to jump out and get us when we are just walking along minding our own business. When we are talking about curses, don't assume that everything is a curse. We are talking about this to understand it, but we need to have our relationship with the Holy Spirit to reveal to us the truth in every situation. We always want the truth to be revealed, bring the dark out into the light.

If we take a look at Deuteronomy 28, beginning at verse 15, we can start to see some patterns forming on the effects of a curse.

Let's start off with money and possessions. It's clear here that disobedience will result in loss of income and assets. Have you ever met someone who is always living in lack? I don't mean someone who is working and struggling to make ends meet. We all have those seasons in our lives. I mean someone who continually has financial issues where even if they had accumulated some wealth regardless of how much because wealth is relative. I know a couple who are active in the church and have been Christians for decades but are continually living in lack. Their essential needs are met, but they always have extra bills pop up, there is always something going on that money is slipping through their fingers or their cars aren't working. For the years that I have known them, this cycle has never changed. Let's dig a little deeper and talk about how their actions contribute to this type of circumstance. I used to host a prayer meeting and multiple times in these meetings the husband would come to the meeting and pull out a check and show it to everyone saying he was being blessed by people just giving him checks. I know I felt he was trying to manipulate me to give him money particularly during a period of a few months where he was continually texting me and my husband about prayers to cover the expenses of a root canal for the wife. The texts always included dentist name and dollar amount. Multiple root canals by the way. At one point, the husband claimed to have a word for me that he needed to bring to me written out. Guess what is was written on, the back side of a $1,000 plus dental bill. They owned multiple cars, but only ever had 1 working at a time. We have a mutual friend who owns a body shop, and the husband would frequently mention to the body shop owner how he wanted one of the cars the shop owned but needed an engine, etc, he wanted the car but wanted it gifted to him he wasn't willing to pay for it to be repaired. During Covid, to make money, the wife would pray for people, but requested payment for her prayers. That disgusted me because the people she was praying for were hurting, you remember how it was the first few months of Covid. All of these things I am sharing with you by the way were discussed openly by them. I am not betraying any confidence here. Are you starting to understand what the issue is here? How can the Lord show favor and blessings to people being driven by this behavior? What is driving this behavior? Disobedience. One day I told the husband that we don't give out money like that, but if the Lord told me to give him money, then we would. He never again asked me for money. He actually moved on and took money from another family which paid for them to be able to go on vacation. The family that gave them the money to pay for their vacation, well, at the time they were living partly on an early withdrawal of their 401K because their income dropped due to a job change. You cannot prey on other people this way and expect God to bless you. Their behavior is producing a curse over their lives. How do I know this situation is a curse? As I was seeing multiple issues over a period of time, I went to the Lord, I asked Him to reveal to me what was His truth here. I was continually being asked passive aggressively for money and wanted to know what the Lord wanted me to do. When the Lord gave me the response to give to them, He also used it as a teaching moment to show me how living outside of His will produces bad fruit, even with people that are active in the church.

Ok, let's move on to another area that suggests a curse is in operation. Chronic illness. This one is much more difficult for the enemy to cover up in among other things because unfortunately the food we eat today is so genetically re-engineered that we are sometimes eating more chemical or fluff than real food. I am not taking a political stance here, just understand all I am saying is chronic illness is very real and valid, but this is still one of the areas God tells us will reveal a curse or a plague of diseases as the Bible describes. Epilepsy is one of the common diseases found during the 1st century that Jesus dealt with regularly and we read that Jesus was able to distinguish between demonic manifestations of epilepsy or true epilepsy that he could heal. It was assumed that people with this infliction were born of sin from their parents or their own sin as a child. We don't think that way today, but we also don't associate sickness or disease with curses. Tumors are another common way the enemy disses their presence. One of the ways to dig deeper into this area is to look at the family line. If generationally you see a lot of disease, then a curse is one option to consider addressing. Of the areas we are addressing in this discussion, I would want to see multiple areas affected before making an assumption based on this one area alone.

Next, mental health issues. This one could very likely go hand in hand with our previous area of chronic illness, but this one stands strong on it's own. The Bible describes it as madness, blindness and confusion of mind, that's in verse 28. Let's talk about the elephant in the room with mental illness today and specifically the confusion going on in the world today. God does not make mistakes. The enemy tells lies and will do whatever is necessary to convince someone of their lies, but God does not make mistakes and when He makes a man, He means to make a man. When God makes a woman, he means to make a woman. Are we all alike? Absolutely not, but we are what God made us to be and we cannot change that, no lie, no operation, nothing can change what God made us to be when He formed us. The truth will be revealed in the confusion of the world today but anyone who comes into agreement with the lies and lives in disobedience to God, will suffer in confusion and live in the curse they have accepted.

Next, related to mental health issues are a curse that we see rampant today. Suicide and premature deaths, whether natural or unexpected. This is considered separate and apart from the previous mental health issues because it is a curse of death, it's final once it is carried out. With mental illness as we have already discussed, there is an ability to recover and remove the curse. The number of suicides in our world is rising. According to the World Health Organization, it is the 4th leading cause of death among 15-29 year-olds. 77% of global suicides occurred in low-middle income countries in 2019, that was a pre Covid statistic. If a family has multiple of these types of deaths, a curse is active. This can go back multiple generations, and this can be broken.

Next is the issue of breakdown of the family relationships and marriages. Divorce is obviously one indication. Alienation from family where family ties are broken. Verses 53 and 54 are pretty graphic in describing the breakdown of family. As we look at families today, we can see how all of these other areas can produce a breakdown of the familial relationships. Curses don't operate in silos, so we look for multiple areas in most cases and find the causes. We look at families up the family tree and across it to see what has happened over the years. In some cases, it may be a new curse and you won't see generational history but you will see it spread and affect those around the one who is living under a curse. It generally will not just affect the one person but there will be collateral damage to those surrounding a cursed person. When you see that it's time to examine the life of the cursed person for indications, behaviors, patterns, words spoken to reveal how a curse was able to legally enter the life and produce outcomes.

Our 5th area to discuss are areas relating to childbearing or female issues I will call them. These could be barrenness, miscarriages, tumors, ectopic pregnancies, issued with the menstrual cycle, endometriosis, fibrosis. We know just from Genesis that pain during childbearing is a result of a curse, but in Deuteronomy 28, verse 18, 53, 57. Now if you notice I am not reading verses this week. I honestly do not want to read these verses. Some of them are too horrible I don't want them to enter my mind and I certainly don't want them on my lips. Read them for yourself and take them to heart because the Lord only speaks what is true so if you are under a curse, He tells us the result. I will say that not every occasion of barrenness is a curse, some are, but some are also natural. Barrenness easily produces bitterness in the heart, as do miscarriages and ectopics if we are not careful. We have to guard our heart during these times so that we don't perpetuate a curse or any other negative behaviors over ourselves or a baby if you are later blessed with a baby. Frequently you will see the female issues be hereditary, If you are having these issues, don't resign yourself to a curse, examine your heart, your behaviors, and your relationship with the Lord. Look at all of these issues we are discussing as a whole. Ultimately, ask the Lord and if it is a curse, then keep listening and let's get it broken off of you.

Lastly, have you ever met someone who is just is clumsy or has a lot of accidents. It may result in serious injuries or just weird it only happens to them injuries but there is no denying they are out of the norm. I used to wonder if one of my son's was this way. The joke we started to make was the remodel at our local hospital was partially funded by my son. He always had the weirdest way he would fall, break bones, from a young age. This is my middle son, so not the two who I recently shared with you that have had the surgeries.

A few of his injuries include: broken heel bone from getting into bunk bed while swinging his feet up in the air, broken forearm while getting out of a car and stepping on a curb, broken wrist falling off of an exercycle, two broken feet falling 30 feet from the last transition while rock climbing, hurt shoulder while snowboarding at 53 mph, broken arm – quite frankly I don't remember how it happened I just remembered he couldn't finish jr lifeguards. There's a few I'm going to leave out, just out of sheer embarrassment but suffice it to say, many of my photos of this particular son are emergency room photos through the years. Some of these injuries were solely his fault for being who he is, an extreme sports enthusiast who just doesn't seem to mind if he gets hurt. Others though, I wasn't sure what to think when he was a kid. Was he really that clumsy, careless, or what was going on with him.

It would not surprise me to find out at some point that there was in fact a curse over him when he was a kid. I see no evidence of it now, actually the opposite, a lot of favor over him. So even if there was something, it can change so don't be discouraged over your own situation or a friend or family member.

As always let’s recap Top Show Points:

· Defined curse: A curse is defined as: a solemn utterance intended to involve a supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something.

· Deuteronomy 28 verses 15-68 reveal the Curses for Disobedience

· Not every bad thing is from the enemy. We don't have a demon hiding around every corner waiting to jump out and get us when we are just walking along minding our own business.

· disobedience will result in loss of income and assets.

· Example of couple cursed in finances due to disobedience

· Chronic illness

· chronic illness is very real and valid, but this is still one of the areas God tells us will reveal a curse or a plague of diseases as the Bible describes

· If generationally you see a lot of disease, then a curse is one option to consider addressing. Of the areas we are addressing in this discussion, I would want to see multiple areas affected

· mental health issues

· God does not create confusion, the enemy does

· Suicide and premature deaths, whether natural or unexpected. This is considered separate and apart from the previous mental health issues because it is a curse of death, it's final once it is carried out.

· If a family has multiple of these types of deaths, a curse is active. This can go back multiple generations, and this can be broken.

· the issue of breakdown of the family relationships and marriages

· 5th area to discuss are areas relating to childbearing or female issues

· Look at all of these issues we are discussing as a whole. Ultimately, ask the Lord and if it is a curse, then keep listening and let's get it broken off of you

· Clumsiness

· Gave example of my son's misshaps

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

Our Journals can be found on Amazon at :

https://www.amazon.com/author/mountainmovermedia-dawnsimmons

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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, we just dropped a video on our YouTube Channel, Life journey with Dawn Simmons. We are still in our series where we visited the 7 Churches in the book of Revelation and the latest video was the church in Laodicea, it’s a beautiful church actually. Very intact.

· Also, I want to encourage you to visit our website and join our Warrior community. I am working on planning some live events and the only way to be included in that is to be a part of our Warrior Community. Just visit our website, www.conqueringourunseenenemies.com, and join from the Home page or the Resources page.

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

Dawn Simmons 2/5/23 Dawn Simmons 2/5/23

Understanding Curses & Blessings Pt 1, Ep 2-6

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are starting our series on Understanding Blessings and Curses. We have set the stage for this discussion by first examining why our words matter, we then talked about the spirit of rebellion and last week we touched on the seven spirits of God that we have in the Holy Spirit. All of these are components to Blessings and Curses. First we will understand what a blessing and a curse are, then we will see in the Old Testament and the New Testament how God has used both for His purposes and finally we will talk about some real life examples of blessings and curses. Next week we will start digging more into a discussion on Curses. I wanted to start with Curses first so we can end on a positive note with Blessings. Either way before this series ends, you will know how to break curses and usher in blessings that are being blocked. Ok, are you ready? There’s a lot to get through so let’s get going.

The first thing I want to do is get us on the same page and talk about what exactly is a curse and what is a blessing. A curse is defined as: a solemn utterance intended to invoke a supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something. Now let’s define a blessing. A blessing is the act or words of one that blesses or a thing conducive to happiness or welfare. The funny thing about curses and blessings is that so many people, not even Christians, people in general have a tendency to believe in blessings, but will shun the idea of a curse. A curse is some medieval thing that has no relevance in our modern world. Just because we ignore it or deny it’s existence, it doesn’t go away. It doesn’t cease to be because we don’t believe.

So now we have to ask, why don’t people believe? Well, blessings and curses originate in the spirit realm, but they will manifest in the natural realm. We can see and feel and, in some cases, touch, taste and smell the manifestation of each in the natural realm. How they came into existence begins in the spirit realm and what we cannot see, we tend to not believe or not want to believe, or not understand or not want to understand. The whole point of this podcast is for believers who believe and want to understand. We cannot act like the spiritual realm does not exist or has ceased. We are denying what the Bible reveals to us and that hurts us in the end. When we deny the truth of the Bible, that in and of itself is a curse we are placing on ourselves.

When we reflect back on the episode titled, Why our Words Matter, we began to talk about how our words activate spirit realm outcomes. There are consequences to what we say and do. Things we own, objects we focus on and what they represent has an impact we don’t often think about. Let’s take a look at what Paul has to say on this. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 4:18, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Now, a side note here, I visited the ancient site of Corinth. I saw the ruins of what was seen at the time Paul wrote that letter. I walked the street where Paul walked. I stood at the bema seat where Paul was summoned. I saw what he would have seen in his day in that ancient city and while there were some areas that were still standing, some areas that were able to be reconstructed, it was clearly an example of something that was impressive in its day, it was a very large affluent city, but here we are today and it is in ruins. The unseen in Corinth, however, still very much alive. Walking there, one of the larger areas had a strong demonic presence residing. In one of the areas that was less commercialized and not fully excavated, no demonic presence. My point is this, no one lives in those ancient ruins, but the spirit realm is still active there. What is unseen is eternal. The same demonic influence the Corinthians wrestled with as Paul ministered to them has not gone anywhere and as much as I loved being there, I couldn’t wait to get out.

Ok, let’s get back on track and start to outline in the Old Testament what God has to say about Blessings and Curses. First let’s take a look in Exodus. Here Moses tells us what God has to say about the origin of blessings and curses. Exodus 19:5, “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” So we see the origin of his blessing, so how do we know what a curse is? Well a blessing and a curse are the opposite, so we know that if we do not obey God fully and keep his covenant, we have a pretty good idea what can happen. Moses has already told us about God blessing and cursing man in beginning in Genesis 1 and 2. Here we see the blessing that is being offered and the boundary God sets for them and the consequence if they disobey. We all know how that goes and in Chapter 3, we see the first curse in verse 14.

Those events give us a pretty good picture of how God creates our blessing but that there is an opposite also created in the spirit realm that will occur in our natural realm if we disobey. Adam and Eve had a more simple time than we do or than the generations that followed. They had one thing and it was a struggle for them. So while it was more simple for Adam and Eve, and that is not a judgment on them, we all like to think of ourselves as better than Adam and Eve, but we should be careful with that. We all have moments where we failed to resist something far less significant than eating from the wrong tree. Let’s fast forward about 2700 years to Moses and the Exodus and God providing more specifics on Blessings and Curses. It’s really important to understand this background and where it is all discussed in the Bible if you want to understand how these function in the spirit realm. We cannot break any curses or have a breakthrough in our blessings if we don’t take the time to understand it. The only place we can get the information is from the bible so let’s keep going.

So again, fast forward about 2700 years from Adam to Moses and the Exodus and we start to see what God provides as a guideline for how to receive his blessing and how to avoid a curse. Question. Have you ever really thought about all that Moses has done for you? He wrote the first 5 books of the bible, the Pentateuch, and in that we receive so much information about who God is and the history of his people. The time and effort required for all of the words we have at our fingertips is overwhelming. We type or handwrite a note with ease, that was not the case for Moses. His painstaking effort for every generation that followed is one thing I want to thank him for when I get to meet him. I hope I get to hear his stories or see them when the time comes. Sorry, I am digressing quite a bit today but this is all so interesting to me. Deuteronomy 28, have you ever read it? I mean really read it? I actually laminated it. Sounds silly but I figured if I was going to ensure my success in this topic, I wanted his words on the subject readily available and sturdy. If you haven’t read it, take a look at it this week. I have spoken before about a scripture journal, I use one regularly to put in those scriptures that I want to keep front of mind for prayer, for study, for revelation, it’s an easy way for me to keep His word in my heart. I am going to put in the notes some links to some scripture journals on amazon that I have produced that are compact and will really help you if you want to improve your prayer life. Anyhow, besides laminating these verses, I have them in my scripture journal. I want to know these blessings. As we read these blessings, we see the spiritual laws being laid out for us in our natural lives. Some people think because we have Jesus, this Old Testament scripture does not apply, but yes it does. I will show you that in a minute, but I want to make sure you understand how important these 14 verses are for us to read and absorb in to our hearts. I stand on these scriptures in times of need. Verse 6, “You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out” Thank you, Lord, I am blessed. Verse 3, “You will be blessed on the city and blessed in the country.” I will receive that! Here’s a good one, verse 7, I have used this one multiple times, “The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.” I remember the first time I saw that play out in my life, I was astonished that the Lord actually fulfilled it just like he said. The last time I had to use this was almost 2 years ago exactly and it was a business related situation. It lasted about about 3 months and at the end, I was the last one standing. I saw the 5 people I was having to work with at a non-profit on the Board of Director level go down one by one with their untruthful words and manipulative actions. I refused to be a party to what they were saying and doing no matter how much pressure they were applying and I trusted the Lord to deal with them and reveal the truth.

Now interestingly as we look at the Curses for Disobedience, which start with verse 15, and continue through verse 68! Initially you will see some opposites to the blessings and then God goes on to some more specific, somewhat horrific and painful descriptions of His judgment as a result of disobedience. What most people don’t understand about God is that He is just and in being just, that means at some point there will be a Judgment for what we do. It may be sooner, it may be later, but it always comes. So a curse could come swiftly as a judgment directly from God or he could allow the enemy to play out a consequence and allow that to be used for His judgment. Just reading the Curses would be enough to convince me that Obedience is the only way.

I mentioned earlier that we would look at the New Testament and how I know the Blessings and Curses were not just an Old Testament event, but are still applied in the New Testament, so lets look at John 15. There are 3 verses here that I want to share that fully depict blessings and curses. Verse 5: I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. That one I have hanging on my wall in my family room. Verse 6: If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. That I want no part of so let’s take a look at Verse 7: If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. A blessing does not get any better than that. Now understand that if we remain in Him, we would never ask Him to win the lottery or for a new car, that does not glorify him. Remining in Him would lead us to ask for those things we know we need to fulfill His plan in our lives. So the principles of Blessings and Curses are still applicable in the New Testament, which means they are still applicable to us today.

As I was preparing for this, I had to really take some time and examine my family and make sure I didn’t miss something. I’ve shared before about my situation with my oldest son, but this week, 4 days ago now, my youngest son had a surgery, his 4th and unfortunately we know there is a 5th needed in about 6 months. On the one hand I felt very blessed that he was able to get the surgery and because a cadaver bone was used, it was a bittersweet blessing because I know that somewhere near me here is a family that lost their 39 year old son, possibly father, brother that allowed their loss to help others. On the other hand, this is the 4th surgery in 4 years and all 4 of them were unusual injuries for the type of injury. I wouldn’t expect it to be a curse situation, in the next episode when we get into curses more deeply, I’ll explain why I could be led to think that about this situation, but I know that God has this situation covered because He told me so and that’s all I need to know.

Next week we are going to talk about indications that a curse may be present in your life so that will be pretty interesting. There are a lot of ways curses play out and we will talk about some specific examples.

Years ago I worked with a woman, she was probably in her 50’s then, I was in my 20’s. I can only remember her first name, it was Pat, I usually use Jane, but there’s no way anyone will ever know who she is. I can see her standing there, she was pretty tall, about 6 feet, probably 230 pounds, she always was very well dressed, she cared about her appearance. She didn’t have a lot, but she took care of what she did have. She was married and had some sons. She wasn’t particularly happy. She was very nice to me, but I admit, she did have an attitude. She never liked any of her supervisors, I never really understood why. She wasn’t really content either, she was more resigned. She was resigned to this is the way things are and I can’t change it. After a few years I heard her say something that I never heard anyone say before. She was a Christian, she went to church regularly, I suspect she was demonstrative in church but I don’t know if she was truly alive. That day I heard her say, her “people” referring to her genealogical line, were cursed. I asked her to explain and she said it said in the Bible that her people were cursed and there was nothing she could do about it. She wouldn’t look me in the eyes when she said it, she just kind of looked off into space and said it matter of factly. I wanted to respond to her, but I truly did not know what to say. I was dumbfounded that this belief was being taught to her and that she believed and accepted it. If you allow this deception, this nonsense into your mind, into your spirit, into your belief system, then guess what, you are cursed. You are coming into agreement with the enemy and you are sealing yourself to a curse.

Don’t be like Pat, don’t accept any curse and as we walk through this series we will help you understand it and break it off and start receiving your blessings.

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

· We are starting our series on Curses and Blessings

· A curse is defined as: a solemn utterance intended to invoke a supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something.

· We discussed Adam and Eve and the first curse

· 2 Corinthians 4:18, fixing our eyes on what is unseen and eternal.

· Exodus 19:5, God’s covenant

· A blessing is the act or words of one that blesses or a thing conducive to happiness or welfare.

· Deuteronomy 28: 1-14 are the Blessings for Obedience

· Deuteronomy 28: 15-68 are the Curses for Disobedience

· God is a just God who renders judgment, curses are a part of that judgment

· John 15: 5-7, verses discussing Curses and Blessings still apply in New Testament

· Gave you a story about Pat who resigned herself to her curse

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

Our Journals can be found on Amazon at :

https://www.amazon.com/author/mountainmovermedia-dawnsimmons

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

Dawn Simmons 1/29/23 Dawn Simmons 1/29/23

What are the 7 Spirits of God, Ep 2-5

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be talking about the 7 spirits of God. If we truly want to Conquer Our Unseen Enemies and live the full life that Jesus describes in John 10:10, then we should know about these 7 spirits discussed in the Book of Revelation. We will identify these 7 Spirits, understand how they relate to the Holy Spirit and ultimately how we apply this to our lives.

First off. Let's take a look in the Book of Revelation and see what these 7 Spirits are. We will also take a look elsewhere in the Bible to see where they are referenced, but we will start in the Book of Revelation. Now I find that the Book of Revelation often times scares people because it is filled with so much imagery, there are a lot of visions we don't fully understand in our natural mind and quite frankly, some well meaning and some not so well meaning people have come up with some perspectives that are not always encouraging in their attempt to explain the Book of Revelation. The theories on when the End Times are happening and trying to predict the actual event are unending and not where we should be spending an inordinate amount of our time. While there are some indications we are in nearing the end of times, we are not there yet and to be prepping for that or focused on that is wasting time that we should be focused on the time we do have here on earth. So don't let anyone or anything intimidate or shy you away from the Book of Revelation. It is fascinating. Ok, all that said, now let's get to our scriptures.

So the Book of Revelation starts out with John, the Disciple John, the only Disciple who lived his life to his natural life expectancy, identifying himself as the author. When we go to verse 4, we see this is directed to the 7 churches in the province of Asia. Now as a side note, I visited the locations of all 7 of those churches and created a video series on it on our YouTube Channel, Life Journey with Dawn Simmons, the last of which is about to be posted so check that out. It was amazing to visit these churches and see the locations and walk in the churches that remained and walk the "streets" so to speak of the areas that the Bible is referring to here. It was a nearly 40 year old dream realized, so go visit those locations with me. It will give you a new perspective of the Bible for sure. Ok, so Chapter 1 verse 4 gives us our first mention of the 7 spirits, "To the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits[a] before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth."

So this is a letter to the 7 churches in Asia, then John moves in to share with us the vision of Christ which is mesmerizing actually. One thing John says before he gives the description of Jesus is that he turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me and when he turned he saw 7 golden lampstands. The lampstands represent those 7 churches. Now in this, remember that John knew Jesus personally, lived with him for years. He knows him, he would likely be the only one left on earth at the time who would recognize him. John died at 94 years old. No one else was left alive that was a follower. The average life expectancy of people in the first century was not in the 90's like we have today so this was extraordinary in and of itself. We have an idea that this may be the case for John when Jesus tells Peter, it is not Peter's concern if John were to live until Christ's return, that’s in John 21: 19-23. So the next few chapters of Revelation are the letters to the churches so we are going to skip to chapter 4 for our discussion.

In Chapter 4, John is given a vision of Heaven. John gives us more imagery and understanding of what he was seeing in Heaven, and then in verse 5 he says this:

"From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits[a] of God."

Now let's scoot over to Chapter 5, verse 6, "Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits[a] of God sent out into all the earth."

Ok, now we are going to backtrack a little to the Old Testament, let's look at Isaiah 11. Isaiah is one of the major prophets and the book of Isaiah references the coming of the Lord more than any other Old Testament book, with over 20 references. These references are what Jesus used frequently as well as Peter and Paul when preaching to the Jews about the coming of the Messiah to prove that Jesus was actually that Messiah.

Ok, so back to Isaiah, here is where we will get our identification of those 7 spirits we just read about in the Book of Revelation. Starting in Chapter 11, verse 1:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and of might,
    the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

Now let's list these 7 Spirits out:

1) The Spirit of the LORD
2) The Spirit of wisdom
3) The Spirit of understanding
4) The Spirit of counsel
5) The Spirit of power
6) The Spirit of knowledge
7) The Spirit of the fear of the Lord

These 7 spirits together comprise the Holy Spirit. There are 7, which represents completeness. These 7 are the Holy Spirit we have in our lives every day. Think about this:

We have access to the Lord as we pray, and He answers our prayers, that's our relationship.

We can obtain wisdom and understanding. We often refer to the Holy Spirit as our Counselor. We have power in the name of Jesus because we have the Holy Spirit in our lives. Jesus tells us that He would not leave us here alone, so when He left we were given the Holy Spirit.

In John 14, Jesus tells us that we will receive knowledge from the Holy Spirit, and often misunderstood is the spirit of the fear of the Lord. People think that means God is a big mean powerful being wanting to dominate us so we should fear Him. No, if you know who He is and what He is about then you would respect him and be in awe of Him and quite frankly, that brings a level of fear of Him. Have you met someone who does not have a fear of the Lord? The things that can be said in ignorance. I cringe when I hear people say things against the Lord or to the Lord that are rude or words you wouldn't say to another person, let alone God. God is a big God, merciful, forgiving, loving but there comes a point where you will be held accountable for your words so at some point a fear of the Lord should enter the picture for each of us.

So why are we even talking about these 7 Spirits? What does that have to do with conquering our unseen enemies?

This week pay attention to the people around you. Listen to the words they use. Note whether they are believers or non-believers and see if you see any difference in the words they use, attitude, mood, how they make decisions. This isn't to judge them, it's just to see what is going on around us. What is the major influence over their lives? As a believer, if you look at yourself this week, are you any different? Do we as believers really look at the Holy Spirit and seek Him for those 7 areas in our lives? Maybe we do one or two really well, but imagine how He could influence our lives, our decisions, our outcomes if we leaned into Him on all 7 all the time. The enemy would not stand a chance in accomplishing his plans in us if we are that connected, if we are that submitted to seeking the Holy Spirit we would identify what is not of God when the enemy is attempting to deceive us.

Now here is a challenge for the week. I want you to fast. Now not what you usually think of with a fast. I want you to fast on leaning on your own decisions, your own wisdom, your own knowledge and instead this week feast on the Holy Spirit for wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel, everything these 7 spirits provide in the Holy Spirit. Feast on Him for everything and see what that does for you. It will change how you see things, how you respond to circumstances, decisions you make. The more you feast on Him, the deeper your discernment will develop and the fullness of your life will begin to change. You will see it change. Document the week so you can look back and reflect on it before you forget all the ways the Holy Spirit interceded for you and gave you understanding in a situation. Do this and you will see the influence of the enemy diminish as you grow in Him.

I hope this has been helpful to you. We are building a new relationship, our biggest, best year yet in the Lord and I am glad you are joining me. If you know someone you think might benefit from this podcast, please share. It is life changing if they are willing.

As always let’s recap Top Show Points:

· The 7 spirits of God.

· Book of Revelation is full of imagery and should not intimidate us or create fear

· Book of Revelation starts out with John, the Disciple John, identifying himself as the author

· Book of Revelation: Chapter 1 verse 4 gives us our first mention of the 7 spirits

· Book of Revelation: Chapter 5, verse 6, The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits[a] of God

· Isaiah 11 lists out the 7 Spirits:

· The Spirit of the LORD
2) The Spirit of wisdom
3) The Spirit of understanding
4) The Spirit of counsel
5) The Spirit of power
6) The Spirit of knowledge
7) The Spirit of the fear of the Lord

· These 7 spirits combined make up the Holy Spirit we have access to daily

· We talked about paying attention to people around you and listening to their words and evaluate ourselves in how we are handling life circumstances against the list of the 7 characteristics of the Holy Spirit

· Challenged you to fast from our own decisions and feast on leaning into the Holy Spirit in all areas of our life.

· Document the week so you can reflect on it and see the change in your life.

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, we just dropped a video from our Turkey travels on our YouTube Channel. Check it out!

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

Dawn Simmons 1/22/23 Dawn Simmons 1/22/23

How to evict the Spirit of Rebellion, Ep 2-4

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are discussing the Spirit of Rebellion. This is one of the worst spirits to deal with so we need to recognize it early to prevent and remove its influence in our life. To start, we will identify what rebellion is and understand how the spirit of rebellion functions and who typically you will see associated with the spirit of rebellion. Then we will identify the characteristics of a rebellious spirit. We will dig deeper to see how rebellion shapes our heart and look at rebellion from God’s perspective. I will share some real-life examples of people dealing with rebellion. Lastly, we will talk about 4 steps to evict the Spirit of Rebellion in your life.

If you ask a crowd of people what they consider rebellion, you will likely get several different answers, with only a few identifying it as a harmful influence on us if we allow it. Our society, no matter what country you are in, seems to have a slight admiration for rebellion. The actual definition of rebellion is: an act of violent or open resistance to an established government or ruler. There have been more acts of rebellion across the globe in the last 20 years than we have seen over the last few hundred years combined. Some will say the world needs change, but rebellion isn’t the best way to go about change and I’ll explain why as we go through this discussion. First, let’s understand the Spirit of Rebellion.

The spirit of Rebellion is the strongman and often accompanying rebellion you will see the spirit of stubbornness, the spirit of self will, disobedience, the spirit of disrespect, and anti-submissiveness, the spirit of an anti-socialist. Most importantly, Rebellion is the spirit of the Anti-Christ. It is a complete illustration of Satan and his disobedience and disrespect for authority. God is the supreme authority. When we are out of order with God’s authority over our life, we are asserting our own desires and actions above God and as a result are entertaining the demons of rebellion. People generally consider “rebellious years” something we will grow out of, thinking we see it with teens mostly, but it is in more adults now than in prior history. Some people walk as if being rebellious to society, their parents or any established authority is a badge of honor. It is used as an excuse citing an unwillingness to conform to society. A lot of that is an excuse rooted in some other demonic influence but is representing itself through rebellion. When we don’t recognize it for what it truly is, we allow it to grow into other areas of our lives and become imbedded into our thought process and unfortunately our hearts. How the heart feels is generally what drives people and when we don’t seek the Lord to fill our heart, we make choices with consequences we don’t perceive or understand. It’s a painful cycle.

So how do we recognize a heart that has been influenced by a rebellious spirit? Fortunately, Rebellion is a loud spirit so there are many ways it reveals itself. It can’t function quietly because it ultimately seeks the attention, the adoration, the worship. Because it is the spirit of the anti-Christ and it seeks to pull us away from the Lord and toward itself, toward rebellion, the processes it uses all combined cannot remain quiet.

Let’s talk about the Characteristics of a rebellious spirit:

· Argumentative – often uses victim-based speech, shut out other ideas that contrast their own, supports an idea without support, makes claims without any support or truth, will argue just to argue so opposing point will not be correct or win with them, does not allow others to speak, interrupts others, unable to have dialogue of opposing views

· undisciplined, do what they want whenever they chose, their way is the right way, they create new rules that are always advantageous to themselves, justifies illegal activities, consequences are not considered, belief that they should be allowed to do what they want without any consequences when things go bad

· unteachable – will not listen to reason or truth, denies logic or willingness to learn, will only support their own position, will not consider another person’s position, will not allow support for another position to be presented

· stubborn – will stand their ground even if proven wrong, the spirit of pride influences this behavior

· apathetic – does not care about anyone else – only their feelings matter and they are willing to take advantage or cause harm to others, worst cases have no value for human life

If we want change, true change, to force it in a process that is a demonic is not going to bring positive change, it simply produces chaos. That will not benefit anyone which often times is what a rebellious spirit claims to be seeking. Often clouding their idea of “justice” with their rebellious activities. It’s all demonic.

So what does God think of a rebellious spirit? One thing I have noticed over the years in talking with people who create God in the image that they want him to be is that they will say He is a God of love and they therefore don’t believe he will harm “good” people. They create excuses for why they can do what they prefer to do instead of God’s plan for them. I’m sure you’ve heard that as well. “Good” is a relative term isn’t it? God is not a God of relative terms, he is not a God of excuses. He is one God, the One True God and while He is a God of love, He is also a just God and when rebellion enters our life, we will see discipline from His hand. It may not be right away, as he is merciful and will give us time to repent, but if we don’t, then the God of Love will do what every “good” parent does and discipline those who choose to sin in their rebellion. When we rebel, we are not only pulling away from Him, but we are also telling Him we are above Him.

Let’s take a Biblical perspective on rebellion and see it from God’s perspective.

1 Samuel 15:23 tells us, “For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.” No additional explanation needed there. That’s pretty straightforward.

I like reading Proverbs. It has the ability to say exactly what we need to hear and it says it clearly and efficiently, it gets right to the point. There is no sugar coating what Proverbs 17:11 tells us, “Evildoers foster rebellion against God; the messenger of death will be sent against them.”

The next verse is out of Jeremiah, and one reason I like using verses from any of the prophets is because they are speaking the Lord’s language, literally, they are speaking for the Lord so we are getting a very accurate depiction of what God wants to tell us. So in Jeremiah 28:16,
“Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to remove you from the face of the earth. This very year you are going to die, because you have preached rebellion against the Lord.’” That verse is very revealing to us because we can see the God is telling them specifically what they did against Him, and for that He then also lets them know ahead of time, here is your punishment. Like a parent does. The Lord warned them ahead of time through Jeremiah and gave them an opportunity to repent, but they chose instead to mistreat Jeremiah and live for themselves. Ultimately, that generation was removed from the face of the earth and taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar but for the faithful remnant.

Another example of this from Jeremiah can be seen in 29:32, “this is what the Lord says: I will surely punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants. He will have no one left among this people, nor will he see the good things I will do for my people, declares the Lord, because he has preached rebellion against me.’”

Now we move into the New Testament and see in 2 Thessalonians that his view on rebellion has not changed. In verse 2:3, “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.”

In Hebrews 3:8, the Lord again speaks of rebellion and refers to what has happened previously and reminded them not to follow in their ancestors’ footprints. “do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness” He is letting them know there are consequences for their behavior.

Today we have Jesus, and we live by grace through the salvation we have, but don’t mistake the spirit of rebellion will be both subtle and bold when it enters your heart and there is a price to pay if we do not rebuke that. We have no excuse for allowing rebellion to take the place of the Lord in our hearts.

About 14 years ago, I had a business and a section of it was set aside for bible studies, I taught a class on how to hear the Lord’s voice and it was a hangout for me and some of the women from church. It was a great space, but sometimes someone would come in that was broken and it was a place where we could talk. On this particular day, a woman from church came in and gave me her heartbreaking story of her marriage falling apart and that it had been going on for quite a while, but she did not want to share it with anyone. She reached a breaking point, and she came in and we talked. She shared that her husband was having issues with an addiction to explicit websites. They were both believers and she just didn’t know what to do, but she couldn’t take it any longer. We talked out how she was feeling and put a plan together so she could move forward and part of that plan was to seek marriage counseling with the pastor. After a number of meetings with the pastor she came back to talk again and shared how things were going for her. The meetings with the pastor were not helping, she was surprised that our pastor at the time was not more supportive in terms of telling the husband what he was doing was not something the Lord would approve of and so she was feeling lost that day. She expressed that she was dealing with some additional issues because her husband was not happy he was having to tell the pastor what was going on with him. The tension at home increased and had escalated to violence. She had a college degree but hadn’t worked outside the house in over a decade and didn’t know what she would do if she was suddenly on her own. We continued to talk and develop a plan for how she could improve her situation. There were 2 kids to consider but the issue of violence could not be ignored. Fast forward a month and he moved out of the house and as a result, he soon began a relationship with someone from work although they had not begun to discuss divorce. He started going to a new church during all this and she remained at the same church for a little while and eventually moved on to another church as well. She went back to school and obtained some valuable designations and was able to quickly move into a 6 figure position. The divorce did happen, but it was ugly because of the house they owned and the child support. This man, the man who rebelled from the Lord, who rebelled from his wife, rebelled from being a father to his children and rebelled from everything he publicly built his life around ended up losing everything as a result. She, on the other hand, cried out earnestly to the Lord for help and guidance on what to do and she was blessed many times over. I am still friends with her and her children are both adults, have graduated college and are successful. She is now doing things she never would have imagined back when she walked in as a broken woman. In this one family we can see how the Lord works to provide, support and restore but yet allows consequences to bring about justice to a man who had an unrepentant heart and chose rebellion over the Lord. During this process this husband exhibited many of the characteristics we described above and what I noticed was the more he had to address his sin, the deeper his rebellion became.

Recently a church I know well had a church split. This happens sometimes both for good and for not so good reasons. This unfortunately is one of the not so good reasons. As with many churches, this church had a number of pastors each with a different set of responsibilities. One of the pastors, the one with the least education, the least experience and the least knowledge and understanding, decided he wanted more. He did not take on the additional responsibilities or seek additional education, but he wanted more. He began to talk to people on the side and in essence stage a rebellion to leave and create his own “church”. The issues with this are many. First, Jesus tells us in Luke 16 that those who have been trusted with little can be trusted with much and those who have been dishonest with very little will be dishonest with much. He was the least of the pastors as I have described and yet he sought more without being willing to prove himself faithful. In fact, he did the exact opposite by going to members secretly to tell of his plan to leave. The reason stated why he wanted to leave is that he didn’t want to have to answer to anyone anymore. A pastor has many to answer to, not the least of which is the Lord, so he didn’t fully understand what would be required of him in his own “church”. He planned for months and promised people who left with him that they could have leadership positions. Whether they were qualified for leadership positions was not a factor. When the lead pastor found out, he spoke to him and this young pastor was given the opportunity to stop, but he chose to continue for another few months. Multiple times he was spoken to until finally one day, they asked him to leave and gave him 30 days. Very generous because he was also given a severance. To the people he spoke with before he left, he told them this was God’s will, but God does not work in the dark that way, in secrets, betraying those who have mentored you, and treated you as family. God is a God of order and the way that young pastor chose to handle his desire to leave was not of God at all. It was his own unteachable, undisciplined spirit projecting demonic justifications to what his own heart wanted. Be careful never to say something is God’s will that is not characteristic of God, you will answer for that later and that is attributing to God what is evil and that is blasphemy. His actions hurt many, but ultimately his plan will not succeed because it is not built on the Lord, it was not built with the Lord or with the Lord directing his path.

So how can we keep this from happening within us? Well, of course, I have some steps for us. There are 4 steps we want to take to evict the enemy if we feel we have rebellion in our heart or are being tempted to rebel:

1. Acknowledge it

2. Rebuke it

3. Repent and Seek Forgiveness

4. Seek the Lord for clarification and guidance

As I close this the Lord brought to my remembrance, a dog I had in my early twenties. A long black-haired mutt I got from the shelter when I was in college living in the apartments at Pepperdine University. Now animals were not allowed in the apartments so how I thought I was going to get away with this rebellious act I did not know but I managed to do it. Anyhow, this dog was a handful, never liked to be contained which was probably why he was in there. Because of his propensity to run off, I named him Rebel. I should have named him Homebody and things might have turned out differently. Not until his final year of life did he finally settle down and sit in the front yard untethered perfectly content.

Anyhow, I hope this has been helpful to you. If you know anyone who is experiencing any of the issues, please share this podcast. Addressing these demonic influences and getting them out of our lives is life changing if we are willing.

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

· We discussed the Spirit of Rebellion. This is one of the worst spirits to deal with so we need to recognize it early to prevent and remove its influence in our life.

· The actual definition of rebellion is: an act of violent or open resistance to an established government or ruler.

· The spirit of Rebellion is the strongman and often accompanying rebellion you will see the spirit of stubbornness, the spirit of self will, disobedience, the spirit of disrespect, and anti-submissiveness, the spirit of an anti-socialist. Most importantly, Rebellion is the spirit of the Anti-Christ. It is a complete illustration of Satan and his disobedience and disrespect for authority. God is the supreme authority.

· Let’s talk about the Characteristics of a rebellious spirit:

o Argumentative

o Undisciplined

o Unteachable

o Stubborn

o Apathetic

· God’s perspective on rebellion

o 1 Samuel 15:23

o Proverbs 17:11

o Jeremiah 28:16

o Jeremiah 29:32

o 2 Thessalonians 2:3

o Hebrews 13:8

· Story of the couple with the rebellious husband and discussed how God provides and is just

· Story of the Rebellious young pastor

· There are 4 steps we want to take to evict the enemy if we feel we have rebellion in our heart or are being tempted to rebel:

o Acknowledge it

o Rebuke it

o Repent and Seek Forgiveness

o Seek the Lord for clarification and guidance

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

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

Dawn Simmons 1/15/23 Dawn Simmons 1/15/23

Why our Words Matter in the Spirit Realm, Ep 2-3

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to start preparing for our series entitled "Understanding Curses and Blessings to change our Life" by discussing a few things ahead of time. So our discussion today is centering around our words and how the words we choose to use matter in the outcomes of our life. We will be examining some often-used phrases and break them down to understand what they could mean to our lives in the spirit realm. Our lives don't just exist in the natural, we are affected one way or the other by what is happening around us in the spirit realm. We can shift our outcomes by choosing words inspired by the Holy Spirit or words inspired by the enemy. It's our choice.

Let's start off by looking at Proverbs 18:21, "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit."

Let's take this a step further with James 3:9-12, "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water."

Let's look at some of the phrases we say regularly without putting much thought into what we are actually saying. Phrases like:

You're killing me!

What a loser!

I can never win!

That boy will never learn!

I'm never going to……get that promotion, be able to afford…., understand….

I'm sick and tired of……

Our words are powerful. How we use our words matter. James 3:5 tells us this, "Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark." When we say things in the negative, like I am sick and tired, all you are is coming into agreement with one who would happily make you sick and tired. You are stating that is what you are and therefore, don't be surprised when you find yourself in a perpetual state of sickness and fatigue.

If you don't believe words matter, take a look at what Jesus tells us in Matthew 12:36-37, "But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” Personally, I don't want to be condemned so I am conscious of the words I chose to speak over myself and others. I want to make sure when I speak, I speak life. This is not a prosperity conversation, or a visualization technique or a karma discussion or a "release of good energy" topic, those are not biblical.

We need to address this issue because what we speak in the natural does have an affect on what happens to us in the spirit realm and the enemy has the ability to obtain legal rights over us by our poor choice of words. Likewise, when we use our words of life, we can direct angels to work on our behalf. I'm not talking about using angels to meet our whim. Angels respond to the Word of God, so when we pray, using scripture, the Holy Spirit can use us to accomplish many things for the Kingdom of God. When we speak over a situation the way the Lord wants us to speak over a situation, the miraculous can happen. Look for example at Jericho. Joshua led his army for 6 days in silence and on the 7th day when they gave a shout, the walls of the city crumbled. The walls of Jericho had places in it that were as thick as 20 feet and as high as 28 feet. I have felt walls similar though not as old. The walls at Jericho are believed to be 8000-9000 BC, and the Mycenean walls I felt were only about 1300 BC, but they were incredibly solid. So to have a group of soldiers shout and have the city walls collapse was not done by mere voices, it was a supernatural event occurring the way the Lord advised them. When we use our voices, our words in cooperation with the Lord, anything is possible.

If we believe in the Bible, then we have to believe in Jericho, then we have to believe that our words have power. We can't have it any other way or we are calling the author of the Bible, the Holy Spirit inspired Bible a liar. So if we know all of the above to be true, then we have to know when we speak the opposite of what the Holy Spirit desires, we still have power in our words, we just activate the enemy.

I know I recently shared the story of my sons stroke, but I want to share with you a detail from the story so if you are in this situation, or one similar, you know how to handle it. It was the evening we were called back to the hospital because he had the emergency surgery and we were told they didn't think he would make it. When we saw him laying there in ICU, he actually looked lifeless, it was difficult to see. There are 2 things you can do in a situation that looks perilous and one is to confront it head on and the other is run the other way. It's like fight or flight, but it's the spirit realm, so it does feel differently. In our situation, I saw my son and put the immediate shock aside, there was work to do there. If I need to be emotional, I can do it later. I was not about to let any words of death spoken over my son remain any longer. My daughter in law, she got stuck, she couldn't work past the immediate shock and she began to breakdown. She began to say things that her heart felt, normal, natural things you would say if you were in that situation. It was heart breaking. I knew she didn't have it in her to be strong, and I didn't have the time to be strong for me and her. As she spoke, she said words she had been told and was letting what she saw in the natural overtake her emotions. The words she spoke were not life. We could only use words of life. I turned to her, I grabbed her by the face and I said, I'm sorry, you know I have to do this, she nodded yes and I rebuked her and told her why we had to speak words of life. It was enough to wake her up enough to refocus and change the direction of her thoughts. Then I could move to my son and pray over his life.

When something has been spoken over you or someone in your life, and it is not words of life, or words that are Holy Spirit inspired, but rather something you would associate with the enemy, rebuke it. Even if it is your fiend, or someone from church, you can say upfront, "I'm sorry, but I rebuke that word of …." and then speak life. We can't worry about hurt feelings. When Jesus predicted his death and Peter responded that this would never happen, how did Jesus respond? Think about it, Peter did what many of us do. Someone says something and we try to quell their spirit and say oh, no, that will never happen. We think we are doing the right thing. What ultimately happened? "Jesus turned and said to Peter, Get behind me Satan," Jesus rebuked Peter right to his face then and there. We have to be be bold on one hand and rebuke where it is called for in a situation. On the other hand, we need to be mindful of what we say and not say things where we shouldn't that also interfere.

Let's look at Proverbs 21:23, "Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity" We don't do this today. In our culture, we take free speech to another level. We more use it as an excuse to attack another, instead of what was intended which was for us to be able to have our own thoughts and not be arrested for saying what we think or believe. It was a good thing once upon a time, but too much of a good thing has turned into chaos with social media. People say the most horrific things through social media they wouldn't say in person. Some people are so extreme it is not enough to say something in person, they have to back it up with violent acts or destruction. It's complete chaos and it is all satanically driven. Take hold and account of what you say. When we add to it, we add to chaos in our lives. Proverbs 12:18 tells it another way, "The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing."

So let's look back at the phrases we started off with

You're killing me!: This seems innocent enough, but you literally are saying something is killing you and under no circumstances would I speak that over myself, in joke, or for any reason. We'll get into this when we discuss curses, but this statement qualifies as a self-imposed curse. This is not speaking life.

What a loser!: This we usually say after we have experienced something negative. Now, maybe there is even some truth to it, but we don't need to say that and speak that over someone's life. We don't want to have to account for it later or be a part of something that does result from words we have chosen to say over someone else. This is not speaking life.

I can never win!: Again, why would I want to say that over myself. Another example of a self-imposed curse. This is not speaking life.

That boy will never learn!: This is similar to the loser comment, but more definitive. To use never and say something will never happen is you being willing to curse someone else. This is not speaking life.

I'm never going to……get that promotion, be able to afford…., understand….: Another example of a self-imposed curse. This is not life.

I'm sick and tired of……: Self-imposed curse again. These are not life words.

Words matter. Things we say seem innocent enough at the time, but they can have repercussions and because of that we want to make sure what we say matters for us in the best possible way.

My challenge to you this week is to listen to the words you use and those around you, not to be the word police but to be aware and start to notice the words people use. Before you speak, stop yourself and make sure what you are about to say are truly the words you want to use.

I hope this has been helpful to you. If you know someone who could benefit from this episode or this podcast, please share. It can be life changing if they are willing.

As always let’s recap Top Show Points:

· Discussing our words and how the words we choose to use matter in the outcomes of our life.

· Our lives don't just exist in the natural, we are affected one way or the other by what is happening around us in the spirit realm. We can shift our outcomes by choosing words inspired by the Holy Spirit or words inspired by the enemy. It's our choice.

· Proverbs 18:21, "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit."

· James 3:9-12, Discussing how "Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing." And that this should not be

· Identified Phrases we use regularly in everyday speech that bring death, not life

· How we use our words matter. James 3:5, talks about how our little tongue can spark a huge fire.

· Matthew 12:36-37, "But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

· We need to address this issue because what we speak does affect us in the spirit realm and the enemy has the ability to obtain legal rights over us by our words. Likewise, when we use our words of life, we can direct angels to work on our behalf

· Example at Jericho of power of words

· Example from my situation with my son and having to rebuke someone and how and why we need to do it with others.

· Example of Jesus rebuking Peter

· Proverbs 21:23

· Proverbs 12:18

· Broke down common phrases we should not be saying

· Challenge to pay attention to words used and make sure you are using the words you really mean to use

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, we just dropped a video from our Turkey travels on our YouTube Channel where we are doing a series on the 7 churches Jesus sends a message to in the Book of Revelation. Check it out!

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

Dawn Simmons 1/8/23 Dawn Simmons 1/8/23

How to Manage Seasons in our Life, Ep 2-2

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be talking about seasons. Yes, seasons, we all experience them whether we acknowledge them or not, we all experience them whether we understand them or not, we all experience them whether we enjoy them or not, we all experience seasons whether we grow from them or not. So let’s get to a place together where we can start to develop ourselves and grow through the season for whatever the Lord wants to provide to us.

If you think about it, a season is provision. There are crops that can only grow in certain seasons, they have to experience the season or they will wither and die or worse yet, not even begin. I have never seen a plant try to rush growing through their season, have you? Yet, I have known countless believers, myself included that talk about trying to hurry up and get through a tough season. I don’t know anyone who has tried to hurry through a season of rest or a season of favor, have you? Sure, there may be people who have newly retired and are unsettled in their newly found “season” of rest, but that’s a man season, not a God season.

I recently gave a prophetic word to a woman I didn’t know. It was a few minutes long as I recall and in it one of the elements of the word was that the Lord was preparing her. That he was instilling in her new desires that she hadn’t even thought of yet and there would be doors opening for her as a result. About 30 minutes later this woman came to me with someone who knew me to tell me that she has been hearing about doors opening for a few months now and that she didn’t know what it meant. She was struggling to get the answer. As I listened to her tell me her struggle, I asked a few questions and began to understand why she didn’t have an answer yet, but her heart wanted one so badly. She was visibly upset, in a good way, but didn’t know how to understand. Her family was wanting to leave and kept interrupting her while she was talking to tell her they wanted to leave.

“Seasons” means different things to different people. One of the numerous definitions of “season” is an indefinite or unspecified period of time; a while. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, tells us this:

A Time for Everything

3 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

Ultimately the conclusion to this chapter is that God has a plan for everything. All happens in His timing, not ours. We go through the seasons and at the end of one season, begins another. What is your season right now? Do you know? Have you asked the Lord? Asking the Lord is incredibly important because we want to make sure we are working WITH Him to work through the season, not around it, not over it, not turn around in an attempt to avoid it. When we fail to work with the Lord, we lose out on the blessing that will ultimately come from getting to the other side. The Lord would not put us through a season just to put us through a season. He is always preparing us for His plan in our lives. When we don’t work with Him, we open ourselves up to misunderstanding, resentment, bitterness, and consequences we don’t anticipate. When we are in a difficult season, we may want to find our own answers and unfortunately, the enemy is always willing to present options or sway us into believing there is a shortcut or deceiving us into believing we are following God’s plan by twisting scripture or circumstances.

About 4 or 5 years ago now, I was in a season of growth. I firmly believe that we can never stop growing in the Lord. At no time will we ever know enough about the Lord, He will always provide more when you seek Him. Anyhow, I was in a period of growth, some of which has resulted in this podcast and other things I am working on, but this period of growth centered around the Book of Ezekiel. I love Ezekiel, I named my macaw after him. If you have never read it or it has been a while, it is a fascinating story of an Old Testament prophet. He was an incredibly obedient man who did whatever the Lord asked of him, with the exception of one thing and the Lord allowed him to complete what was asked of him in an alternate way, but Ezekiel was exceptional in how we heard, related, understood, and obeyed God. My Ezekiel season lasted about 4 months. It started with the first 30 days, every single day a scripture or a mention of Ezekiel came to me, whether it was the radio, a random comment from someone, the side of a truck, everyday it came to me. So I started to read Ezekiel. I read it once, loved it, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to get from it. I read it again. Same thing. This process lasted 4 months. I asked the Lord, what am I not getting, what do I keep missing. Every time I went through it, the Lord was working on my heart more and more to get me to think more like Ezekiel. He wanted me to be willing to do whatever He asked whenever He asked it, no matter what anyone else thought. I had to work within myself to find the willingness to be bold where He asked me to be bold and quiet when He asked me to be quiet. I’ve shared before that I am an introvert, so if I don’t know you, I don’t really prefer to walk up to you and start talking to you. I am, however, an opinionated introvert, so if you are doing something I don’t like and it affects me, I have no issues letting you know. In my younger years, I was referred to as aggressive, but I’m pretty sure they just meant assertive. Anyhow, back to my story, once I finally understood what the Lord was asking of me and then worked WITH him to be what He was asking of me, the Ezekiel season ended. So flash forward to today, if the Lord has a word for someone, whether I know them or not, I have to go tell them because that is what the Lord needs me to do. That action is part of His plan for my life and I want to live out the plan He has for me. I would say of the words I give, its about 50/50 given to people I know versus people I don’t know. All have been received, they made sense to them so I know the Lord is working to build these people and encourage them and I am just a tiny part of how he is speaking to them in their season.

So let’s go back to the woman I spoke of earlier, we’ll call her Jane, who received the word about the doors. One of the first things the Lord said was I am preparing you. He then told her that he was instilling new desires in her she hadn’t even thought of yet and then He mentioned doors. In her mind, she skipped past the first two things and moved straight to the doors of opportunity. She was in the preparation phase. She wanted to be in the receiving phase. It doesn’t work like that. Our God is a God of order. We never saw Jesus do anything willy nilly out of order. He didn’t multiply the fish and the loaves and then thank His Father. He thanked His Father first for what He needed. We can’t rush the Holy Spirit. Truthfully, why would we even want to? I do not want to have a door full of opportunity open up for me if I was not ready for that opportunity. I might blow it if I don’t know what I am doing.

Likewise, the Spirit Realm has an order, and if we don’t take our seasons seriously and develop WITH the Lord whatever He is trying to develop in us, we are opening ourselves to more than we can handle and we won’t recognize what is coming at us.

So what do we need to do to get ourselves through a season? Well, if you are following through on my ask of you from last week, you have a good start. There are 4 phases with a combined total of 10 steps to help you manage your season. This is more than I generally give but this is about going through our season and completing it correctly, not quickly. We won’t get through it any faster if our hearts aren’t correctly aligned.

4 Phases of a Season

Acknowledgment Phase

1. Daily Bible reading and Daily prayer time with the Lord

2. Get Rid of all expectations of your season

Preparation Phase

3. Ask the Lord about your season

a. What is it? Growth? Discipline? Revelation? Obedience?

b. What is He asking of you during the season?

c. Are you doing anything to inhibit your season?

4. Be patient and wait on the Lord as He works with you in your season.

a. Do not try to jump ahead

b. Do not make decisions on your own

c. Be content in the waiting, it’s not a race

Application Phase

5. Follow through on whatever the Lord asks of you

6. After you have followed through, go back and earnestly ask the Lord how you did, how could you improve, is that what He wanted

7. Accept correction with love

8. Thank the Lord for all He is doing in your life

9. Continue until the Lord releases you from the current season

Receiving Phase

10. Move forward with the Lord to receive the fruit of your completed season

That seems easy enough, right? Sometimes we are in a season and we misidentify, or are unable to discern that it is actually the Holy Spirit working on us and when we work against it, it just takes longer to receive what the Lord wants to provide us. The Lord is a giver of gifts. James 1:17, tells it to us this way, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” We need to be able to identify shifting shadows and if we rely on the Lord during every season, we will know what it is the Lord is doing in our lives and why. We won’t be susceptible to the traps of the enemy and we take away any legitimacy the accuser has against us when we make mistakes and fall short.

As always let’s recap Top Show Points:

· Opened show talking about seasons, we all experience seasons in our life

· Seasons have a purpose and we cannot rush completing a season. Season is provision

· We want to begin and end a season working WITH the Lord, not against Him.

· Told you about the young woman I gave a prophetic word to about preparation and doors

· Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

· If we don’t understand our season, we are susceptible to the enemy deceiving us

· My Ezekiel Season

· Revisited the young woman and why she wasn’t understanding what the Lord was telling her

· 4 Phases to manage a Season

· Acknowledgment Phase

1. Daily Bible reading and Daily prayer time with the Lord

2. Get Rid of all expectations of your season

· Preparation Phase

· 3. Ask the Lord about your season

· 4. Be patient and wait on the Lord as He works with you in your season.

· Application Phase

· 5. Follow through on whatever the Lord asks of you

· 6. After you have followed through, go back and earnestly ask the Lord how you did, how could you improve, is that what He wanted

· 7 Accept correction with love

· 8. Thank the Lord for all He is doing in your life

· 9. Continue until the Lord releases you from the current season

· Receiving Phase

· 10. Move forward with the Lord to receive the fruit of your completed season

· James 1:7

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, we just dropped a video from our Turkey travels on our YouTube Channel where we are doing a series on the 7 churches Jesus sends a message to in the Book of Revelation. Check it out!

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

Dawn Simmons 1/1/23 Dawn Simmons 1/1/23

2023 Our Biggest Year in the Lord, Ep 2-1

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this first episode of our second season of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies in 2023, we are going to set ourselves up for our biggest, our best, our deepest relationship in the Lord that you have ever had.

We have covered a lot of territory in 2022. We have talked about a lot of demons, which we will continue to do in 2023. We have talked about how demons work, we have met several people along the way and heard their stories. I’ve shared a lot of my own stories, but really, guys we are just beginning.

We ended 2022 with our series focusing on 7 demons that challenge us and weigh us down and working to get those out of our way. So how are we going to start 2023? Well, we are going to start it together. In Matthew 18:20, Jesus tells us, “where two or more are gathered in my name, there I am with them.” So where we are going from here we are not doing alone. Everything leading up to this point has been setting a groundwork. So if you haven’t listened to all the episodes, make the time to go back and listen because there are principles in every episode that we want to have in place.

What is the most fundamental thing we need to know in order to be able to conquer our unseen enemies? This one fundamental thing that if we do not have an understanding of it in place, we will never prevail against the enemy because we won’t have any authority. Without a belief in this one thing, everything else we think we know has nothing to support it? You might be thinking Jesus, or the crucifixion or the resurrection. Those are great answers, but those answers still rest upon this one fundamental thing. This one thing is what the Lord revealed to me that He wanted us to discuss as we step into 2023.

For the answer, let’s see what Paul tells the Ephesians in Chapter 4. This past summer I visited Ephesus and in the next weeks we will be sharing our visit there on our YouTube Channel, so if you want to see that check out “Life Journey with Dawn Simmons”. So Ephesians, Chapter 4. The Chapter is titled, Unity and Maturity in the Body of Christ. Let’s start at verse 4, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, (and this is the part where we are going to focus,) one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. That’s it guys, one God, and through Him, we have Jesus and the Holy Spirit. There is a lot of confusion out there on who God is, and therefore who Jesus is. We have to know that. We have to know with every ounce of our being that our world, our universe was created exactly the way God describes it to Moses in the book of Genesis. We have to know without any hesitation that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of the prophesies in the Old Testament of a Savior. We have to know without question that the Holy Spirit is the complete and perfect Helper Jesus tells us is coming to us once he was transfigured. All of these things we have to know as well as we know our own voice, our own face, our own name.

Why are we talking about this now? You would have thought this message I would have started off with at the launch of this podcast. No, it wasn’t time yet. All of the episodes prior to this one were to lay a groundwork, to show you and tell you and for some, to help you clean things out, recognize and identify what is happening in your life and your house. We will continue to build on that groundwork and expose the enemy so we can evict him, but we have so much more we can do and it starts with our relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

In order to be able to move forward in understanding what happens in the Spirit Realm, we have to be solid in our understanding of who God is, who Jesus is and who the Holy Spirit is in our lives, in the world and in the church. There is a massive amount of division in the church today. Part of that is because we don’t all believe in the true God of the Universe. We as a global Christian church don’t truly know who he is and that has to change and I am asking that to begin with you. I am going to ask you to make some changes this year that will develop your relationship with the Lord and if you commit to it, 2023 will be your biggest, your best your deepest relationship with the Lord you have ever had. Through that relationship we will be able to develop the gift of discernment. We will be able to focus this year on recognizing the enemy working in your life early, before he has a chance to cause damage. Developing your relationship will help you discern the Lord’s voice through all others. Can you say with certainty that you know when the Lord is talking to you, and that every time it is Him, not you? Maybe you can’t hear the Lord yet. I can teach you about every single demon that exists, at least once the Lord reveals them all to me, but how much better to be able to hear the Lord and begin to move as the Holy Spirit directs.

The episodes this year will cover numerous topics as we learn more about conquering the enemy and his tactics, develop our own discernment, develop our abilities to hear from the Lord and understand who He is and when the Holy Spirit is prompting you. We will also discuss topics like Curses and Blessings so we understand how our actions affect what occurs in the Spirit Realm. We will talk about the Courtrooms of Heaven and how the Accuser works against us. We have so much to discuss this year. Are you with me?

Now I said earlier that I was going to ask you to make some changes this year. I am not going to ask for a bunch of changes at once. I only ask two things of you for now. We will build as we go through 2023. Understand that I am not one who does New Years resolutions. I figure if it is a change I need to make, then I should have made it regardless of the date. So what I am asking is not a New Years Resolution. I am asking you to start a new life in 2023. In this new life I only ask 2 simple things of you. These two simple things are immensely important and if you do not do these 2 things, what we will be building will not have a foundation, so it won’t work. Two things.

First, I am going to ask you to take a minimum of 15 minutes a day, just 15 minutes, to read the Bible. If you do more, great, if you do none, then find 15 minutes at least. It is an investment of your time you will not regret. Now let’s say you can’t do everyday because of your schedule, then make up that 15 minutes on another day. The important part is consistency. So it needs to be on your calendar in some way that means you are consistently spending time, uninterrupted time reading. If you do not have an active Bible reading plan then do 1 of 2 things, start in Genesis or start in Matthew. If you put in 15 minutes you should be able to read about 2 chapters depending on if you read study notes. Even if you have read the Bible 10 times, still do it. We are building something here and reading is important. Or, get a different translation, get a different study Bible, do something differently. I am mentoring a theology student right now and I have asked the same thing of her and for her I actually said, do not read the study notes, just read for relaxation. Can you do that? Can you put in 15 minutes of reading time each day or a consistent equivalent depending on your schedule? As long as it’s multiple times throughout the week, not all on one day, it won’t have the same effect if it’s a weekly long read. So can you do that? I am just going to assume you said yes and move on to the second ask.

So second. I am asking for another 15 minutes. This time, however, I ask that you just pray. Now we are not talking about 15 minutes of praying for other people, 15 minutes of praying for your needs, or 15 minutes of praying for that new job you want. Nothing like that. I want you to just pray and speak to the Lord from the heart. We aren’t asking for anything, we are just spending time with Him. If my grandfather were still alive, I would love 15 minutes of a conversation from the heart. If my sister were still alive I would love 15 minutes of conversation from the heart. Although, in both cases I am sure I would be asking questions about heaven, so maybe that wasn’t a good example, but I think you get my point. Just be with Jesus, no agenda, just be. You can even spend that 15 minutes just singing to Him if you want, it’s about quality time. I want you to get that in as a habit. For some people, they spend their commute time as their alone time. Just do it. This one, however, I don’t want you to double up on other days. This one should be done everyday no exceptions. You will need this later. We are developing habits. In order to know when you are hearing the Holy Spirit as we move forward, this is necessary. Are you with me?

That’s it. That’s all I ask of you and I guarantee if you do this consistently, you will see change happening. We are going somewhere with this and we are not doing it alone. Jesus will be walking with us this year as we develop our relationship with Him and no matter what you are going through, you will know He is with you.

Ok, so what do we need to have in place today to move forward and develop our relationship? This is essentially our Top Show Points.

1. Understand what Paul is saying in Ephesians 4:4-6. Take that scripture and pray on that this week if it will help you to focus on who God is in our lives, who Jesus is in our lives and who the Holy Spirit is in our lives.

2. Find 15 minutes a day for reading the Bible. Start reading and stay consistent. If you can do more, great, but at least start with the 15 minutes.

3. Find 15 minutes a day for prayer time, alone time with the Lord. Just sharing your heart and spending quality time with Him.

4. Commit to listening to this podcast because we are building our relationship with the Lord to be bigger and better and deeper than it has ever been before. Reminds me of that old song, deep and wide. I think I sang it in Sunday school as a kid. That’s the attitude we need to have right now, like a kid coming to the Lord to build our deep and wide. Anyhow, we will cover a variety of topics intended to develop discernment, gain knowledge in the Spirit Realm and know without a doubt when the Lord is speaking to you versus your own voice.

I want to leave you with a story, a miraculous story to encourage you to commit to what I am asking of you and move forward in developing your relationship this year.

I have shared with you that I mentor people and this particular woman we will of course call, Jane, came to me as pretty much a clean slate. No knowledge of the spirit realm, just wanted to learn more about the Bible and developing her relationship with the Holy Spirit. This was probably into the second year of working with her and I could see she was wanting to learn more about the spirit realm, so I began to share more with her and tell her about how powerful prayer can be and that in times of need, prayer can make anything possible. I don’t know how much I have shared with you about my gifts, but I will tell you now that I am a seer, I can see in the spirit realm and so I have shared with her my stories of what I have seen. When I mentor someone I share everything about an event so there is a complete understanding of how, when, where, why, whatever relates. All of that is important for development of the person. So the story begins with her and her family on a trip with their truck, a dually I think, pulling their 5th wheel I believe it was in Northern CA. They were in a remote area and they were in desperate need of gas. I shared in another podcast a similar story involving a gas station, which I am not sharing here, but if you heard it in the previous podcast you know what happened there and she knew that story. I know that story was pretty difficult to believe but when Jane was going through her situation here she remembered that story. At the time Jane was going through this, she was working on her faith. That is important to know. Anyhow, so they were in a remote area and the truck was on E, the stress was high as you can imagine. So Jane did the only thing she knew to do, she prayed. She prayed they would make it to a gas station, but she knew the nearest gas station was several miles a way, I want to say it was about 30 miles away. I shared with you the truck and trailer situation so if you are familiar with that setup, they were getting I want to say it was something like 8 miles to the gallon and they were already on E, so to get another 30 miles was not going to happen in the natural. But, Jane prayed. There literally was nothing else she could do in that situation. Her husband I think talked about parking and walking and that was just not a safe thing to do so she asked for the Lord to help them make it to the gas station. She took a stand on her faith and just believed. When we stand on our faith and just believe the Lord will be there for us to meet our needs, He will show up. It isn’t always the way we want it or how we think it should be, but He shows up. For Jane, the Lord showing up took the form of an angel, an angel that she could see in front of their truck pulling their truck. They were completely out of gas, but the truck was still moving forward at the same speed because this angel kept it moving. Jane had never seen an angel before and was completely astonished. I’m going on memory here but I believe Jane said it was about 15-20 minutes until they made it to a gas station. Once they made it, the angel was gone. I can tell you when Jane prayed, I don’t think she had any idea how the Lord would answer her prayer, she just knew he would.

I want that to be an encouragement to you that if you invest the time in the Lord, He will be there for you in ways you never imagined. Join me in 2023 to have this year be your biggest, best and deepest relationship with the Lord you have ever had let’s see how He moves in your life this year.

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, we just dropped a video from our Turkey travels on our YouTube Channel where we are doing a series on the 7 churches Jesus sends a message to in the Book of Revelation. Check it out!

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

Dawn Simmons 12/24/22 Dawn Simmons 12/24/22

Series 7 of 7: Overcoming the Spirit of Worry, Ep 25

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are finishing our 7-part series this week as we close out 2022. We started the series discussing the Spirit of Bitterness, we've also talked about the Spirit of Strife, the Spirit of Impatience and the Spirit of Accusation, the Spirit of Insecurity and last week was the Spirit of Cursing. For our final week we are going to be discussing the Spirit of Worry. This is a demonic spirit who frequently hangs in the background until it can permeate our lives day and night. The series focused on 7 demons common in our lives and we addressed them openly and focused on understanding them and evicting them as we end 2022. The plan was to enable us to start 2023 with a new heart for the Lord, and the plan got even better as the Lord shared what He wanted for our focus. This week we will discuss the last demon in the series, worry. Next week we will have a wonderful new beginning as we enter into 2023.

To remind you how this series began, as I sat down to hear from the Lord on specifically what content He wanted included, it became clear He wanted me to address the marriage between Him and His church. This is what He asked me to share with you, these are His words for you, not mine.

"There are mainstay areas that need to be cleared out so people can move on and develop their time and relationship with Me in a new way and rid themselves of their heavy burdens and areas that have controlled them or limited them. Break chains and release them for more. My love is waiting to heal deep wounds. Some will think it cannot be done, but they are closing their heart and mind and believing the same lies the devil told Eve and created the first divide. I came to create a bridge over all divides until the divide can be resolved once and for all. You are to show people there is a bridge, they are to take a step onto it and I will meet them there. That's all I ask. Some will walk farther than others, it doesn't matter, I'm on the bridge waiting for everyone."

The Spirit of Worry is a strongman and a quiet spirit. It wants to work in the background to eat away at us slowly before we realize it has a foothold. Not every circumstance of worry is a demonic attack or is indicative of a demonic influence. Again, we don't have a demon around every corner but there are some instances where the demon of worry is hard at work and we can fall prey to the manipulation. So let's talk more about the demon of worry, who hangs out with it and how to know when we are just being worrisome (which we still need to change) versus demonization.

The Spirit of Worry will take those deep things in our hearts and use them to mentally, emotionally and physically cripple us to do or not do what is necessary to move through our worry. Often with the Spirit of Worry you will find the Spirit of Fear, the Spirit of Anxiety, Dread and the Spirit of Apprehension. They all work well together to paralyze us and keep us from hearing from the Lord. I want to share with you some indications that you are experiencing demonization or the beginnings of demonization which is the influence of the spirit of worry and its associates.

1. Unable to sleep: This attack at night is intended to inhibit our rest to keep us imbalanced. If they can deprive us of enough sleep, then we are not able to think clearly and it will affect other areas of our lives significantly. Often the use of nightmares will keep us from wanting to sleep.

2. Unable to eat: This attack is meant to position us to begin to have cognitive and physical issues and begin breaking us down physically. We become more vulnerable and unable to fight or even defend ourselves.

3. Unable to make decisions or process thoughts logically: Attacking our decision making and thought process will keep us from remaining in reality and ultimately, we will not maintain our responsibilities and that will affect others around us. Confusion and Paranoia could begin to creep in over time.

4. Unable to control emotions: Worry and its associates can position us to feel that everything is coming against us and we cannot stand. When we have no composure, we are weak and cannot defend ourselves or identify

5. Isolation from Others: Pulling back and no longer having social support is a huge red flag! You become more vulnerable when you are on your own and you will begin to believe the lies the enemy tells you because you will begin to lose perspective.

Many times when we are struggling with worry over a situation, loss of a job, a struggling marriage, health of a family member, trying to find a place to live, those are all relatable. We all understand how stressful those situations can become. We ask for prayer, we talk to our friends or our pastor, those are life events. That's not really what we are talking about here. You could have lost your job and as a result you are so worried about feeding your family you can't sleep not can you eat. That is understandable, we should still turn to the Lord in all circumstances, but we would expect those life situations to be temporary not prolonged. I know marriages may be in turmoil for years and therefore prolonged, but there is generally something behind that situation other than the spirit of worry. What we are talking about here are situations where the spirit of worry is allowed freedom beyond the temporary situations to the prolonged.

As I prepare this episode I have had a situation in my own life that if I did not have the relationship with the Lord that I have, I would have easily been in a situation where I was filled with worry, anxiety and uncertainty.

I've shared before about my eldest son this past year, he was 26 at the time. For those who haven't heard the podcasts where I share some of the story or don't remember, I will give a quick explanation. In the beginning of March 2022, my son went to an in-person work event and unfortunately like so many people, got COVID. While he has always been healthy, so no comorbidities or anything to indicate there might be any issues, he did get a really intense cough that lingered for weeks. Once he finally got to where he felt better, it was April 2nd, he went to get a haircut and physical therapy for his neck because he was feeling intense pain in the back of his neck. In the hours following that therapy appointment, he had a major stroke. The month of April was 3 brain surgeries, 3 weeks in ICU, some intense moments surrounding one of the surgeries specifically where everyone thought he was not going to make it through the surgery. It was a very difficult time, I never missed a day by his side to help him as he navigated being intubated, being restrained against his will, learning to walk again, regaining his memory of what year it is, where he lived and even who he was. There were some really sweet moments of realizations as we shared pictures with him of his life, his dogs, and the music he likes. In many ways he grew up again before my eyes because in the beginning stages he was very childlike. From ICU he went straight to rehab to learn how to dress, shower and all the things he needed to be able to do to take care of himself safely. He progressed well and transitioned to the use of a walker and then was released to continue to recover at home. We knew that the stint that was placed in his brain on one side was working but we also knew the right side of his brain was receiving no blood. There are still a few side effects periodically and a handful of things he won't be able to do again, like ride a roller coaster, which is fine.

So, this past Wednesday, he went in for the surgeon to look and see how his brain has accepted the stint, how the right side was doing, how the 2 front arteries were fairing. I learned from the first day he arrived at the ER, which was April 3rd, that I needed to trust what the Lord said about the outcome but also be prepared for whatever happens until you get to the outcome. The events of a circumstance do not dictate the outcome. As soon as I found out he was in the ER I asked the Lord about it and He told me that he would survive and he would come out of it even better. I never really clued in on the use of the words "he will survive", I actually just took it as the Lord saying he would be okay. It wasn't until 6 hours later that I realized something was really wrong and this was a life-threatening situation for him. At that moment, I knew I had the Lord telling me, he would survive and as we went through all of the events I described, and some of them were very, very intense, difficult moments, I just knew no matter what, he was going to survive and be better than he was. So fast forward to this past Tuesday night, the night before his procedure I was spending time with the Lord. The Lord pointed out that my hear was heavy. He told me to let go of it, the heaviness was not mine to bear. He also told me that my son was His and He adored him. A few minutes later my son called with an updated time to be at the hospital, and we prayed. I felt so much better afterwards. The Lord comforted me, even though I didn't bring it up to Him and I heard from my son pretty immediately and was able to pray over him which was relaxing. I know my son was somewhat uncomfortable and apprehensive with the procedure and not knowing what to expect and the prayer helped him.

I want to share what is going on in my life and know the Lord specifically wanted this episode to be done this week. I did this entire series in the order the Lord gave me and for me, being in a situation where I am having to reflect on a very intense and faith challenging period of my life was not comfortable. I knew worry, anxiety, fear, dread and apprehension were not far off but I had to not allow it to preoccupy my time and still stand on what the Lord gave me months ago as the final word over this entire situation. I am not telling you anything I am not walking myself. Life has moments where we are scared, we don't know or understand what is happening. I want to help you be prepared for anything. I want you to rely on the Lord and seek Him in all circumstances, the good and the bad. Because when the unexpected comes, you will naturally lean into Him and get guidance and understanding. Trusting in Him is the beginning of life.

To tackle worry, I have put together 6 steps to help you rid yourselves of the influence of the Spirit of Worry. You can use these same steps for any of the other Spirits as well, Anxiety, Fear, Dread, Apprehension. Applying these 6 steps to the temporary situations will provide support from the Lord but also prevent it all from becoming prolonged worry situations. When we allow the enemy a place in our lives, we give it the legal right to influence your life in those places.

6 Steps to Rid ourselves of the influence from the Spirit of: Worry, Fear, Anxiety, Dread, Apprehension

1. Acknowledge it: Admitting that you have the issue with worry is important so you can begin the eviction process. Hiding it or not being willing to admit it allows it the right to remain and it will continue to build.

2. Rebuke! Rebuke! Rebuke!: Tell the enemy it has to leave in Jesus' name. You have to be willing to evict all of it. Take control of the situation, you have the authority not them.

3. Repent: Turn to the Lord for your support to live by what the Word says, not what the enemy says. Use scriptures.

a. Psalm 56:3, "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you."

b. Proverbs 10:24, "what the wicked dread will overtake them; what the righteous desire will be granted."

c. Isaiah12:2, Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation."

4. Understand: Take some time and begin to identify what and why you allowed yourself to be ruled by worry. How long has it been going on? How did you feed it? Ask the Lord to reveal to you ways He can guide you. This is important so you can discern when it is creeping up again so you can rebuke it again and again.

5. Release it to the Lord: Give it all to Him and do not allow yourself to hold on to any worry.

a. 1 Peter 5:7, "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

b. Matthew 6:27, "Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

c. Matthew 6:25-26, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

d. Matthew 6:33, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

6. Replace it: Worry is a failure to Trust God, so we need to replace worry with Trust

a. Isaiah 26:4 "Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself is the Rock eternal."

b. Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."

c. Psalm 56:4, "In God, whose word I praise-in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me."

d. Isaiah 26:3, "You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you."

e. Romans 15:13, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the holy Spirit.

I hope this episode has helped you in some way. The Lord wants to meet us at the bridge. He can heal and take away all the heaviness weighing us down in our lives, but we have to step towards him. If you know someone who might benefit from this series, please share it with them. These are life changing conversations, and it can change their lives if they are willing.

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

· We are continuing our focus on our 7-part series for the next 2 weeks, which is the remainder of 2022. We started the series discussing the Spirit of Bitterness, then the Spirit of Strife, Impatience, Accusation and Insecurity. This week we discussed the spirit of Cursing.

· A few weeks ago I sat down to hear from the Lord on specifically what content He wanted included, it became clear He wanted me to address the marriage between Him and His church. I shared what He wanted me to share with you.

· The Spirit of Worry is a strongman and a quiet spirit. It wants to work in the background to eat away at us slowly before we realize it has a foothold.

· Often with the Spirit of Worry you will find the Spirit of Fear, the Spirit of Anxiety, Dread and the Spirit of Apprehension. They all work well together to paralyze us and keep us from hearing from the Lord.

· Indications that you are experiencing demonization or the beginnings of demonization which is the influence of the spirit of worry.

o Unable to sleep:

o Unable to eat:

o Unable to make decisions or process thoughts logically:

o Unable to control emotions:

o Isolation from Others:

· We are talking about situations where the spirit of worry is allowed freedom beyond the temporary situations. Applying these principles to the temporary will provide support from the Lord but also prevent it from becoming prolonged worry that gives the enemy the legal right to influence your life.

· Gave you the story of my life this week with my son and his procedure following his stroke earlier this year

· 6 Steps to Rid ourselves of the influence from the Spirit of: Worry, Fear, Anxiety, Dread, Apprehension

o Acknowledge it:

o Rebuke! Rebuke! Rebuke!:

o Repent: Psalm 56:3, Proverbs 10:24, Isaiah12:2

o Understand:

o Release it to the Lord: 1 Peter 5:7, Matthew 6:27, Matthew 6:25-26, Matthew 6:33,

o Replace it: Isaiah 26:4 Proverbs 3:5, Psalm 56:4, Isaiah 26:3, Romans 15:13,

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, we just dropped a video from our Turkey travels on our YouTube Channel where we visited the ruins of Sardis, one of the 7 churches Jesus sends a message to in the Book of Revelation. Check it out!

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

Dawn Simmons 12/18/22 Dawn Simmons 12/18/22

Series 6 of 7: Overcoming the Spirit of Cursing, Ep 24

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are continuing our focus on our 7-part series for the next 2 weeks including this week, which is the remainder of 2022. We started the series discussing the Spirit of Bitterness, we've also talked about the Spirit of Strife, the Spirit of Impatience and the Spirit of Accusation and last week the Spirit of Insecurity. This week we are going to be discussing the spirit of Cursing. This one is different because I want to discuss how it works around us and comes at us through others and how to respond. This series focuses on 7 demons that are so common in our lives that I want to address them openly and focus on understanding them and evicting them as we end 2022. The plan is to enable us to start 2023 with a new heart for the Lord, but the plan got even better which I will share again in a moment as a refresh. With 1 weeks left after this week, the last demon we will be addressing is Worry. Then on week 8, we will have a wonderful new beginning as we enter into 2023.

The conversation we are going to have about the Spirit of Cursing is not going to cover specific Curses. There is a separate series next year about Curses and Blessings we will be going through, but that is different than our discussion here on the Spirit of Cursing coming at us. I just wanted to get that out of the way at the beginning so there won't be any confusion on our focus now.

The Spirit of Cursing is a strongman and a very loud spirit. Words are their weapon and they use them very well to illicit pain. The Spirit of Cursing is very controlling. It uses fear tactics, manipulation and plays on weakness to illicit the outcome it is seeking. Primarily the outcome is division and instability. When believers are in one accord, miracles can happen, movements of the Holy Spirit can happen, but when we are divided and arguing amongst ourselves, we are unable to come together for the glory of God. Let's step back a minute and not even look at things from a believer's perspective. Look at our country, our world. Look at all the issues we are having we were not having 5 years ago. Barely 3 years ago when we were all beginning to head into a lockdown we never saw coming, our countries, nearly every country in the world, was in a more stable place. Let me tell you more about the Spirit of Cursing and then let's talk about who is having the greatest influence over our countries, our world, right now. This is not a political discussion; this is a Spiritual discussion.

The Spirit of Cursing uses Blasphemy, so insulting or a lack of respect toward God. It goes deeper than that but at a high level that's what we are referring to here. There are Spirits who promote coarse jesting, which is the use of our words that cross a line of what we generally consider to be appropriate. Coarse jesting uses racist words, hateful words, sexual innuendo to communicate. The Spirit of Cursing will use the Spirit of gossip, the Spirit of criticism, backbiting, the Spirit of mockery, belittling others as a tactic, and railing which is protesting or complaining angrily about something or someone. We don't use that term a lot, but I'm sure most of have experienced it at some point.

This Spirit of Cursing is a master at using words, words as a sharp blade, a weapon to tear apart everyone. Proverbs 12:18, "The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing." It doesn't matter who you are, what side you are on, the differences between us do not matter because the Spirit of Cursing does not care about our differences or our commonalities. This demonic spirit only cares about one thing and that is using words to tear each other apart. A demon has to create pain and chaos in our lives, that is their job and if they do not, they pay a price for that. Do you think that satan is telling his demons, "hey, guys, it's ok, you'll do better next time, just keep trying." No, it doesn't work like that. They are spirits of torment and that is their job against us. There is no Christmas party coming up for them or a New Years celebration for a job well done this year. A demon's fate is no better than ours if we are lost in the world. So now let's talk about the world, our countries. We have people in 11 countries listening here and we are all experiencing the same turmoil. Satan doesn't have favorites, there is no country that gets less attention. Even Iran, a country without Christianity for the most part is being torn apart by their own evil issues. Satan has no favorites he wants to spare from his wrath.

I want to make sure we understand how words work so well. Words instill fear. How many people are immobilized due to threats of violence? Violence everywhere has increased. Words turn into action. Our words matter. Our words carry power and authority. Our words produce results. Proverbs 18:21 tells us this, "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit." In this proverb, tongue refers to our words but notice how it ends. In reference to fruit, it doesn't say those who love it will eat its good fruit. It says fruit. So if you are spewing words of death and destruction, like we see in coarse jesting, gossiping, backbiting, railing all these demonic influences that associate with the Spirit of Cursing, then you can expect the fruit of death as a result.

Have you ever had someone say something to you that was rude, mean spirited, you knew they really meant it and they were taking a stab at you but then they smiled and said, "oh I was just joking" usually followed up by a "don't take things so serious" which is also improper grammar but that's not my point here. Well, do you know the Bible has a message for us about that very issue. Proverbs 26: 18-19, "Like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbor and says, 'I was only joking!'" That behavior in the person behaving this way is likely demonically influenced if they are doing it repeatedly. In my experience when it has been directed at me it was motivated by jealousy. I remember when I was younger, I have had a corporate career since 1991, and back in the 90's "business casual" was just coming into being so this was before that. There was a group of us, at about 10 am or so we always took a few minutes to head down and get coffee or whatever and chit chat. On this particular day, I was wearing a dress, it was a pink dress, not hot pink, but professional bright conservative pink if there is such a thing. Anyhow, I was wearing heels, probably something pink because back then I was strict about matching. I've relaxed a bit these days, but anyhow that's what I was wearing on this day. Now we are talking probably 1993, it was before the Northridge earthquake in '94 and before my first child in '95. There was a woman in the group, if you worked on the 5th floor you were welcome to join us, we didn’t care if we knew you or not. The 5th floor was different than the rest of the building so 5th floor folks stayed together for the most part. Anyhow, Linda was her real name, I usually say Jane but this was almost 30 years ago so I feel confident no one will know who she is, anyhow, Linda seemed to not really care for me. I always assumed she had things going on in her life and was directing or misdirecting her jealousy at me and on this day she proved me right. She looked at me as she sat opposite me at the table and said "I can't wait until you have children and your baby spits up all over your pretty dresses." Then she gave a little chuckle as if to say, just kidding. I looked at her, gave a moment to pause because I had to ask myself if she really just said that, and then I just said, "oh", looked away and became a part of another conversation and distanced myself from her from that moment forward. I never worried about her gossiping about me or any backbiting, I didn't think anyone would join her in it so I just never engaged with her afterwards. She showed me her character and I didn't like it and I wasn't going to be a part of whatever she was trying to do. How she chose to engage with people and the words she used were reckless and as a result, people around her drifted away from her. That’s not the world we have today. Now everyone is so angry, spouting horrible things to each other and it is leading to much worse, it is escalating. This demonic influence is using us to tear each other apart. We need to remember that our weaknesses are our vulnerabilities with these demonic influences. They know our weaknesses. We need to be firm where firm is called for and dismiss those things that are not really aimed at us.

Let me give you a more recent example that illustrates being firm. This past summer we were in Turkey filming for our YouTube channel. On this particular day we were in Istanbul. We had a few hours of downtime and we decided to spend a couple of hours walking to places I wanted to see but not were not part of our filming itinerary. We were walking through a wide open area by Istanbul University when we were approached by a man because we stopped to look something up in our phone. Huge mistake, but unfortunately it was necessary. Being approached is nothing unusual, except that here there were no shops anywhere near us. He used the usual annoying tactics in trying to sell us something. This guy had books in English, history books and y’all don’t know this about me but I love ancient history, especially as it relates to the Bible, hence the YouTube Channel. Anyhow, Turkey was experiencing some financial issues as they still are so we were trying to buy only from people we liked if they had what we wanted. This guy, I didn’t like him at all but the books were ones I hadn’t seen elsewhere so I was somewhat interested in buying them and we began haggling over price. In Turkey we were dealing in 3 currencies: the Turkish Lira, the Euro and the American dollar. This guy wanted euro. We came to an agreement on price and as my husband was pulling out the cash he knew he had in his pocket, he pulled out the wrong currency by mistake. Before he could correct himself, this guy, we’ll call him Jerk instead of John, Jerk just went off on my husband with some very hateful, evil, belittling words that included a death curse stating he would become so sick he would be in the hospital before the end of day. It was the strangest encounter, and such an odd choice of words to say over 7 euro. I didn’t really care about the words, ok, they for sure irritated me but what invoked a response from me was the curse. Immediately I responded with an intensity and volume Jerk was not expecting from me. It escalated quickly between us and I did rebuke him and let him know he had better get away from us. What he did was not tolerated by us and we were not going to allow him to say those words over us in any way, shape or form. That was a risky move on my part but because as soon as the words of cursing over my husband’s life came out, I understood why I didn’t like this guy from the beginning and I saw the demonic influence he was trying to use in the situation. Jerk’s countenance changed, his posture shifted, he stepped in toward my husband, his eyes changed, and it happened in a split second when he saw the currency still coming out of my husband’s pocket. I watched the currency coming out of his pocket as well and I was about to say, “those aren’t the euro” but didn’t get to because Jerk immediately tore into him with his verbal assault and curse. That is a situation where I would say be firm. Don’t allow the enemy to have an opening, don’t be nice and say sorry and allow those words to hang out there over your life. No! Rebuke it and make sure the one attacking you understands those words will not be allowed here and will have no power over you. Shut it down with your authority. Words matter. When the enemy uses words against us, our words are more powerful, use the words from the Bible and come right back and tear him up with your sword. Don’t stop until the fight is over.

So how this encounter ended was with my husband trying to call me away while I was still verbally battling it out with this guy. I never used an inappropriate word, I used words the Lord provided. I will be completely transparent and explain that I was not happy with my husband trying to pull me back and I did explain that next time, let me stand, I will never back down in a spiritual fight like that. His concern, of course, was we were in a country not particularly favorable to Americans at times, and we were loud, we were very loud. At no time did I feel I was in danger, I knew where I was and what I was doing and why I was doing it. Within moments of me stepping away I turned around to make sure Jerk stayed back and that man was nowhere to be found. He literally disappeared and we were in a wide-open space. It would have taken him a few minutes to leave the area, but he was gone.

Understand that these encounters happen every day. We need to recognize and take seriously the words that are spoken over us, even by ourselves. Don’t say anything over yourself that is negative or invites or allows the enemy to operate in that negative over you. Our words matter. If you are in a situation where responding like I did in Istanbul is not appropriate, which in reality is probably most situations, you aren’t going to yell at someone but they spoke words over you, you can still rebuke it, you can still use scripture to counter attack without the other person even hearing it. You are not speaking to the person, it’s the demon influencing the person, so you can whisper it, you can mouth it, just address it. Don’t let the enemy speak over you without you shutting it down.

So what if this is going on, or you think it is, but it’s not to your face or you just aren’t sure. Or what if you are dealing with this from a family member or someone from work where you have to be around them consistently? What if you have no support? I hear this a lot and it can feel very defeating. Here is how you can handle it and know that the Lord is going to intervene.

1. Ask the Lord to reveal the truth in the situation. We want to bring the dark to the light.

2. Ask the Lord if there is anything that you have done that has allowed the enemy to work in your life.

a. Repent and ask for forgiveness if the Lord reveals anything to you

b. Rebuke the enemy and use your scriptures

c. Pray quietly whenever you are in the presence of the person with which you are having the issue

3. Set aside time each day with your scriptures to pray and seek wisdom for how to proceed if this is ongoing until the Lord guides you to resolution

a. Document prayers and answered prayers for testimony and to build your faith

Jesus continually had to battle against the Spirit of Cursing by the Pharisees while he traveled throughout his ministry, and to a lesser degree by the Sadducees while he was in Jerusalem. They continually blasphemed against Him. They criticized him, plotted against him, mocked him railed at him, spread lies to anger the crowd and tried to trap him and trick him into saying or doing the wrong thing. Jesus stood his ground and was firm. He knew the Word and he used it.

In Matthew 12, the Pharisees accused Jesus of being in cohorts with satan. He responded and his final words to them on that subject is this in verse 36, "But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” So know that Jesus knows what we say and what is being said to us. Trust Him to help you through a situation and take a step on that bridge.

I hope this has been helpful to you. If you know anyone who is experiencing any of the issues we are addressing in this 7 part series, please share this podcast. Addressing these demonic influences and getting them out of our lives is life changing if we are willing.

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

· The Spirit of Cursing is a strongman and a very loud spirit. Words are their weapon and they use them very well to illicit pain. The Spirit of Cursing is very controlling. It uses fear tactics, manipulation and plays on weakness to illicit the outcome it is seeking.

· This Spirit of Cursing is a master at using words, words as a sharp blade, a weapon to tear apart everyone.

· Used scriptures: Proverbs 12:18, Proverbs 18:21

· Proverbs 26: 18-19, gave you the story of Linda who didn't like me very much or my dresses apparently

· We need to be firm where firm is called for and dismiss those things that are not really aimed at us.

· Gave example of Jerk who placed a curse of death over my husband in Istanbul and that was an example of being firm and we talked about when to be firm.

· We talked about how to handle a person coming at you with these demon tactics when it's a family member of a coworker

1. Ask the Lord to reveal the truth in the situation. We want to bring the dark to the light.

2. Ask the Lord if there is anything that you have done that has allowed the enemy to work in your life.

a. Repent and ask for forgiveness if the Lord reveals anything to you

b. Rebuke the enemy and use your scriptures

c. Pray quietly whenever you are in the presence of the person with which you are having the issue

3. Set aside time each day with your scriptures to pray and seek wisdom for how to proceed if this is ongoing until the Lord guides you to resolution

§ Document prayers and answered

· We talked about Jesus and how he was firm when dealing with the Spirit of Cursing coming at him through the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

· Matthew 12:36

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

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

Dawn Simmons 12/11/22 Dawn Simmons 12/11/22

Series 5 of 7: Overcoming the Spirit of Insecurity, Ep 23

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are continuing our focus on our 7-part series for the next 3 weeks including this week, which is the remainder of 2022. We started the series discussing the Spirit of Bitterness, we've also talked about the Spirit of Strife, the Spirit of Impatience and the Spirit of Accusation. This week we are going to be discussing the spirit of Insecurity. This is a hard one for many of us to evict so it is important to discuss. This series focuses on 7 demons that are so common in our lives that I want to address them openly and focus on understanding them and evicting them as we end 2022. The plan is to enable us to start 2023 with a new heart for the Lord, but the plan got even better which I will share again in a moment as a refresh. With 2 weeks left after this week, the 2 demons we will be addressing in the next 2 weeks are: Worry, and Cursing. Then on week 8, we will have a wonderful new beginning as we enter into 2023.

The Spirit of Insecurity is a quiet spirit. Most of us experience insecurity in some area at some level. We generally don't share that feeling of insecurity with others, we keep it to ourselves, sometimes deep inside and that can allow it to grow. Our insecurities can also trigger temptations that produce bad fruit if we allow the temptations to develop to fruition, no pun intended. We need to acknowledge the consequences for our bad choices and be honest about when we lack self-control versus when we are being demonized. In both cases, we need to be responsible for evicting the enemy when we are being demonized as well as developing self-control. This becomes more challenging when we are keeping our insecurities to ourselves versus seeking support. Let's dig deeper into the Spirit of Insecurity so we can understand how he operates and who he operates with against us.

The Spirit of Insecurity is a strongman demon. You will likely see the demon or also referred to as the Spirit of Inferiority, self-pity, the spirit of loneliness, timidity, the spirit of shyness, inadequacy and the spirit of ineptness working together with Insecurity. Once the spirit of insecurity has a foothold, accusation can easily begin to operate as well. One demon we will be discussing next week, Cursing will also be able to easily maneuver its way into our lives if we don't recognize it working to influence us.

I want to take a minute and discuss something I think is important to circle back to because I haven't discussed it in several episodes. We don't ever want to live our lives thinking there is a demon around every corner or that demons are responsible for every bad thing in our life or give excuses for our behavior that a demon is responsible and not us. I talk about these demons or spirits and explain who they will associate with so we can discern, not excuse. Demonization is real and I want to respect the difference between demonization and our lack of self-control or willingness to maintain control. I hope that makes sense because we never want to be about excuses.

Ok, back to Insecurity. We are going to go through some real examples of people dealing with Insecurity and how it has entangled their lives and reveal what the Bible tells us about it.

I want to share with you a conversation recently that really, really bothered me. The reason I am sharing it with you is because I want you to be aware that there are people out there claiming to be Christian and saying things like this that lead others astray. We need to know that this sort of heresy, blasphemy, lie, evil, misguided, lost and incredibly stupid theology exists, yes I said stupid and even though I have a chance to change it before you hear this, I am not going to change it. A new believer, who was struggling, asked for evidence supporting the existence of Christ and Christianity as a whole. Now I say new believer only because that is what he called himself. In my opinion, you cannot ask that question and be a believer at the same time. You either believe Christ existed and died for your sins or he did not. Black or White here, no gray. I would never say this to this new believer, it just tells me more about what he is going to need as a he develops a relationship with Jesus in order to stand strong. Anyhow, he was asking for evidence because there is an insecurity in his understanding and beliefs. This is exactly what this demon wants to do, have you question Jesus' very existence. If he didn't exist, he can't be your savior. While I am happy that this guy was reaching out and asking for help, it brings to mind the parable Jesus gave us in Matthew 13 about the seed falling on rocky ground and dying out soon. I want to point this out so you can be mindful of this going on around you to help new believers develop. Now let me tell you about the answer he got that I hope you find as scary as I did coming from someone who is also claiming to be Christian. Understand this is not attack fellow Christians day, but it is discern demonic influence in Christian beliefs day. Ok, so this is the response…so remember the question was asking for evidence supporting the existence of Christ and Christianity…the answer was this… he was guided to instead of look for this evidence, develop his relationship with God, I agree with that except that if I were to be more specific, it’s a relationship with Jesus, since Jesus tells us in John 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Let me just get to the part that I thought I misunderstood when it was first said, "we must establish our relationship with the holy spirit and not take the bible as god's word but simply a book about god. This guy called it an important book, but it is not holy, not perfect and using it as a replacement for your relationship with god and the good sense god gave you is idolatry." That, my friends, is an entirely demonic response given to someone who does not know better. That is satan from the beginning to the end because it is designed to take us away from the Word. If we do not know the Word, we will forever be influenced by satan to draw us away. So let's see what God has to say about His Word. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." That's John 1:1.

So what would you do if you asked a question or heard someone ask the question and someone gave a response similar to the one above. It's not uncommon for the Christian community to ask questions of each other. We want to be able to have those relationships and mentor people, right. Well, if I got that response, I would say, I rebuke that, that is not the truth and then quote the scripture. You might think that is a bit harsh, but understand that response was purely demonic. At the end of every podcast I say, "we encourage you to have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and is required for the gift of spiritual discernment." You don't have to be a Bible scholar, Jesus isn't asking for that, some people unfortunately get intimidated by the Bible. You just have to read so you know, hey, what that guy said isn't right and go find in the Bible.. the truth. That is how we equip ourselves to know when the enemy is coming at us with lies. That is also how we defeat our own insecurities of lack of knowledge. Jesus always responded to satan with the correct use of scripture and so should we.

Ok, so we went on a slight tangent from where I was wanting to go, let's get back on track. Let's talk about a woman I know who reached out to me for help, we will, of course, call her Jane. Jane is in her 40's, never married, though she would like to be and is lonely. She does not have a stable income, or a stable home situation and is unable to maintain a job. Jane is demonized by the Spirit of Insecurity joined by inadequacy, ineptness and inferiority. There are others as well not a part of the Insecurity strongman, but Insecurity is one who controls a lot of what she does. She has a serious issue with self-pity, and to be completely transparent, has a victim mentality because she is unable to admit her faults. She has a lot of loneliness because she seeks her security in relationships with men, but not healthy relationships, primarily sexually driven so they don't last long and she is not valued by these men. Her self-worth is then affected. She is in a cycle that she has been unable to get out of on her own. There are not a lot of people out there who are demonized at the level of Jane. She is on the extreme end of the spectrum, but she gives us a clear picture of what can happen when it gets out of control. Ultimately, Jane has to be willing to work on the root causes that drive her behaviors and reactions. Jane is a deliverance case and in the time I have spent with her, we have been able to clear out lower level demons, but Jane has not yet been able to completely evict all her demonic influences. If you can, pray for her. The Lord knows her real name and he will know who you are referring to when you pray. Jane has a long road ahead of her because as soon as we are able to evict one demon, she instantly fills the void with something else that is not of the Lord. Insecurity is a lack of trust, a lack of confidence. The one thing in our lives we know we can count on is Jesus. Without the ability to trust in Jesus, we will not be able to grow. James tells it to us this way in James 1:6, "But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind."

One of my favorite scriptures I keep in my scripture journal is Jeremiah 17:7-8, "But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."

One of the best things you can do to rid yourself of Insecurity is read the Bible. If you read, you begin to know who God is, see the coming of Jesus, understand Jesus and understand the truth of our lives in Him. You will know why you feel the way you do about decisions you make and will be less influenced by anything that is not God's plan for your life. That is Security in Him.

How do we go from experiencing Insecurity to Security in Him, well, I have our 5 steps to Security in Him:

1. Acknowledge it: We have to be able to admit our insecurities and be willing to step outside of our comfort zone to change and develop. Make a list of all the areas where you know the spirit of Insecurity has impacted your life.

2. Understand it: Identify our insecurities and why we have them. What are our triggers. Do not accept the enemy lies as truth.

3. Repent: Rebuke the enemy and seek the Lord for guidance. Find a scripture to stand on for your rebuke such as Proverbs 3:5-6, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight." That scripture is relatively easy to remember but it speaks volumes as to your intentions and how you plan to anchor your life moving forward. The enemy already knows the scripture is true, by saying it in your rebuke, you are letting the enemy know you know it too.

4. Replace it: Our security comes from the Lord, we need to take all the areas the enemy previously occupied and submit them to the Lord. We want to ask the Lord to reveal the truth in all situations. Invite the Holy Spirit into the situation. If we are going to evict the enemy and his influence, we need to replace insecurity and fill ourselves with the truth and trust in what the Holy Spirit provides.

5. Be accountable: This step is important because Insecurity will quietly come back and try to pull you into being shy about your struggle. Find someone you can lean on to help you as you build and develop in strength. Meet with that person regularly. Make a plan to develop yourself in all those areas you know you have insecurities. Refer to the list you made in step 1. Tackle one at a time if it's a long list. Make it manageable.

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

· We are continuing our focus on our 7-part series for the next 3 weeks, which is the remainder of 2022. We started the series discussing the Spirit of Bitterness, then the Spirit of Strife, Impatience and Accusation. This week we are going to be discussing the spirit of Insecurity.

· The Spirit of Insecurity is a quiet spirit. Most of us experience insecurity in some area at some level. We generally don't share that feeling of insecurity with others, we keep it to ourselves, sometimes deep inside and that can allow it to grow.

· The Spirit of Insecurity is a strongman demon. You will likely see the demon or also referred to as the Spirit of Inferiority, self-pity, the spirit of loneliness, timidity, the spirit of shyness, inadequacy and the spirit of ineptness working together with Insecurity.

· We don't ever want to live our lives thinking there is a demon around every corner or that demons are responsible for every bad thing in our life or give excuses for our behavior that a demon is responsible and not us. I talk about these demons or spirits and explain who they will associate with so we can discern, not excuse.

· Example of people out there claiming to be Christian and saying things like this that lead others astray. The story of an unbiblical response referring to the bible as a book.

· John 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

· Importance of an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and is required for the gift of spiritual discernment." You don't have to be a Bible scholar, Jesus isn't asking for that, some people unfortunately get intimidated by the Bible. You just have to read so you know, hey, what that guy said isn't right and go find in the Bible.. the truth. That is how we equip ourselves to know when the enemy is coming at us with lies. That is also how we defeat our own insecurities of lack of knowledge. Jesus always responded to satan with the correct use of scripture and so should we.

· Example of Jane who is demonized by the Spirit of Insecurity joined by inadequacy, ineptness and inferiority.

· James 1:6, "But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind."

· Jeremiah 17:7-8, "But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."

· One of the best things you can do to rid yourself of Insecurity is read the Bible.

· 5 steps to Security in Him:

o Acknowledge it: We have to be able to admit our insecurities and be willing to step outside of our comfort zone to change and develop. Make a list of all the areas where you know the spirit of Insecurity has impacted your life.

o Understand it: Identify our insecurities and why we have them. What are our triggers. Do not accept the enemy lies as truth.

o Repent: Rebuke the enemy and seek the Lord for guidance. Find a scripture to stand on for your rebuke such as Proverbs 3:5-6, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight."

o Replace it: Our security comes from the Lord, we need to take all the areas the enemy previously occupied and submit them to the Lord. We need to replace insecurity and fill ourselves with the truth and trust in what the Holy Spirit provides.

o Be accountable: This step is important because Insecurity will quietly come back and try to pull you into being shy about your struggle. Find someone you can lean on to help you as you build and develop in strength. Meet with that person regularly. Make a plan to develop yourself in all those areas you know you have insecurities. Refer to the list you made in step 1.

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

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!

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

Dawn Simmons 12/4/22 Dawn Simmons 12/4/22

Series 4 of 7: Overcoming the Spirit of Accusation, Ep 22

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are continuing our focus on our 7-part series for the next for the next 4 weeks including this week, which is the remainder of 2022. We started the series discussing the Spirit of Bitterness, we've also talked about the Spirit of Strife and the Spirit of Impatience. This week we are going to be discussing the spirit of Accusation. This is a big one guys, and I know there are people out there struggling with this and don't even realize it's a demonic spirit that is demonizing them. This series focuses on 7 demons that are so common in our lives that I wanted to address them directly and really focus on understanding them and evicting them as we end 2022. The plan was to enable us to start 2023 with a new heart for the Lord, but the plan got so much better which I will share again in a moment as a refresh. With 3 weeks left after this week, the 3 demons we will be addressing in the next 3 weeks are: Insecurity, Worry, and Cursing, not necessarily in that order but that is the remaining 3. Then on week 8, we will have a wonderful new beginning as we enter into 2023.

The Spirit of Accusation is an incredibly ugly, ugly spirit. It works as both a quiet spirit at times as it leads us to attack ourselves and a loud spirit as it leads us to attack others. Let's dig a little deeper into who this Spirit of Accusation is and what they are about.

The Spirit of Accusation is a Stronghold demon. Accusation is a Spirit of the antichrist; it is a very powerful demonic spirit. Typically, you will find the Spirit of Judgment, the Spirit of Criticism and the Spirit of Faultfinding associated with Accusation. Remember there are a lot of associations in these 7 spirits we are discussing in this series, so you could find bitterness working to gain hold, Strife could appear due to Judgment, Criticism or Faultfinding. There are also frequently Religious spirits that will worm their way in to create conflicts.

Let's talk a bit about why the Spirit of Accusation is such a powerful Spirit. First, one of the names the Bible uses to describe and name Satan is our Accuser. One place we find this is Revelation 12:10, "Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down." This event is in the future, so during the past, which is part of our present, describes the accuser going before God day and night against us. The Accuser has invested a great deal of time in coming against us, so we need to understand how that impacts us and use discernment to rebuke it when it is happening.

Second, we need to understand that the Spirit of Accusation is a legalistic spirit. What does that mean exactly? Well, a legalistic spirit wants to look for the wrong in others to then present judgment or condemnation. The Spirit of Accusation will often use guilt or shame to get to us and bring us down. As a believer, the Spirit of Accusation will bring up our past sins, our old life and failures to bring us to a place of condemnation. The reason the Spirit wants to do this is to convince us that our past sins remain, and cause us to doubt that our sins have already been forgiven by the blood of Jesus. There are so many, too many Christians who have accepted Jesus as their savior that are still carrying their sins, carrying a burden they were never asked to carry. He died for us so that those sins would no longer be a part of our lives. If we allow the Spirit of Accusation to gain a foothold in our lives with this thinking, then we are telling Jesus that what He did for us is not good enough.

Where Christians get confused is understanding the difference between condemnation from the Accuser and conviction from the Holy Spirit. They are two entirely different events. Condemnation places our sin burden back on us. Condemnation tells us we have to do something to earn our forgiveness, works, acts, to make amends for our sins. Saddling us with tasks that are meant to get us to focus on the tasks or the sins. It heavily uses guilt and shame to tear us down and manipulate us to believe we are still not worthy. In doing this it creates a chasm in our relationship with the Lord. It will also then take those feelings and turn them on others. Using finger pointing techniques, and accusing others to not only bring you down, but anyone you can criticize, judge or find fault with, whether it is true or not.

The Holy Spirit works entirely different in us. The Holy Spirit uses conviction in our hearts to lead us from our sinful life, no matter how big or small, to Him. He uses His right and true ways to lead us to repentance and back in relationship with him. He does not accuse, that is not His way. He encourages and uses His loving ways to guide us on the right path. Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." Proverbs 3:6 tells us, "In all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight." The Bible us full of direction from the Lord that will lead us to success in Him. Think of it the way Proverbs 24:3 describes it, "By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures." We can't get that through condemnation of the enemy; we need to recognize condemnation versus conviction and correction.

Think about Job, he was an upright man, but the accuser was allowed to continually demonize him. He tried several tactics, but Job remained strong, not perfect, how many of us would. I can tell you I don't know that I would come close to maintaining the composure and faith of Job if I were in his position, but he remained steadfast to the Lord. If you haven't read the book of Job, it's a good read, it's long, know that going into it, but it's a good read.

Think about Joseph, he was wrongly accused of sleeping with or attempting to sleep with Potiphar's wife, and was wrongly imprisoned, that's after being sold by his brothers. He too remained steadfast and rebuked the attempts of the enemy to accuse him and take him into judgment against God or his brothers, or bitterness against the chief cupbearer for forgetting Joseph and leaving him in jail. Those stories are in Genesis 39 and 40.

Here is what Jesus had to say when speaking to the Pharisees, (a legalistic religious group in his day) in describing the Accuser in John 8:44, "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native tongue, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine, we'll call him John, was in a conversation with someone that he trusted. Both men are believers. In the conversation, John's well-meaning friend told him he thinks John is carrying around guilt and shame from something in his past. John considered this friend someone he trusted, so he couldn't think of any guilt or shame he was feeling but said he would pray about it. John spent 3 days, praying, asking the Lord, asking those close to him if he has ever alluded to or spoken of anything where he exhibited guilt or shame. John came up empty handed and was a little frustrated. John again went back to the Lord and wanted to know why the Lord wouldn't just let him know if this was an issue, he would gladly have dealt with it immediately if he had known it was an issue. He kept asking the Lord, what is it, Lord, I just can't find anything in my heart that feels this guilt or shame. John knew he wasn't perfect, but he had done a lot to change his life. He also knew that just 36 hours before this comment was made to him that he was helping someone else let go of their past and remind them that the cross took all of that away. That was how John lived his life. On day 5, John finally settled down enough to actually hear what the Lord had to say to him in response to his questioning and it was this, "The words I gave to your friend were meant to be an encouragement to you. They were presented to you not as I intended, but based on what was in his heart, not yours. It's ok, don't let it change your relationship with your friend."

John situation is unusual and unfortunate. Sometimes we say something to one another with the best intentions, not realizing we might be being used as a tool of the enemy to accuse us of things and even couch them directed toward our Christian friends. These are all tactics, ways the enemy will use to tear us down and get us to question who we are in Christ and how God sees us. John's friend meant zero harm. John knows that, but the enemy could have used this situation to trap John into getting upset with his friend as well. John didn't let that happen and understands that sometimes, even with the best intentions, people don't always get it right.

If you have someone gossiping about you, saying things to try to destroy your credibility, or blaming you continually for things you truly are not responsible for, then you are likely dealing with a Spirit of Accusation coming against you. On the other hand, if you find that you are the one criticizing, making accusations that are false, gossiping, keeping a record of wrongs, then you likely are being demonized and are enabling the Spirit of Accusation to use you and work through you to tear down others. If you are allowing yourself to be used, you will need to take responsibility for it.

6 Steps to Evict the Accuser

1. Acknowledge it: Identify if what you are feeling is condemnation or conviction. Confirm if what is being said is true or a false accusation. We have to be honest with ourselves here if we have a sin issue. This is also the point where we need to decide and take a stand that if it is false, we don't accept the lie as a truth.

2. Understand it: Identify condemnation tactics and why used? Have they worked in the past? If we are feeling convicted, make sure we understand biblically why we are having sin issues that need to be addressed.

3. Accept Conviction and correction: This is what we need from the Lord, so don't turn away, turn toward God even if we don't like it.

4. Repent: Break ties, Rebuke the enemy and prepare for the enemy to come back and attempt to demonize you again. They are waiting for you to be worn down and become weak. We want to rebuke in situations of both false accusations and any attempts to tempt us back into the sin we were participating in when we experienced conviction from the Holy Spirit. In both situations, we want to evict the enemy.

a. False Accusation: Rebuke the enemy for false accusations – name them (gossip, bitterness, jealousy, criticism)

b. Sin Conviction: Rebuke the enemies associated with your sin issues – name them. (addiction, jealousy, gossip )

5. Seek Forgiveness: Release it to the Lord: Take whatever occurred, whatever is triggering you and hand it over to Him and let go of it. This means forgiving yourself as well. Some people really struggle with this and that is telling the Lord his forgiveness isn't enough. Hand it over and let go of it.

6. Replace it: We want to ask the Lord to reveal the truth in all situations. Invite the Holy Spirit into the situation. If we are going to evict the enemy and his influence, we need to replace accusation and fill ourselves with what the Holy Spirit provides. Use your scriptures, here are two that reveal the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

John 15:26, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me."

John 16:13, "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come."

If you are struggling with replacing it, go back and check if you completed all the steps.

I hope this has been helpful to you, a lot of believers don't realize this Spirit is out there on the prowl as we read about in 1 Peter 5:8, "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." Accusation can devour us quickly if we do not recognize it and take our stand against it. If you know someone who would benefit from this series, please share this podcast. It can change their life if they are willing.

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

· We are continuing our focus on our 7-part series for the next 3 weeks, which is the remainder of 2022. We started the series discussing the Spirit of Bitterness, then the Spirit of Strife and the Spirit of Impatience. This week we are going to be discussing the spirit of Accusation.

· Accusation is a Spirit of the antichrist; it is a very powerful demonic spirit. Typically, you will find the Spirit of Judgment, the Spirit of Criticism and the Spirit of Faultfinding associated with Accusation. There are frequently Religious spirits that will worm their way in to create conflicts.

· The Spirit of Accusation is such a powerful Spirit.

o First, one of the names the Bible uses to describe and name Satan is our Accuser. One place we find this is Revelation 12:10

o Second, we need to understand that the Spirit of Accusation is a legalistic spirit. What does that mean exactly? Well, a legalistic spirit wants to look for the wrong in others to then present judgment or condemnation. The Spirit of Accusation will often use guilt or shame to get to us and bring us down.

· The Spirit of Accusation will bring up our past sins, our old life and failures to bring us to a place of condemnation. The reason the Spirit wants to do this is to convince us that our past sins remain, and cause us to doubt that our sins have already been forgiven by the blood of Jesus.

· Christians get confused is understanding the difference between condemnation from the Accuser and conviction from the Holy Spirit. They are two entirely different events.

o Condemnation places our sin burden back on us. Condemnation tells us we have to do something to earn our forgiveness, works to make amends. It heavily uses guilt and shame to tear us down and manipulate us to believe we are not worthy.

o The Holy Spirit works entirely different in us. The Holy Spirit uses conviction in our hearts to lead us from our sinful life, no matter how big or small, to Him. He uses His right and true ways to lead us to repentance and back in relationship with him. He does not accuse, that is not His way. He encourages and uses His loving ways to guide us on the right path. Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:16

· Additional scriptures we referenced: Proverbs 3:6, Proverbs 24:3

· Jesus gives us a description of the Accuser, satan, in John 8:44

· Gave you a story of my friend John dealing with a situation of someone saying something to him that was untrue and how he handled it.

· 6 Steps to Evict the Accuser

o Acknowledge it: Identify if what you are feeling is condemnation or conviction.

o Understand it: Identify condemnation tactics and why used? Have they worked in the past?

o Accept Conviction and correction:

o Repent: Break ties, Rebuke the enemy and prepare for the enemy to come back and attempt to demonize you again.

o Seek Forgiveness: Release it to the Lord:

o Replace it: We want to ask the Lord to reveal the truth in all situations. Invite the Holy Spirit into the situation. If we are going to evict the enemy and his influence, we need to replace accusation and fill ourselves with what the Holy Spirit provides. John 15:26 and John 16:13

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

Have a great week!

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

Dawn Simmons 11/27/22 Dawn Simmons 11/27/22

Series 3 of 7: Overcoming the Spirit of Impatience, Ep 21

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are continuing our focus on our 7-part series for the next 5 weeks, which is the remainder of 2022. We started the series discussing the Spirit of Bitterness, we've also talked about the Spirit of Strife. This week we are going to be discussing the spirit of Impatience. The series focuses on 7 demons that are so common in our lives that I wanted to address them directly and really focus on understanding them and evicting them as we end 2022. The plan was to enable us to start 2023 with a new heart for the Lord, but the plan got so much better which I will share again in a moment as a refresh. With 4 weeks left, the 4 demons we will be addressing in the next 5 weeks are: Insecurity, Worry, Accusation and Cursing, not necessarily in that order but that is the remaining 4. Then on week 8, we will have a new beginning as we enter into 2023.

The Spirit of Impatience, I would consider this Spirit as a loud spirit. It starts out as a quiet spirit, but as it builds, it can't help but let itself be known whether it be in word or in action. Impatience is by definition, a lack of patience. I will say, not all impatience is a demonic influence, there is a difference between someone who has a lack of patience and someone who is demonized by the Spirit of Impatience. The Spirit of Impatience can demonize someone who is patient, so we need to understand both so we can identify when the Spirit of Impatience has made an appearance and is attempting to influence us and tempt us into actions that manifest demonization.

The Spirit of Impatience will generally be the Strongman and will often be accompanied by the Spirit of Agitation, The Spirit of Frustration, the Spirit of Intolerance, the Spirit of Resentment, the Spirit of Criticism. Impatience begins to have an influence over us, develops over time quietly and then pulls in one of these other demons to manifest even uglier behavior and that's where colorful behavior and the "loudness" becomes apparent.

When we become agitated, we start to see our actions speak by slamming things, throwing things, breaking things, speaking rudely. It's like a little volcano starts to percolate and if we can't get past it the explosion occurs. We talked about resentment and the role it can play when we discussed bitterness. These 7 demons in this series are entangled together so we will see them in multiple environments.

The Spirit of Criticism will frequently show up in marriages and other familial relationships. It is extremely common because people we spend the most time with will likely be the ones who we become impatient with if we are experiencing something over and over. As the Spirit of Impatience works to grate on us, percolating, the Spirit of Criticism is readying itself for that explosion, but it won't be a huge one-time Mt Vesuvius, it will be over time, smaller eruptions of tearing someone else apart through our words. The end result is the same as if it were Mt Vesuvius, you are killing the people around you with your harsh words.

The Spirit of Intolerance has gained immense power in the last 5 years. It snuck up on us and now there is a strong Spirit of Impatience across the globe that produces a level of Intolerance that is deadly. The enemy has raised up people all over the world with a Spirit of Impatience for what they want, and they want it now. If we don't all agree with whatever it is they want, then the Spirit of Intolerance comes out and uses hate, twists everything to make it appear anyone and everyone is intolerant.

The Spirit of Frustration builds off Impatience, starting out quiet and then building to an eventual explosion as well. Unlike the Spirit of Criticism which tends to be more focused on specific targets, Frustration is directed everywhere. More of a blitzkrieg if you will.

I will readily admit that I am an impatient person. I do not have a Spirit of Impatience demonizing me, but I can for sure see where I have had that in the past. A lot of times you will see the demonization occurring more in type A personalities. It is easy for this Spirit to attack these people because there are easy opportunities, like hanging fruit. I used to be a Type A personality when I was younger. I still have the tendencies, but being more experienced in life, having more wisdom, I know when to step back and work with things out of my control rather than try to fight against things out of my control that I don't like. I will never be a Type B personality. My sister was more type B, it always struck me at how opposite we were with the same parents, same DNA essentially in terms of our genetics. We could not have been more opposite in personality, appearance, interests. She rode a motorcycle, had her leather ensembles. I enjoy the safety of the metal surrounding me in my car. I will say, my dad also forbade us to even sit on a motorcycle as a kid, they were too dangerous. So, imagine my surprise when my sister got a motorcycle, and then unbeknownst to me my dad gets one as well and I think they even rode together. I am digressing but the point I am making are that people change. So, if you find yourself dealing with impatience and you are not dealing with it as gracefully as you would like, you can change it. Whether it is due to demonization or not, we can all change.

Let's see what the Bible tells us about Impatience and how will you know if you are just impatient versus being influenced by the Spirit of Impatience. When we want to understand how the Lord sees impatience, we want to look for what the Bible says regarding patience, the virtues associated with what direction His truth guides us.

We will start off with the anchors that Paul gives us for Godly character, Galatians 5:22, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." If we had any doubt of the importance of patience, this should settle that. A Godly character includes patience.

Here is Paul again encouraging us in how to treat each other. Ephesians 4:2, "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love."

Psalm 37:7, "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes." How many people are praying and seeking an answer from the Lord, but won't wait patiently for Him to answer, instead move ahead in their own plan. It won't work that way.

Proverbs 14:29, " Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly." The Lord will give us great understanding, but this indicates one with a quick temper will not receive that and instead behaves foolishly.

Proverbs 15:18, "A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel." Same concept as the previous proverb. The temper invites strife.

Proverbs 16:32, "Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city."

This is one of my favorites, I quote it frequently. When I am waiting on the Lord, this is a good one as a reminder for myself. Also this is a great defensive and offensive weapon. If you feel the enemy provoking you or even your own will working against you, take authority over it all and use this scripture. Just because we don't think we have an answer, and I say that meaning the Lord may have responded but we missed it because we wanted what we wanted and were not open to what His best provides, but this will help to put things into perspective and cool your jets so to speak.

Romans 8:25, "But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

Romans 12:12, " Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Patient in affliction is master level self-control. We should strive to be at this level. When everything is out of your control and you need a movement from the Lord, but we are waiting on Him, master level patience at work.

1 Corinthians 13:4, " Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud." This is important for those dealing with a spirit of criticism. Generally, if you are criticizing it is because you think your way is better than someone else. Whether it is or not, pull back the criticism and allow the other person to have some free will, dignity and time to improve if they need to with good guidance.

Hebrews 6:15, "And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised." I love this scripture because it is evidence that if we wait on the Lord, he will come through. He has for centuries from Abraham to now.

2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." This one is always a good one to review because it essentially is reminding us that the Lord is patient with us as we make our mistakes and behave in ways dishonoring to Him and others. He doesn't yell at us, he corrects us, but He does it in a loving way and we need to exhibit the same in how we relate to others. I know we don't want the Lord to treat us the way we treat others at times.

Patience is mentioned so many times to us, and these scriptures are only a snapshot, but it is mentioned to us because it is a struggle. The enemy has many opportunities to use it against us if we let him. SO how can you tell the difference between just patience as an area we need to build up in our character or demonization? We are going to use the scripture as our guide.

1. In all cases, based on Galatians 5:22, we know that it is an area we need to build up in our character.

2. When our impatience is bringing in other sin areas, we can start to get an idea there is a demon influencing us.

a. Is your impatience leading you to argue and create conflicts with others?

b. Is your impatience beginning to create seeds of resentment toward others?

c. Does your impatience cause you to say things that tear others apart?

d. Is your impatience creating a chasm in your relationship with the Lord?

e. Do you behave in ways you are ashamed of or embarrassed by later?

f. Are you having to apologize for your behavior after the fact?

g. Does it cause you to behave in ways you wouldn't otherwise but for the impatience?

h. Are you creating divides in your marriage, family or any other relationships because of how you behave as a result of being impatient?

i. Do others avoid you or steer clear of certain conversations in your presence?

j. Do you ever feel like you are not able to control yourself when you get impatient?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you likely are experiencing some level of demonization. It will continue to grow if you are not willing to address it and make changes. If you answer no, but still want to improve how you handle impatience, here are 5 steps to begin change. It's very similar to strife, but

1. Acknowledge it: we can't pretend, others around us already know

2. Understand it: what is driving it, what relationships or areas trigger you

3. Address it: Think ahead, how will you stop yourself when you feel triggered? What action can you take as it occurs

4. Release it to the Lord: Take whatever occurred, whatever is triggering you and hand it over to Him and let go of it. Sometimes we hand it over and forget to let go of it.

5. Replace it: Impatience can be difficult to shift gears immediately, so you must first stop and be still. Invite the Holy Spirit to help you maintain control. You are working to shift from impatience to kindness and love. That's a huge shift for some so it will take time. If we are going to evict the enemy and his influence, we need to replace impatience and fill ourselves with what the Holy Spirit provides. Use your scriptures as you pray to help you gain strength. If you are struggling with replacing it, go back and check if you completed step 4.

We want to focus on and clear out these areas so we can have our path, our minds and hearts open to meet the Lord on the bridge. He can help us with anything we need when we are working to get to the bridge and deepen our relationship with the Lord.

I hope this has been helpful to you. If you know someone who is struggling with this, please share this podcast with them. It can change their life if they are willing.

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

· We are continuing our focus on our 7-part series for the next 5 weeks, which is the remainder of 2022. We started the series discussing the Spirit of Bitterness, then the Spirit of Strife. This week we are going to be discussing the spirit of Impatience.

· The Spirit of Impatience will generally be the Strongman and will often be accompanied by the Spirit of Agitation, The Spirit of Frustration, the Spirit of Intolerance, the Spirit of Resentment, the Spirit of Criticism.

· The Spirit of Impatience can demonize someone who is patient, so we need to understand both so we can identify when the Spirit of Impatience has made an appearance and is attempting to influence us and tempt us into actions that manifest demonization.

· Let's see what the Bible tells us about Impatience and how will you know if you are just impatient versus being influenced by the Spirit of Impatience. When we want to understand how the Lord sees impatience, we want to look for what the Bible says regarding patience, the virtues associated with what direction His truth guides us. Galatians 5:22, Ephesians 4:2, Psalm 37:7, Proverbs 14:29, Proverbs 15:18, Proverbs 16:32, Romans 8:25, Romans 12:12, 1 Corinthians 13:4, Hebrews 6:15, 2 Peter 3:9,

· So how can you tell the difference between just patience as an area we need to build up in our character or demonization? We are going to use the scripture as our guide.

· In all cases, based on Galatians 5:22, we know that it is an area we need to build up in our character.

· When our impatience is bringing in other sin areas, we can start to get an idea there is a demon influencing us. Asked several questions to flush out.

· 5 steps to begin to change our Impatience:

o Acknowledge it:

o Understand it:

o Address it:

o Release it to the Lord:

o Replace it:

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

Dawn Simmons 11/20/22 Dawn Simmons 11/20/22

Series 2 of 7: Overcoming the Spirit of Strife, Ep 20

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are continuing our focus on our 7-part series for the next 6 weeks, which is the remainder of 2022. We started the series last week discussing the Spirit of Bitterness. This week we are going to be discussing the spirit of Strife. The series focuses on 7 demons that show up so frequently in our lives that I wanted to address them head on and really focus on understanding them and evicting them as we end out our year. The plan was to enable us to start the 2023 new year with a new heart for the Lord, but the plan got so much better which I will share again in a moment as a refresh. The 5 demons we will be addressing in the next 5 weeks are: Insecurity, Impatience, Worry, Accusation and Cursing, not necessarily in that order but that is the remaining 5. Then on week 8, we will have a new beginning as we enter into 2023.

To remind you from last week, as I sat down to hear from the Lord on specifically what content He wanted included, it became clear He wanted me to address the marriage between Him and His church. This is what He asked me to share with you, these are His words for you, not mine.

Last week I introduced the idea of demons falling into 2 categories, silent or loud. What I mean by this is how a person reacts to being demonized can be heard as the demonic spirit begins to work through the person. Strife, like Bitterness, is a loud spirit. We don't use the word strife a lot in today's vocabulary, so let's go over exactly what we mean by "strife". Strife is a strong and ongoing conflict over a fundamental issue. Strife is deeper than argument, broader than disagreement. Strife usually involves bitterness and sometimes violence. So someone who is demonized by a Spirit of Strife will direct it at others, and where you see this most hurtful is in marriages. My initial inspiration on this topic was as a result of what we see play out in marriages or familial relationships. As we move to understand how this demon works against us, I want you to be open to understanding our reactions and how our actions create reactions in others while remembering we are wanting to clear out things keeping us from meeting Jesus on the bridge.

The Demon of Strife will typically be the strongman and with it we will generally see the demons of contention, bickering, argument, quarreling and fighting. There may also be some sides of witchcraft and control coming out as someone uses manipulation in order to get their way in an argument. The problem with this particular strongman is that no matter what the end result is, they are not satisfied. You could end up compromising with someone who has a demon of strife, and it will never be good enough because they would still rather have the argument than get their way and have peace. You cannot win in this because there is no end to allow for a win. The subject matter will just rotate onto something else. Think of a Ferris wheel. You never get off of it, you just keep switching seats.

Let's take a look at what the Bible tells us about strife.

Proverbs 13:10, "Where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice."

Proverbs 17:1, "Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife."

Proverbs 18:6, "The lips of fools bring them strife, and their mouths invite a beating."

Proverbs 20:3, "It is to one’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel."

Proverbs 22:10, "Drive out the mocker, and out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended."

Proverbs 26:21, "As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome person for kindling strife."

That gives us a pretty good idea that strife will lead us absolutely nowhere.

I know someone who from all appearance's sake has an issue with strife. I would not say I am friends with him, but I know him. We'll go ahead and just call him, John. For about the last maybe year or so I have been noticing that John likes to say things that are intended to skewer people. He couches it under the pretense of using scripture as a way to speak truth to people, but that is not actually what he is doing. He references a scripture and then proceeds to pontificate for quite a while on his thoughts on the scripture and why everybody out there is going to hell. He literally said this. I want to add that the audience he is speaking to are Christians and he is talking about Christians. I generally try to ignore him, not because I don't want the conflict but because usually these types of people just want attention and to be held in high regard and by ignoring him, I am simply dismissing his discussions. Conflict for me is not an issue, I don't shy away from that when it is the right thing to do. About a month ago, it was sometime in October, it was on a Sunday, I just couldn't ignore him. He was attacking Christians who had second marriages in a blanket statement and that particular day I had just had enough of his rhetoric. Not everyone who was hearing this were mature Christians and it was confusing new believers who were in second marriages. Many times, when he speaks he is not biblically sound and not only was he not Biblically sound on this topic but the way he was choosing to address people about it was just too far out of bounds for me to not address it. He was saying things in a way to shame them. So, I started my response to him in such a way to give him a chance to back out of the condemning position he had taken and asked him what was his purpose in what he was saying. I asked if he was trying to hit Christians with a stick or was he just being self-righteous. I told him it was not his job to pass judgment on these people and that if someone is remarried, they answer to Jesus and they can continue to have a fruitful life. I also indicated that there will likely be people in heaven who have remarried with a crown more adorned than his. I told him to stop creating this confusion among his own brothers and sisters in Christ and cautioned him to ask the Lord about what he should be saying before he says it. I explained that if he did that, he would likely find that he had less to say. Unbelievably, or believably, he doubled down and told me that no one who is in a second marriage will go to heaven, and…and that I must believe in a liberal God who lets sin slide and that was my choice. Now that type of response is indicative of someone who wants to continue to argue. So I responded with "that type of response further illustrated his immaturity in Christ and that what he said was not Holy Spirit inspired and certainly was not how Jesus would respond. I told him I thought he needed to study the Bible more and look at how Jesus ministered to people. I encouraged him to understand his role, and how the Holy Spirit would carry it out, that his responses were not Christ centered. John didn't like that either and he called me a Pharisee, which makes zero sense, zero. What I was saying was about as anti Pharisitical as it gets. He said if Jesus were here I would say Jesus was not being Christ centered and that he was being mean. Again, makes no sense. He then told me the truth will convict me and not accepting the truth doesn't change the truth. Now let me point out, I never even addressed the scripture with him. So, he is now arguing with himself over this issue. My next response was simple. He was missing the point and if he continues to do things his way one day he will see he is not yielding fruit as Christ did. I then told him the conversation is over, do not say anything else. At that point someone else spoke up and corrected him on his biblical stance.

When I think of John, I wonder what motivates him to be so, well it comes across as hateful to other Christians. Can you imagine John coming at a non-believer? It's no wonder so many people hate Christians when that's what they get to experience. I have not heard John say anything since that day, so hopefully he is doing some work with the Holy Spirit. I understand what he wanted to do; he just went about it all wrong and in my opinion had the enemy influencing him as he did it. I think if John would have been doing that in front of Paul in the first century, Paul's response would have been swift to correct him as well. Let's take a look at False Teachers and the Love of Money

1 Timothy 6:2-5, "These are the things you are to teach and insist on. 3 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain."

John may not have been seeking financial gain in all the strife he has caused in the past, but his interest in creating controversy certainly applies.

We can't let strife enter our lives and dictate how we then interact with people. When it is occurring in marriages, it is truly sad. Sometimes we put our spouses' feelings below the feelings of others because we know they will still be there even if we treat them poorly, or we do that to our parents or our children because maybe they can't leave. That's a horrible attitude to take. We need to wake up and see our spouse, our children or our parents as Christ sees them. The enemy will do whatever it takes to destroy relationships and tear apart families. Strife is a well-known way to do that. Paul says this in Romans 1:29, "They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

So how do we evict strife? Well, we first need to acknowledge it. In acknowledging it I would also examine in what relationships are you exhibiting strife? Is it only your marriage? Is it only at work? Is it everywhere, all your relationships? You want to know this because you want to get to the root of why you are creating this in your relationships. Has your spouse done things and this is your reaction? We can't pay back wrong with wrong, it won't work. Were you passed over for a promotion at work? Have you asked the Lord if that is the promotion He wanted for you? Are your kids acting out so all you can do is yell? Figure out what you can control with your kids and work on that as a start. I will tell you the other day, one of my kids did something that I was so upset with, so upset, but he is 24, he is financially independent, he used his own money and it's not anything I can control or should control. But as his mom, I was still upset and he knew I would be, but he was upfront with me and walked me through his decision process with it, none of which he needed to do, but out of respect and love for me he did. I listened, was still not happy, but there's nothing I can do about it. I forbade him to do it again, which he knows is my way of saying I don't want him to do it. I have also forbidden him from ever getting a motorcycle because I don't want him to get hurt and so far so good on that one. I'm just being his mom and he is ok with it. The next morning however, I did go to the Lord about it, because truthfully, I was upset and the Lord helped we to find a way to get past it and let it go. I then texted my son and said. Hey, I may not like what you are doing, but I liked the way he approached why and how he wanted to do it and that one thing I wanted for all my kids was for them to know how to make a sound decision and he excels at that. Thanksgiving is a few days away and he will come home for Thanksgiving and I don't want my upsetedness to come back. I then won't see him for a while because he is leaving for Japan for I have no idea how long. So in that example, I acknowledged it, then I addressed it head on. In this case, I addressed it with my son. Now, truthfully, initially I reacted and he could see I was visibly not happy, so not happy. We kept talking, more him than me, but we kept communication open so it didn't become what I would never have wanted it to become. The next morning I went to the Lord, so we acknowledge it, understand it, address it and then release it to the Lord. In it's place the Lord gave me peace.

If we look at the Armor of God, in Ephesians 6:15, "and having shod your feet with the gospel of peace." We see that peace is part of what we need for spiritual warfare, which is a part of the eviction process.

We are given the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5:22, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness"

Paul tells us in Romans 16:20, "And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you."

Again in Romans 15:33, "Now the God of peace be with you all"

And in Romans 8:6, For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace"

And finally in Romans 5:1, "Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;"

So our steps are to

1. Acknowledge it: we can't hide it or hide from it

2. Understand it: what is driving it, what relationships

3. Address it: either work thru it with the person or work through the situation driving it

4. Release it to the Lord

5. Replace the void with the peace of the Holy Spirit. If we are going to evict the enemy and his influence, we need to replace it and fill ourselves with what the Holy Spirit provides. Use your scriptures as you pray to help you gain strength.

This is some work, but if it's necessary, then it's necessary. We want to clear out all these areas so we can have our path, our minds and hearts open to meet the Lord on the bridge. He can heal anything anything.

I hope this has been helpful to you. If you know someone who is struggling with this, please share this podcast with them. It can change their life if they are willing.

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

· We are continuing our focus on our 7-part series focus for the next 6 weeks, which is the remainder of 2022. This week we discussed the spirit of Strife.

· The 5 demons we will be addressing in the next 5 weeks are: Insecurity, Impatience, Worry, Accusation and Cursing, not necessarily in that order but that is the remaining 5. Then on week 8, we will have a new beginning for 2023.

· Strife is a strong and ongoing conflict over a fundamental issue. Strife is deeper than argument, broader than disagreement. Strife usually involves bitterness and sometimes violence.

· The Demon of Strife will typically be the strongman and with it we will generally see the demons of contention, bickering, argument, quarreling and fighting. There may also be some sides of witchcraft and control coming out as someone uses manipulation.

· Bible Verses: Proverbs 13:10, Proverbs 17:1, Proverbs 18:6, Proverbs 20:3, Proverbs 22:10, Proverbs 26:21

· Gave you the story of John who liked to argue for the sake of arguing with other Christians

· 1 Timothy 6:2-5

· Romans 1:29

· The steps to evicting Strife:

o Acknowledge it

o Understand it

o Address it

o Release it

o Replace it

· Bible Verses of Peace: Ephesians 6:15, Galatians 5:22, Romans 16:20, Romans 15:33, Romans 8:6, Romans 5:1

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

Have a great week!

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

Dawn Simmons 11/13/22 Dawn Simmons 11/13/22

Series 1 of 7: Overcoming the Spirit of Bitterness, Ep 19

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be doing something different and it will be our focus for the next 7 weeks, which is the remainder of 2022. We are starting a series which discusses 7 demons, one each week, that show up so frequently in our lives that I wanted to address them head on and really focus on understanding them and evicting them as we end out our year. The plan was to enable us to start the 2023 with a new heart for the Lord, but the plan got so much better which I will share in a moment. First, let me tell you the 7 demons we will be addressing in the series are: Bitterness, Insecurity, Impatience, Worry, Strife, Accusation and Cursing, not necessarily in that order but that is the 7. Then on week 8, we will have a new beginning for 2023. The inspiration for this was initially based on what I am hearing from people regarding disconnects in our marriages. If the enemy can get a foothold into our households through our marriages, then he can easily distract us to begin to teardown other areas in our lives. As I sat down to hear from the Lord on specifically what content He wanted included, it became clear He wanted me to address the marriage between Him and His church. This is what He asked me to share with you, these are His words for you, not mine.

When the Lord said at the beginning, there are "mainstay areas" I wanted to make sure I understood what He meant. The definition of Mainstay is: a person or thing on which something else is based or depends. (idols, incorrect understanding of Him, demonic influences) He said there are mainstay areas that need to be cleared so we can develop our time and relationship with Him. In doing that we will rid ourselves of burdens and things that have controlled or limited us. He specifically said we need to break chains. Folks, He wants us to get rid of demonic influences in our lives that are holding us back from our John 10:10 relationship with Him. The fullness He can provide. Whatever wounds we have, He can heal them, He is willing, He is able if we come to Him. The enemy created a divide with sin, but Jesus came to redeem us and as a result provide us a bridge over that divide so it no longer exists for us. The only thing he asks is that we take a step onto that bridge. That's it. He knows some of us will take one step, some will take ten, some will run up on it to meet him. He just asks us to take a step, so friends, listen to this series. Take it to heart and whatever resonates with you over these next 7 weeks, work on it, trust Him, get on that bridge while we go through this. Know that we are all doing this together. We all have something. You are not alone, email me if you are struggling or have something to share with others. I will keep your privacy. There are people all over this world listening to this podcast. We are in 6 countries so far. We are particularly growing in Canada and Africa has recently started to grow. We are in 38 US states so far, all of which we are so happy to see for a young podcast. My point is, you are not alone, in whatever you are dealing with, you are not alone as you commit to this next 7 weeks. Let's clear our "mainstay areas" and break some chains so we can get on that bridge and get over any divides that are holding us back from the Lord. This is not a salvation discussion, don't misunderstand what I am saying here, this about the divides we have keeping us from having a full relationship with Jesus. Now, let’s get started.

Demons in my mind fall into one of 2 categories, silent or loud. What I mean by this is how a person reacts to being demonizing can be heard as the demonic spirit begins to work through the person. People who have what I consider to be silent spirits will generally keep to themselves about it, example loneliness, guilt and doubt tend to keep the person hurting more inward. By being silent about it, they don't often seek help or reach out to others but rather suffer silently. Other spirits I consider loud, and Bitterness is a loud spirit. When someone is bitter you hear it through their words. You will see it in their actions and how they treat others, but as bitterness grows, anger and hatred tend to be vocal. It creates fear in others and can push people away because they don't want to hear it or deal with it, which then feeds the bitterness.

What is the Spirit of Bitterness, how does it function and what influences generally are associated with it? The Spirit of Bitterness is frequently a strongman. It typically develops early in us as a result of an experience where we feel we have been wronged, cheated or betrayed. There is a deep emotional tie to our heart and whatever it is that has occurred. Our emotional tie is so damaged, we are unable to overcome the hurt and resentment gets a foothold in our lives. Now in reality, that is a lie the enemy is telling us, so there is a Spirit of Deception involved. If we don't identify that lie and turn to the Lord, it can then allow a root to develop in our heart and our mind that is very difficult to cut out. Unforgiveness and hatred move in and they can function slowly and creep their way through our heart without us realizing how deep the roots are forming. Over time it shapes our behaviors, reactions to others, our activities, our outlook and through these areas other influences are allowed to enter our heart as well. Typically, with the Spirit of Bitterness you will find the companions of resentment, hatred, temper, anger, retaliation, unforgiveness and all of these can then escalate to violence and unfortunately in extreme cases murder.

Let's see what the Bible tells us about the spirit of bitterness. We have several scriptures here and I want to look at them and identify what it is saying about us, our hearts, our minds, and where it tells us it is going to take us.

Hebrews 12:15 warns us in this way, "See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." The result of falling short of the grace of God, not allowing God to redeem you, not entering into that relationship, allows a bitter root to grow and what is the result. Who does it affect? Everyone around you!

Deuteronomy 29:18, "Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison." Speaks to relationship and bitterness associated with poison.

Deuteronomy 32:32, "Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are filled with poison, and their clusters with bitterness." This is an analogy. What happened to Sodom and Gomorrah, God's judgment left nothing to spare.

1 Samuel 30:6, "David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God." Bitterness leading to hatred, violence, murder

Proverbs 14:10, "Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy." Again, discussing bitterness in the heart and who does it hurt? Everyone!

Jeremiah 2:19, "Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me,” declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty." These are the Lords words through the prophet Jeremiah and see how the Lord associates evil and bitterness together. This shows there is no future in bitterness.

Amos 5:7, "There are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground." This is an amazing scripture that reveal the two sides justice vs bitterness and in casting righteousness to the ground, bitterness brings that to fruition, it is the opposite of righteousness.

Amos 6:12, "Do horses run on the rocky crags? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness—" Again showing the two things that do not belong together. Depicting bitterness as the opposite of righteousness.

Acts 8:23, "For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.” Here bitterness is now associated with sin. We need to be real with ourselves if we have bitterness, it’s sinful and if you are unclear about that, we’ll get into why in the next few minutes.

Romans 3:14, “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” Cursing is one of our other demons to address during this series and again see the association Paul is making with bitterness. We don’t want this in our mouths, our hearts, our minds, our lives anywhere.

James 3:14, "But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth."This is another way of saying what we call nowadays, being transparent.

We have identified what the spirit of bitterness is and we have looked at several verses that give an equally damning depiction of what bitterness will do in our lives, so how do we get rid of it?

Well first, we need to acknowledge it.

If we have a spirit of bitterness, don’t hide it, it will find it’s way out. It will be apparent in our words, attitudes, behaviors, it will not be silent. Address it head on and understand the reasons behind why the spirit of bitterness was able to creep into your heart. We want to close any doors we have open or past hurts that will cause a closed door to reopen. The spirit of bitterness knows our weaknesses so we need to call on the strength of the Lord and make our way to the bridge.

Now maybe you don’t have a full-blown case of bitterness and so you are feeling pretty good right now. Well, what about a baby case of bitterness that doesn’t rear its head very often so you don’t even remember you have an issue with someone or something. We are heading into the holidays and this year will likely be another year that we see people we haven’t seen in a few years. Maybe last year you weren’t able to travel or certain family still wasn’t able to be a part of Holiday events. When you don’t see people regularly, it’s easy to forget an old hurt. It’s easy to be reminded of a childhood resentment. I am really trying to jog your mind a little bit so that you can find any old bitterness and get yourself ready to root it out. This is not an easy task for some, so if you can, pray for those of us here who may be dealing with bitterness as a result of a traumatic event or a betrayal. Carrying it around is heavy and the Lord told us He is available and wants to heal deep wounds, but he cannot do that if we are not willing to let Him do it and release it to Him. I am asking you to truthfully do the work to look into your heart, identify any bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness, violence, temper, anger, retaliation, and even murder and that includes thoughts of murder.

What if you were someone who was molested as a child and let’s say your molester has passed away. The fact that they have passed away does not negate your need to address it and clear out any spirit of bitterness. You were trespassed in an incredibly evil way, and I certainly wish I could take it away and you never had to experience it, but I can’t. Jesus, however, can help you overcome it. I know some of us will have some very real deep hurts, but we need to allow Jesus to take that on for us and begin that healing process so we can be free of old pain.

So secondly, after we acknowledge it, we need to be willing to release it to the Lord. We have to let go of any bitterness, resentment, all of those demonic influences. Releasing is not an easy step. We are making ourselves extremely vulnerable and that is a scary, uncomfortable place to be, but we have to be willing to have the courage to do that because remember, we are making our way to the bridge. When you are going through the process to release it, it will take your heart and mind working together. You can say in your mind you are releasing it, but if you are still carrying it in your heart, then you haven’t released it. It may take some time to get your heart and mind working together, but it is possible. For some people, it also helps to get their body involved. So you have done all the work and are ready to release it to the Lord, then create some physical activity that demonstrates a release. For some it’s writing a letter to the Lord, for some it’s letting out a good cry, for some it’s letting out a good scream. Whatever fits for you, do that.

The third step we want to make in this process is incredibly important. You can do all the work but if you fail to do step three, then you will likely find yourself right back where you started at some point. Anytime we evict demonic influences, we need to go back and fill that void with what we receive from the Lord. Paul tells it to us this way: Ephesians 4:31-32, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

Forgiveness. If you are willing to release it to the Lord, the way you support that release is to forgive whoever was involved in bitterness coming to fruition. Now let’s say you have listened this far and you have found no deep bitterness, but what about pre-bitterness. You have some feelings, but you have not allowed it to take root but it is certainly working to try to do just that. Forgiveness.

In order to overcome and evict the enemy, we use the light to drive out the darkness. Now let’s take this a step further. What if we have done something that creates bitterness in someone else.

I want to share with you a story from my own life. I’ve shared before I believe that I have a blended family. So I have been divorced and as I was in the beginning stages of the divorce I was dealing with a lot at one time. It had been a really, really ugly situation for four years until we had agreement that a divorce was happening. Once I had biblical grounds, everything began to move forward. I had 4 children and I had a lot to figure out on a new place to live and schedules, all of that. When a friend of mine heard, she reached out to me. We weren’t terribly close, but she reached out to me because she was recently divorced as well. Same reasons for the divorce so she wanted to commiserate. The conversation was clearly going down the path of men bashing and while I understood her position, I felt it wasn’t healthy for me or necessary at this point. I knew I was out of an awful situation, I would be safe, my kids would no longer be in that environment and I needed to remain focused on what needed to happen. Developing a relationship with this person would be toxic for me and I just couldn’t do it and I had to explain I couldn’t do it, it wasn’t helpful to me in my situation. My doing that created a divide between me and this woman that lasted for years. She wouldn’t talk to me for years, even when she saw me, she wouldn’t talk to me. I could tell she had become bitter toward me, she was bitter towards several people but I knew I was one of them. I didn’t see her for years and then a mutual friend called and shared with me that this woman was sick. It was pretty serious, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do about it. She had refused to talk to me the last time I saw her, but after a few months I decided to call and we talked. We neverspoke of the break in the relationship and instead we just shared our lives. I felt good about it. You never want to be the cause or contribute to the cause of anyone else feeling bitterness. I want to encourage you to think too of how your actions may have impacted someone and hurt them. Whether you were right or wrong, knowing someone is hurting from an experience with you is not what we want. Even though I know I made the right choice, I should have followed up sooner or tried to explain myself better. My friend passed away 4 months after I decided to make that call. We spoke a few more times in those last months but knowing she passed free of the bitterness helped me to forgive myself of what I could have done better. Never forget, forgiveness also applies to ourselves also.

I hope you were able to take away some good information and action items for our first week of this 7-week series. We want to address all these areas and rid ourselves of these demonic influences as we end this year and meet the Lord on the bridge so He can take us into 2023 with a deeper relationship with Him.

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

We are starting a series which discusses 7 demons, one each week, that show up so frequently in our lives. It will be our focus for the next 7 weeks, which is the remainder of 2022 and focus on understanding and evicting these demons as we end out our year.

The 7 demons we will be addressing in the series are: Bitterness, Insecurity, Impatience, Worry, Strife, Accusation and Cursing, not necessarily in that order but that is the 7. Then on week 8, we will have a new beginning for 2023.

We discussed a word the Lord gave me to share with you about what He wants from us in the next 7 weeks

The Spirit of Bitterness is frequently a strongman. It typically develops early in us as a result of an experience where we feel we have been wronged, cheated or betrayed.

Typically, with the Spirit of Bitterness you will find the companions of resentment, hatred, temper, anger, retaliation, unforgiveness and all of these can then escalate to violence and unfortunately in extreme cases murder.

Discussed what the Bible tells us about the spirit of bitterness. We used several scriptures to identify what it is saying about us, our hearts, our minds, and where it tells us it is going to take us.

Well first, we need to acknowledge it. If we have a spirit of bitterness, don’t hide it, it will find it’s way out. It will be apparent in our words, attitudes, behaviors, it will not be silent. Address it head on and understand the reasons behind why the spirit of bitterness was able to creep into your heart.

So secondly, we need to be willing to release it to the Lord. We have to let go of any bitterness, resentment, all of those demonic influences.

The third step we want to make in this process is incredibly important. Anytime we evict demonic influences, we need to go back and fill that void with what we receive from the Lord. Paul tells it to us this way: Ephesians 4:31-32, Forgiveness.

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

Have a great week!

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

Dawn Simmons 11/6/22 Dawn Simmons 11/6/22

Praise as a Weapon, Ep 18

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be discussing how to use praise as an act of spiritual warfare. This one act is so simple, you won't even consider it as warfare. The beauty of it is that praise can be both a defensive and offensive weapon. In the midst of it you will begin to feel rejuvenated and strengthened. I say this, but not everyone will feel this way, and some will even shy away and pull back. I used to be one of those people.

I've shared before that I grew up in a denominational church where you sat quietly, we sang hymns, which I actually love hymns today, especially those where the men sing one part and then the women join in later, I can't sing at all so I was always in awe at how beautiful it sounded. Anyhow, as a kid, the service was arranged, set, and there was not a lot of room for the Holy Spirit to move in the room. Actually, I don't think the Holy Spirit was invited. My point is, I was conditioned, and even as an adult who is fully Holy Spirit filled, I still have some of those tendencies at times. So praise was not something that came naturally to me. My husband on the other hand, as soon as he became Spirit filled was all about praise. He is one of those who will yell out "Amen!" when the pastor says something he likes. I think my pastor loves that. I think it perks him up mid message when someone does that. He knows at least one person is listening!! Maybe you are more like me, or more demonstrative like my husband or somewhere in between, no matter, there is a way to get your praise on and do it to feel natural and grow in your relationship with the Lord that way. Did I mention the enemy hates praise? So the sooner we can develop it into our daily lives, the more we are sharpening our weapons and getting the enemy to not want to be around us.

Before we look at some people in the Bible known for their praise, let's talk about praise and exactly what it is because I think a lot of times people confuse praise with worship and they are different but extremely complimentary, so they are often joined which is why some don't know the difference right away.

Think of praise as coming from our heart to the Lord. It is a heartfelt way to show love, respect, thankfulness, an emotion that can be difficult to put into words. It is our way of showing and sharing with the Lord our devotion to him. We generally use words, but it can be actions as well to express to Him our devotion.

Worship takes praise and goes further. Worship will take that praise and put it to song, put it to dance, put it into action in a way that shows a surrender to the Lord. Worship provides us the opportunity to invite the Holy Spirit into our lives at that very moment. We humble ourselves in worship because we let go of ourselves and seek Him deeper in relationship with Him. So you can see how they become joined.

David is probably the most famous for combining his praise of the Lord with worship. He was a musician, so it was natural for him. I play a mean triangle, I cannot sing, so it does not come naturally to me. If you ever see my husband and me in the audience of any kind of musical, that's all him, I am there by duress.

Let's take a look at some of David's praise and worship. David wrote about half of the book of Psalms, he is credited with 75 of the 150. He is listed in Psalms as the author of 73, then the New Testament refers to him as the author of 2 additional Psalms, so 75 total. Thirteen of the Psalms David wrote had context. They were praise and worship he expressed in the midst of a trial or something specific happening at the time. The ones we will be discussing are just about praise and worship.

Let's take a look at Psalms 138:

Verse 1-3

I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart;
    before the “gods” I will sing your praise.
2 I will bow down toward your holy temple
    and will praise your name
    for your unfailing love and your faithfulness,
for you have so exalted your solemn decree
    that it surpasses your fame.
3 When I called, you answered me;
    you greatly emboldened me.

Verse 6-8

Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
    you preserve my life.
You stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes;
    with your right hand you save me.
8 The Lord will vindicate me;
    your love, Lord, endures forever—
    do not abandon the works of your hands.

Verse 13-18

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

You can hear the praise in these words and feel his heart. Now imagine these words put to song with music. Unfortunately, we don't know today exactly how it sounded when David sang it, not all of those instruments exist today, but we can get an understanding of how David felt.

This next Psalm, I call the Praise Psalm. It's Psalm 148.

Praise the Lord.[a]

Praise the Lord from the heavens;
    praise him in the heights above.
2 Praise him, all his angels;
    praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
3 Praise him, sun and moon;
    praise him, all you shining stars.
4 Praise him, you highest heavens
    and you waters above the skies.

5 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for at his command they were created,
6 and he established them for ever and ever—
he issued a decree that will never pass away.

7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
    you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
    stormy winds that do his bidding,
9 you mountains and all hills,
    fruit trees and all cedars,
10 wild animals and all cattle,
    small creatures and flying birds,
11 kings of the earth and all nations,
    you princes and all rulers on earth,
12 young men and women,
    old men and children.

13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for his name alone is exalted;
    his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
14 And he has raised up for his people a horn,[b]
    the praise of all his faithful servants,
    of Israel, the people close to his heart.

Praise the Lord.

This Psalm is all about Praising the Lord, the heavens and the earth. This one I wanted to discuss specifically because if you want something to help you in your praise, memorize these. There is something for everyone here so even if you can only remember a few of the lines, if it means something to you and it is scripture and it is praise that is a trifecta weapon against the enemy. Use it!!

You really can turn any scripture into a way to praise the Lord. Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. I say it's all good for praising as well. Even the shortest scripture in the Bible. Do you know what it is? It's just 2 words. John 11:35, Jesus wept. Why on earth would I consider that a praise scripture we can use as a weapon? Well, first off it has Jesus' name in it. Just saying His name is praise. Second, the enemy hates hearing the name of Jesus. Third, the enemy knows what you are referencing in this scripture. Fourth, think about the scripture. All you have to do is think about the scripture in context and it becomes an incredibly powerful praise that should light you up and give you unending encouragement. Jesus wept because Lazarus was dead. He had been dead 4 days. Jesus cared for Lazarus. Jesus cares for all of us as well. We are no less important than Lazarus. What then did Jesus do? He told the men there to take away the stone that was covering Lazarus' cave where his body was located. We then read the prayer of thanksgiving Jesus gives to His Father, Our Father, and Jesus calls for Lazarus to come out and out walks Lazarus. That, my friends, is praise worthy. "Jesus wept"

I have a friend, we have known each other, since 2008, however long that is. Anyhow, this friend has always been on fire for the Lord as long as I have known him. During this time, 2008-2009ish we were working on projects together so we spent a lot of time together, my husband included and a few other folks. Anyhow, this friend was huge on praise. It didn't matter where we were, what we were doing, praise was coming out of his mouth, loudly, continually. If we went 30 minutes and there was no praise we would wonder what was wrong. The first time I heard it, I didn't know how to react. I was ok with him saying it, but we were in public, and he shouted it. I knew heads turned. I, I just wasn't sure about it. Here's how it would go. We would be talking, ladala taldalala, then something would be said about Jesus, a testimony or a blessing being discussed and then all of a sudden Tim would yell out "In the Name of Jesus!" It wasn't at the top of his lungs but felt pretty darn near. Over time, I grew to appreciate it and embrace it. You likely won't hear me yelling it out in public, but if you are ever in Southern California, and you hear someone yell it somewhere near you, yell out "Tim, is that you?" Guarantee you he will respond, and you will be blessed meeting him.

I hope this has been an encouragement to you. We have had several weeks of some heavy topics so we needed some lighter discussion. Praise can be forgotten when we get into the hustle and bustle of our day, bring it out, make time for it, it will make a difference. The Lord never fails to show when we call on Him.

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

· Discussed how to use praise as an act of spiritual warfare. This one act is so simple, you won't even consider it as warfare. The beauty of it is that praise can be both a defensive and offensive weapon.

· The enemy hates praise? So the sooner we can develop it into our daily lives, the more we are sharpening our weapons and getting the enemy to not want to be around us.

· Praise is coming from our heart to the Lord. It is a heartfelt way to show love, respect, thankfulness, showing and sharing with the Lord our devotion to him.

· Worship will take praise and put it to song, put it to dance, put it into action in a way that shows a surrender to the Lord. Worship provides us the opportunity to invite the Holy Spirit into our lives at that very moment

· David is probably the most famous for combining his praise of the Lord with worship. He was a musician, so it was natural for him. David wrote half of the book of Psalms,

· Psalms 138: You can hear the praise in these words and feel his heart. Now imagine these words put to song with music.

· The Praise Psalm. It's Psalm 148. if it means something to you and it is scripture and it is praise that is a trifecta weapon against the enemy. Use it!!

John 11:35, Jesus wept.

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.

I enjoyed our time together and I look forward to it again next week. Have a great week!

I have enjoyed this time with you and I look forward to our time again next week!

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

· Have a great week!

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

Dawn Simmons 10/30/22 Dawn Simmons 10/30/22

Identifying the Spirit of Jealousy, Ep 17

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be discussing the spirit of Jealousy. We are going to be identifying the characteristics of the spirit of jealousy. We will go over some real-life examples of people dealing with someone acting with a spirit of jealousy and laying out how to evict this influence in your life whether you have a spirit of jealousy or are dealing with someone who has a spirit of jealousy. Let's get started.

Jealousy. We all know what this is like. We have all had it and likely have all been the recipient of some jealousy ire from someone somewhere along the way. It is an ugly, ugly emotion that begins at the beginning. Satan's pride created a spirit of jealousy of all that God has and is, and as a result God threw him out of Heaven. We've talked about that before in a previous podcast, but it goes even to how satan tempted Eve. He deceived her and used what we now call FOMO to play on her being jealous of what God had, and not being able to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That's in Genesis 2:16-17 and then the fall occurs in Genesis 3. We don't have to look any further than Genesis 4 to see the first murder committed out of jealousy. In Genesis 4:7 we see God warning Cain, "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” Cain could not do what is right and out of a spirit of jealousy, he murdered his brother Abel.

So jealousy has been around since before mankind existed and began in man from the beginning of our existence. It creates divides among families, tears apart marriages, breaks down churches, ruins businesses and worst of all it has cost millions of people their lives. The spirit of Jealousy is a root and then it brings along other sins to create more chaos.

Jealousy is the 10th Commandment given to us by God. Exodus 10:17, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Social media and reality TV have created an immediate avenue for jealousy as cars, houses and personal accessories have taken the place of the ox and the donkey. Almost all of us notice when our neighbor gets a new car. My neighbor just did earlier this year and yes it is way sexier, way way sexier than my car, but I don't want his car. I can appreciate the aesthetics of his car but it ends there. When I look back at my car, I am perfectly happy with the decision I made when I bought my car. I think jealousy as a sin is often overlooked because it is the last of the commandments, the 10th and people who are jealous think it doesn't directly harm another person or that anyone else can see their sin.

The spirit of Jealousy attacks our self-worth, affects how we view others, the world, creates bitterness, harbors hatred, entices people to compromise their morals, and only serves to take us into a downward spiral that will ultimately produce rejection in our lives. All of that has an origin and it is all from satan. We all have a weakness, all of us, and that is what will be exploited as often as possible and as severely as is necessary to get us to respond in a way not pleasing to the Lord. James 3:16 tells us this, "For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice." So when we are in a situation and the spirit of Jealousy is present, we know what to expect, but what does it look like? We know what it is, but what does it look like when we break it down?

It comes down to characteristics. The characteristics of the spirit of Jealousy are not always easy to spot at first but once you pick up on one or two you will see how they weave together.

You know you have someone with a jealous spirit near you or are creating an environment with a spirit of jealousy when you see any combination of these characteristics, particularly repeatedly. (One off may just be an unpleasant person.) A person with a Jealous Spirit will:

1) Ask you questions to make you feel uncomfortable or slight you in some way publicly or one on one in an attempt to tear apart your confidence.

2) Compliment you all the time, not genuine and they work it to be a backhanded compliment or raise themselves higher than you even in the compliment.

3) Make everything a competition and as result brag about their achievements. They cannot be happy about your success. They will say what you receive is due to luck, no acknowledgment of your work or effort.

4) Steal your successes which includes being a copycat in an attempt to present something as if it was theirs. Copy you in general.

5) Blow up your plans to try to sabotage you or lead you astray. This is usually done in a subtle way, so you won't pick up on what they are doing.

6) Always find a way to cut you off when you are speaking. The attempt is to diminish you to other people. This can even be done with body language like eye rolling.

7) Put you down in front of people and will spread rumors about you with the intent to damage your credibility or reputation. The purpose is to bring you down below them.

8) Criticize everything you do in a way that is not constructive.

9) Flat out just do not like you. They are unable to speak in kindness to you and it's only you.

So we have the characteristics identified, now let's look at how a Jealous spirit has behaved in some real-life examples and then we will tackle how to evict this influence in your life.

This first example involves a woman we will call, Jane, who is dealing with a woman at her church that has been treating her differently than she treats others in their Bible Study. For ease of reference, we will refer to the person who is jealous in our scenarios as Jeal. In this situation, Jane, was attending a Bible study group and a few weeks later Jeal joined. Jeal is about 20 years older than Jane. They did not know each other from church prior to this Bible Study. Both women have been Christians for a very long time but Jane is more mature in understanding of the Bible and the Holy Spirit and contributes to group discussion quite a bit. Each week Jane treats Jeal the same as everyone else, but during the Bible study Jane has noticed that Jeal will mumble under her breath while Jane is speaking, and moves around when everyone else is sitting and paying attention. Those behaviors on their own may not mean anything but combined with additional things that have begun to happen over the past few weeks, Jane feels Jeal's behavior is escalating. In front of the group, Jeal recently asked where Jane went to church, and then when Jane responded that she went to the same church (both women have been going to the same church for years) Jeal made a comment with a sneering attitude, "well. I've never seen you there." Jane then replied with where she sat so she could see her at church the next week, and Jeal responded that she never sits in the same place, she wants to keep moving around because then she felt more a part of the church. The way she said it made Jane feel like she was slighting Jane for sitting in the same place each week. Jane has picked up on looks she is being given but is choosing to ignore them. In the last week, Jane was advised by another person in the Bible study that when Jane was talking, Jeal was rolling her eyes, and was asked if something was going on to cause that type of noticeable reaction from Jeal.

In the next situation, Jane 2, was hosting a Bible study and Jeal 2 was new to the Bible study. It was a Bible study that allowed for a lot of discussion and functioned really well before Jeal began to attend. Everyone in the Bible study has been a Christian for over 15 years. It was a loose agenda with each person bringing scriptures to talk about and share how it has affected them over the previous month. They meet monthly. Jane 2 noticed after a few months that whenever she spoke, Jeal 2 would then speak and it would be one level up from Jane 2. For 2 more months she tested her theory. She thought it seemed silly, she had to be misinterpreting but she went ahead and tested her theory and sure enough, no matter what Jane 2 said, Jeal 2 told an even better story and was even trying to "teach" Jane 2 implying Jane 2 didn't have as much knowledge as Jeal 2. Whatever Jane 2 said, Jeal 2 had to "correct" her by adding information that was unrelated to what Jane 2 was discussing. An example of this was a discussion in the group of the Old Testament and Jeal 2 added that she was teaching herself Hebrew and then added information to show her knowledge of Hebrew was above everyone else. On the third month, Jane 2 decided to let everyone else speak and then she would go last. It was a change in their routine but no one was bothered by it, except Jeal 2. Jane 2 described the look on Jeal 2's face when she changed the routine as lost, she didn't know what to talk about without having Jane 2's information to work from. After the meeting ended and everyone left, 5-10 minutes later Jane 2 was on the phone and Jeal 2 returned to tell her that what Jane 2 shared in the meeting, Jeal 2 also had that same situation and that she knew even more about it, she just wanted Jane 2 to know and then she left. Jane 2 was confused by that odd behavior. During all of this time other things happening as well. Such as Jeal 2 giving Jane 2 advice during the meetings, none of which were applicable to Jane 2. Jeal 2 would ask Jane 2 if she knew where to find different passages in the Bible. Jeal 2 on multiple occasions told Jane 2 that she was being told by the Lord that she needed to pray over Jane 2, implying she had some knowledge of Jane 2 from the Lord that Jane 2 did not have of herself. Jeal 2 would continually talk about all she was doing for people and all the information the Lord was giving her over the future of the area. Jane 2 did take Jeal 2 out to lunch to develop the relationship, but during the lunch Jeal 2 began to drill Jane 2 about her gifts and her family history. However Jane 2 responded, Jeal as always more advanced and experienced. Jane 2 stopped taking Jeal 2 to lunch.

The third situation I want to share with you involves a work situation. John is a manager who relocated about 5 years ago to take this management position. One of the men who works for him, Jeal 3, wanted John’s job, but he was not selected because he was not qualified. John was brought in to overhaul a department and Jeal 3 had been part of the reason for the overhaul. Nonetheless, Jeal 3 immediately set up to be seen as John’s “right hand man”. John was aware Jeal was not selected for the job and initially believed Jeal 3 was sincere at wanting to do his job well and supporting John, although he did express some bitterness over not being selected. Over time, John began to notice Jeal 3 would interrupt John at staff meetings, trying to take over presentations and assert himself as the person with the answers. John was also advised Jeal 3 was talking to other departments and taking credit for all the success that John was having in rebuilding the department. When John had to take a short medical leave due to an unexpected surgery, Jeal 3 packed up all of John's belongings and set himself up in John's office as if he was taking over. Six months later when John was given a promotion for the work he had done the previous 3 years, Jeal 3 told John he was only promoted because of Jeal 3 stepping in for him while he was out for surgery. When a promotion became available in the department, Jeal 3 was again not selected as he did not have the required training, though he could have taken the training and it would have been paid for by the company, he did not do so. Another candidate was then chosen. As a result, Jeal 3 became more difficult to work with and began to bad mouth John throughout the company as he searched for a new job within the company.

The difficult part about the first 2 examples are they are both situations within the church. We should not be having jealousy issues within the body of Christ, let alone in the same local church. We are all created differently with a different purpose and different talents, skills, gifts and resources. In the last example, the Jeal character not only has a spirit of Jealousy, but also had narcissistic tendencies. If you listened to the 2 episodes we just had on Narcissism you likely picked up on this as I was sharing. So where do we go from here?

If you are struggling with a spirit of jealousy, even just slightly, you need to address it head on, and quickly. You do not want to allow it to take root and begin to stir up other areas that will only produce chaos in your life.

First: Admit it and don’t try to justify it. It is wrong, it is telling God that what He has given you is not good enough. It opens the door to more evil.

Second: Repent. Shut the door to evil, turnabout and seek the Lord for an understanding of how He sees you and all the wonder and beauty and talent He has provided in you. Yes, guys can be beautiful too!

Third: Ask for Forgiveness. We should be doing this regularly anyway, but if we ask for forgiveness in this area, you allow the Lord to open new doors for you, His doors. It will change your outlook.

Fourth: Be Thankful. This is a feeling that may not happen right away, you have to look at your self and what you have with a new thankful heart. If you want more or an improvement in what you have, seek the Lord and have Him guide you in His ways. He will not give you an increase if you are not thankful for what you have at the present.

If you are in the position of having to deal with the spirit of jealousy from someone in your life here are ways to evict the influence it is having over you.

First: Seek the Lord and pray over the situation. We want to make sure we are addressing the situation with an honest, earnest, open heart. We could be misreading or misinterpreting, and we want to allow for grace if we have made a mistake.

Second: Pray for them. They are in a struggle, and your prayer could help them change.

Third: Don't allow yourself to get upset by their behavior. The spirit of jealousy is focused on creating chaos within that person but taking you down at the same time is only a bonus for them. Identify and separate the behavior from the person. This is much easier to say than to do, but you getting upset isn't helping you either.

Fourth: Shift your position to cutoff opportunity or redirect attention. If in the past you have been willing to share personal information, hold back and instead, ask them questions and allow them to talk about themselves. This could serve to let them know they are heard and begin to quell feelings of insecurity or insignificance. Be genuine in this approach.

Fifth: If the situation is just too toxic for you to be able to function at work, church within the family, then you want to consider the process we discussed in the Narcissism episodes that is laid out for us in Matthew 18:15. Attempt to talk to your Jeal alone to address the issue. If that doesn't change, then take a witness or two to address the situation. If that still does not alleviate the issue, then adding church leadership or an HR type person into the situation. I have only seen one church situation escalated past the leadership level.

People with a spirit of jealousy aren't usually going to continue down the road the same way once they have been confronted. They may switch tactics if there is no change but ask the Lord to reveal the truth in all circumstances and remain consistent in your behavior honoring to the Lord.

I hope you found that to be helpful for you or someone you know. These can be difficult to pinpoint and understand, but once you realize what kind of spirit you are dealing with then you can almost anticipate what will come from them next. It's not a terribly creative spirit.

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

· Jealousy is an ugly, ugly emotion that begins at the beginning. Satan's pride created a spirit of jealousy of all that God has and is, and as a result God threw him out of Heaven.

· Genesis 4 we see the first murder committed out of jealousy. In Genesis 4:7 we see God warning Cain, but Cain could not do what is right and out of a spirit of jealousy, he murdered his brother Abel.

· Jealousy is the 10th Commandment given to us by God. Exodus 10:17

· The spirit of Jealousy attacks our self-worth, affects how we view others, the world, creates bitterness, harbors hatred, entices people to compromise their morals, and only serves to take us into a downward spiral that will ultimately produce rejection in our lives. All of that has an origin and it is all from satan

· James 3:16 tells us this, "For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice."

· The characteristics of the spirit of Jealousy are not always easy to spot at first but once you pick up on one or two you will see how they weave together. Went over 10 characteristics.

· Discussed 3 real-life examples of people dealing with a jealous spirit

· If you are struggling with a spirit of jealousy, even just slightly, you need to address it head on, and quickly. You do not want to allow it to take root and begin to stir up other areas that will only produce chaos in your life.

o Admit it and don’t try to justify it.

o Repent

o Ask for Forgiveness

o Be Thankful.

· If you are in the position of having to deal with the spirit of jealousy from someone in your life here are ways to evict the influence it is having over you.

o Seek the Lord and pray over the situation

o Pray for them

o Don't allow yourself to get upset by their behavior

o Shift your position to cutoff opportunity or redirect attention

o If the situation is just too toxic for you to be able to function at work, church within the family, then you want to consider the process we discussed in the Narcissism episodes that is laid out for us in Matthew 18:15.

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.

I have enjoyed this time with you and I look forward to our time again next week!

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

· Have a great week!

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

Dawn Simmons 10/23/22 Dawn Simmons 10/23/22

Witchcraft and Christians, Ep 16

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.

Welcome Back! I am your host, Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be discussing witchcraft. There are several episodes worth of information that can encompass witchcraft, so I am going to narrow down our scope to discuss activities that Christians participate in knowingly and unknowingly that are opening the doors to the demonic through witchcraft. I will share some stories as well. The activities we are referring to in this episode include: astrology, palmistry, seances (conjuring up the dead), consulting a medium for any purpose such as tarot cards, speaking to the spirits, guidance, consulting a witch or wizard for spells or guidance.

These activities we are addressing are mentioned in the Old Testament as something detestable to God. Deuteronomy 18: 9, When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable way of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable practices the Lord your God will drive those nations before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God. The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord has not permitted you to do so.

So this scripture is the backbone we are working from as we talk through this issue.

Trends in witchcraft today are being related to people having less interest in "religion" and an increase in wanting something spiritual. It is being labeled as a form of self-care. There is a false belief that answers, comfort and meaning can be found in witchcraft practices at a time when the world is chaotic. Another false belief is that it creates a sense of community with female empowerment. It may bring likeminded people together in a community, but the support it provides will not be based on truth. Wicca is currently claiming to be the worlds fastest growing religion, my research indicates Islam is actually the fastest growing, partially attributed to birth rate among Muslims. Regardless, between the two, the demonic influence is pulling them away from the opportunity to know Jesus the deeper they get into these false religions.

Most of what I am going to be addressing are activities done by people who do not identify as witches. However, all of these activities we are going to discuss are activities Christians participate in actively. I struggle to understand how Christians participating in these activities don't know what they are doing, that it is evil, that the source is evil. The reality is those participating don't understand what the Bible says or care to understand the danger they are putting themselves and their families in when they, for example, go to a psychic. The devil is a liar, even when you are paying him to tell you your future. Why would anyone believe a psychic is going to know their future? A psychic only knows what they make up or what a demon reveals to them to say to manipulate the person. A demon doesn't want to help you feel better by telling you all the great things about your future. The demon doesn't care if you find your soul mate. The demon doesn't care if you want to know what to do with your career. The demon is more than happy tho, to say things to take you further into their influence. The medium is all to happy to tell you things to tickle your ears so you will come back and give them more money. We have to stop being so naïve as to think that we can call ourselves Christian and do these things without consequence.

I want to share with you a story from someone I spoke with last week that is struggling. A Christian, we'll call Jane, rented a room from a witch who actively practiced voodoo. The house was filled with demonic influences. She saw paranormal activity daily, and ultimately had to leave that house. When Jane moved into a new place, demonic spirits moved with her. The thing we need to understand in this situation is that even tho Jane did not participate in the witchcraft, she put herself in a position to be continually exposed to the demonic. As a result, things in her own life that were sinful, which we all have, sins that were totally unrelated to witchcraft, these sins then opened the door to demonic influence in Jane's life. So the demonic spirits in the house as a result of the voodoo could easily just stroll right in and start demonizing her. Now, the situation gets more complicated. Jane believed that the demonization is a result of a spell or some voodoo directed at her from the prior landlord. After moving and being demonized for a few years, Jane decided the only way to combat this is to deal with any spells or magic from the old landlord, the witch, by consulting a wizard to get the spells removed. The act of reaching out to the wizard for consultation is Jane now practicing witchcraft. We have to start understanding that what we do matters. The Bible clearly states consulting a medium for anything is detestable to God. I'll be frank here, and I have Jane's permission to share this with you, Jane was surprised to hear that reaching out to the wizard meant she was practicing witchcraft. We cannot evict the enemy from our lives if we are participating in enemy activity. It is impossible. This is a black and white issue, there is no gray here.

Right now, it is October, so people are celebrating Halloween. This time of year, it is common for so many people celebrating to overlook or downplay things they say, how they tie themselves to devils, witches and death. Many Christians will justify their behaviors by calling those who do not agree with Halloween devils, witches and the like by saying we are being too "religious" and overreacting, not by what the Bible tells us is Godly or ungodly. The justification for celebrating Halloween becomes about other people overreacting and that's the wrong measuring stick. Let's talk about this a minute because it happens a lot. We cannot justify our behavior or our activities on something that is not the standard of how to measure our behavior or activity. That's called an excuse. Let me give you an example. For several months we have seen activists across the world demonstrating for various reasons, climate change, antigovernment, whatever their cause. As a result, they are gluing themselves to art in museums, emptying milk cartons all over grocery stores and sitting in roadways blocking traffic. When an ambulance can't get through to the hospital because the road is blocked by protesters and someone dies, the protester cannot justify their actions in that death with "we are still reliant on fossil fuels". Sitting in the road and obstructing traffic is unlawful. Whether we are reliant on fossil fuels or not, the act is still unlawful. The measuring stick of whether we should be using fossil fuels is entirely unrelated to the action of blocking an ambulance from getting to the hospital. It’s inexcusably wrong thinking.

I know a man, we'll call him John, who is struggling with this issue in his house right now because he does not like all of the Halloween décor. As a Christian, he doesn’t want to see symbols of death and demons on display and celebrated in his home. His wife's response is that she does not believe everything in the Bible, so to her the witches and demons and whatever else she was hanging are fine to be in their house. Let's just stop and think about that for a minute. Let's not even address the décor, that is now secondary in his situation. As Christians, I mean true Christians, we don't get to pick and choose what we want to believe in the Bible. You believe it all or you believe nothing. If you say only part is true, then you are calling God a liar. The real issue in this house isn't Halloween décor, that's a symptom, the real issue is a heart issue. We need to identify the real problem, the root of a problem or if we just address this as a décor disagreement, what happens when that wife shows up to meet Jesus and has her judgment day. John's wife has no discernment between the Holy Spirit and symbols of demonic spirits in her home. The root of the problem is why young people are lost and exploring witchcraft and they think of it as self-care. Satan has created all of these ways to counterfeit the Holy Spirit and he will use cutsey ways and disarming ways to needle his way in to manipulate us to open the door for him. He can't come in unless we let him in ourselves.

I am working with a man, John 2, who is trying to break free from witchcraft that has been in his family line 5 generations. His involvement is mostly growing up around it and his exposure to it as a child which led him to engage in the activities he was taught. As a child, he didn't know anything about Jesus so he had no idea what he was doing. Most frequently John 2 was involved with trying to conjure up the dead. Luke 16:26 tells us: And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us. John did not realize that any attempt to conjure up the dead is simply communication with the demonic spirits impersonating the dead. Anyone who thinks they are seeing their lost parent, lost spouse or friend is only seeing a familiar spirit attempting to manipulate the person to draw them in with a false sense of comfort and influence their lives for demonic purposes. As an adult, John 2 is starting to see how all of his activities have created countless negative consequences for his entire life. John 2 is now saved and has repented, but he still has damage to address as he has also included the next generation, his children and sees the impact it is having on them. His marriage is damaged, he has lost a business, he is now in debt and it will take him years to repair all of these areas of his life. As a result of consulting with "spirits" decisions were made that had terrible consequences.

Let's look at another example in the Bible that tells us that satan is aware of believers, what we do and is waiting for an opportunity. Luke 22:31, Jesus is talking the night of the Last Supper. Jesus just finished talking to the twelve explaining what it means to be the greatest and he turns to talk to Peter. “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” So from that we know that satan had to ask permission to demonize, just as we see he does in the book of Job. We also see in this that God allowed the sifting at least to a point, so there is a level of protection there. Jesus prayed for Peter, can you imagine what that prayer must have been like and what an honor for Peter. The outcome is also revealed to Peter in the response Jesus gave him. What I want you to take away from this is that these men, Jesus said "to sift all of you" so these men who were with Jesus night and day were going to be under attack. For the rest of us, we need to be aware that we are not any better than the disciples such that we will not be chosen by the enemy to attack. Too often we walk around and engage in cleverly disguised activities the Bible clearly identifies as witchcraft. When we fail to discern, we open the door. We can withstand an attack, we can beat the enemy, that's what this podcast is about, equipping ourselves to evict satan, but we need to discern and not create invitations that allow the enemy access.

Let's talk a little bit about astrology because I think it is the most common of the detestable activities that Christians are prone to follow. Astrology goes back thousands of years. The creation of the stars goes back even further to when God created them, Genesis 1: 14-16, And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. Astrology is an attempt to "interpret" the influence stars and planets have on human destiny. There are signs to represent birth months and through cyclical movements astrology claims patterns are developed that allow for healing, transformation and an unlocking of a spiritual connection to the universe. There is a claim to it even having a predictive tool for us and that these patterns can give us insight into our personal issues. God created the stars for our benefit and the enemy is using the stars and the planets as a poor counterfeit to the Holy Spirit. People read their horoscopes daily looking for some influence, some hope, some insight into their lives. So what insight am I really gaining in my life if the same message is given to every person born in the same month period. What does it have anything to do with me specifically? What it is claiming to do cannot possibly be true. The Holy Spirit does know me and will provide me with specific guidance and hope and insight in my life whenever I want. I don't have to wait until the next horoscope is written to gain insight. It does not matter if a horoscope is read "just for fun" the act of reading it is engaging with it and then we enter into behavior that God has clearly stated is detestable to Him.

Let's take a look in Leviticus for a minute before we talk about a few more things. Leviticus 19: 26 and we'll look at 19: 31. 26 reads, “‘Do not practice divination or seek omens. 31 reads, “‘Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. So that is our compass for the next topic.

Unfortunately for years now I have known Christians who have used mediums and had tarot card readings and don't see anything wrong with it. We have to be more knowledgeable about what the Bible says, it is our compass, we have to read it and know when we are participating in activities contrary to God and His word. Tarot cards were originally just playing cards. In the late 18th century they became another tool used in divination. Demons cannot tell us our future. They can tell us things that we erroneously come into agreement with that can bring about an event to happen, but then we have influenced it.

The real kicker in all of these witchcraft forms is that in every area there are people who practice and call themselves Christian witches or Christian mediums, whatever title they chose to use. They are no more Christian than the demons they use to influence them because I can guarantee you they are receiving nothing from the Holy Spirit in anything they do. The Holy Spirit would not participate in that on any level.

I want to issue 3 challenges this next week. I hope you will take up one of these three challenges.

1. If you are a Christian that is participating in any of these activities, I challenge you to stop and instead for just one week, seek the Lord only. Repent, ask for forgiveness and seek the Lord only. I guarantee you, the Lord will reveal himself to you in ways much clearer, more loving and more peaceful than anything you have received prior.

2. Second challenge, if you are a Christian and you do not participate in these activities, ask the Lord to reveal to you someone who may be involved in these activities that you can lovingly speak truth to about what these activities involve. Offer them another way. I guarantee if you do, the Lord will show you someone you can help.

3. Spend time with the Lord, this one week and pray for Christians to be broken from the veil of deceit that witchcraft brings into their lives.

We always love praise reports, so please share with us your success stories from the challenge this week, email me at contact@conqueringourunseenenemies.com

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

· Discussed activities that Christians participate in knowingly and unknowingly that are opening the doors to the demonic through witchcraft

· Deuteronomy 18: 9, Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord

· Trends in witchcraft are being related to less interest in "religion" and an increase in wanting something spiritual.

· We talked about 3 people, 2 of which are struggling with consequences of witchcraft and a third that is dealing with a wife not recognizing demonic influences because her heart is not open to the truth of the Bible

· We talked about Luke 22:31, and the challenges the disciples faced under an attack from satan "to be sifted"

· Astrology is an attempt to "interpret" the influence stars and planets have on human destiny. Counterfeit of the Holy Spirit

· Leviticus 19: 26 and we'll look at 19: 31. 26 reads, “‘Do not practice divination or seek omens. 31 reads, “‘Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.

· Tarot cards were originally just playing cards. In the late 18th century they became another tool used in divination.

· All of these witchcraft forms is that in every area there are people who practice and call themselves Christian witches or Christian mediums. Their source is entirely demonic.

· We issued a challenge to either

o 1)turn away from witchcraft activities and seek only the Lord

o 2)ask the Lord to reveal to you someone you can help who is involved in these activities

o 3)pray for Christians to be broken from the deceit of witchcraft

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 2 more 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.

Have a great week!

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

Dawn Simmons 10/16/22 Dawn Simmons 10/16/22

Knocking Out Narcissism Near You, Ep 15, Part 2 of 2

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.

Welcome Back! I am Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to talk about part 2 of Knocking out Narcissism and how we manage our reactions to a narcissist. In the last episode, we defined a narcissist, we identified common traits and the demonic influences generally associated with narcissism. We also were introduced to some specific cases involving narcissists and after a quick recap that's where we will pick up again in this episode. Also, be sure to listen at the end for the giveaway. We have already contacted the 2 of the 4 winners of our giveaway for October.

Let's recap the common traits: Not all narcissists have all these traits, these are just the most common, but they will usually have at least 4-5 of these traits.

Need for excessive admiration continually, Expectation of special treatment, they are superior to others, Lack of Empathy for everyone else, Need to constantly be the center of attention, Need to always be the one who is right, Need to always have their feelings be validated over everyone else's feelings, Controlling, power hungry, anger, Lack of patience for others that doesn't benefit them, Deceitful, cunning, Antagonism, Manipulative, Expects others to meet their needs regardless of what is required, grand gestures

Let's recap the demonic influences associated with these traits: Not all narcissists have all of these demons, but generally speaking the higher the number of traits, the more deep rooted the traits, the more pronounced the traits, the more demons will be involved.

Pride, Insecurity, Fear of disapproval, Competition, Perfection, Hatred, Cursing – belittling others, gossip, mockery, backbiting, Intolerance, Fear of Rejection, Jealousy, Loneliness, Paranoia, Material Lust, Sensitiveness, Self-Righteousness, Rationalization, Self-delusion, Fear of Failure Self-Deception, Inferiority, Bitterness, Dominance, Jealousy, Indifference, Control, Rejection, Anger, Dominance, Jealousy, Fear of Authority – Lying, Fear of accusation, Rebellion, Bitterness, Jealousy, Witchcraft, Control, Theatrics

To recap our stories, recall we had 2 involve work situations. One is with a coworker and the other is with their boss. The second two are family situations, sister in laws. We nicknamed the narcissist in each scenario as Narcy. The people who have shared their story have one thing in common, they truly want to be able to have the issues resolved with Narcy and be able to salvage the relationship. Their heart is in the right place and we need to always start from there, where our heart is right with the Lord. We may at times not feel that way, but in order for the Lord to honor our prayers and move on our behalf we have to have our heart aligned with the Lord. Also, when we do need to use our authority, we have to come from a place of a righteous heart, not an ill meaning heart. So if we are upset in the moment, take the time to cool off, spend some time with the Lord and then come back to resolve the issue. So, how do we resolve the issue?

Steps to Manage a Narcissist:

Pray for Truth: This is a preparation step to do in your alone time and particularly before you have contact with Narcy. In a work environment you know that schedule, you are dealing with it as part of your job and fortunately there are some legal and opportunity (group settings vs one on one settings) limitations that someone in a family environment doesn't have. In a family environment, you may be more vulnerable to being alone with Narcy and on the receiving end of deeper personal attacks.

What we are seeking as we pray for truth is for the Lord to come into this situation and address our heart and Narcy's heart. We want the Holy Spirit to convict us if we are misjudging Narcy or the situation and ask for forgiveness if we are convicted. We also want the Lord to come in and help Narcy to make changes necessary to improve her life with the Lord and see the impact her actions have on others. We want to ask for His will to be done and at the same time for truth to be revealed in every situation. We ask for this because we want to make sure that deception is brought to the light. The importance of this should not be overlooked. Although we are praying and asking for the Lord to help Narcy, ultimately if Narcy does not respond to the Lord, nothing will change with Narcy. So, asking the Lord to reveal the truth, that request can be accomplished with or without Narcy being willing to respond to the Lord. A request for truth to be revealed is a good request to have over all areas in our lives, not just with Narcy, so add that to your arsenal when you are praying. We can never go wrong when we ask the Lord to reveal truth and have deception brought to the light.

Pray for Protection and Rebuke: This is a preparation step for before you have contact, but you can do it quietly in Narcy's presence.

If Narcy's behavior is being influenced by the demonic, you cannot control what Narcy allows the demonic to do in her life, but as a believer, you can control how that demonic influence impacts you in your presence. Any space that you occupy can be protected and the time you are in contact with Narcy can be protected. So if Narcy is coming into your "workspace" or an area where you perform your job duties, your home, your car, your yard, any space that you occupy, own are responsible for or have control over, your space whatever that looks like for you, then you have the spiritual legal right to have that space protected in the name of Jesus. Use scripture such as Isaiah 54: 17, no weapons formed against me shall prosper, or Romans 14:11, every knee shall bow before Jesus and every tongue acknowledge His name, 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. In addition, when you are in Narcy's presence, you can rebuke the demonic from any activity involving you. You can whisper it, mouth it, you don't need to say it out loud for all the humans to hear because you are not talking to the humans. The demons know when you say it that you are rebuking them in the name of Jesus. Use scripture that applies to the circumstance. Just remember that you are directing your warfare against the enemy, not Narcy. We may in the midst of a conflict want to direct it at Narcy, but if we do that, we risk putting ourselves in the position to allow the accuser, the enemy, the demonic, to be able to accuse us of acting sinful, with malice toward Narcy. So, let's say Narcy is yelling and screaming at you, don't react, under your breath rebuke the enemy, and don't take it personally. You are establishing a spirit realm boundary that will override Narcy's behavior. Even if Narcy is doing this of her own accord, with no demonic involvement, this behavior will lessen because you are not triggered. Her screaming at you does not change who you are, it reveals who she is and that she needs help managing her emotions. If you find yourself at any moment feeling bitterness or anger toward Narcy, ask for forgiveness and let it go.

In the cases involving the sister in laws, there is instruction Jesus provides for how to handle this conflict if Narcy is a believer. In a work environment, if it becomes necessary for you, Human Resources would likely be your support so it may not be exactly the format Jesus provides in this Biblical example, but we want to follow it as closely as we are able.

Here is the scripture: Matthew 18: 15, “If your brother or sister sins go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

So if you have already tried to talk to Narcy on your own, find one or two people you trust to meet with you and Narcy. If you trust these people then be open to them if they have a word to direct to you, but it should be an unbiased person.

If you have done these steps, and there is still no change, then it's time to pray and seek the Lord on distancing yourself in the relationship. At that point there is no reason to justify, argue or explain yourself. Manage your own expectations and be clear about your boundaries for the relationship. For a work situation, particularly if you a direct report to Narcy, align your work goals to success and stay focused on that. Understand that many narcissistic people are unable to have healthy personal or professional relationships, and it has nothing to do with you so don't take on any baggage from a failed relationship when you know you did all that you should do biblically to improve the relationship.

I want to also give you some scriptures you can have handy as you pray or when you are about to interact with Narcy. This is a great time to start or add to your scripture journal. A scripture journal is a way to keep those verses you know you will need over and over again where you can access them quickly and add to it over time. I've been using one for years and it makes things a little easier on me when I need my scriptures quickly. This is especially helpful if you struggle to have scriptures memorized. As you use it, you will find they will roll off your tongue easier in a pressure situation. It's just a great spiritual warfare tool.

Psalms 31:3, Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me.

Job 42:2, I know you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Proverbs 16:3, Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I know these last two episodes are a lot to take in, but a narcissist is a lot to take in and they are very complex because each one is unique to their experiences and their reactions to those experiences, so we tried to drill it down to commonalities.

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

· Common traits of a narcissist: Not all narcissists have all these traits, these are just the most common but they will usually have at least 4-5 of these traits.

o Need for excessive admiration continually, Expectation of special treatment, they are superior to others, Lack of Empathy for everyone else, Need to constantly be the center of attention, Need to always be the one who is right, Need to always have their feelings be validated over everyone else's feelings, Controlling, power hungry, anger, Lack of patience for others that doesn't benefit them, Deceitful, cunning, Antagonism, Manipulative, Expects others to meet their needs regardless of what is required, grand gestures

· The demonic influences associated with these traits: Not all narcissists have all of these demons, but generally speaking the higher the number of traits, the more deep rooted the traits, the more pronounced the traits, the more demons will be involved.

o Pride, Insecurity, Fear of disapproval, Competition, Perfection, Hatred, Cursing – belittling others, gossip, mockery, backbiting, Intolerance, Fear of Rejection, Jealousy, Loneliness, Paranoia, Material Lust, Sensitiveness, Self-Righteousness, Rationalization, Self-delusion, Fear of Failure Self-Deception, Inferiority, Bitterness, Dominance, Jealousy, Indifference, Control, Rejection, Anger, Fear of Authority – Lying, Fear of accusation, Rebellion, Bitterness, Witchcraft, Theatrics

· Our scenarios from last week involve 2 work situations. One is with a coworker and the other is with their boss. The second two are family situations, sister in laws.

· The people who have shared their story have one thing in common, they truly want to be able to have the issues resolved with Narcy and be able to salvage the relationship.

· Steps to Manage a Narcissist:

o Pray for Truth: What we are seeking as we pray for truth is for the Lord to come into this situation and address our heart and Narcy's heart. We want the Holy Spirit to convict us if we are misjudging Narcy or the situation and ask for forgiveness if we are convicted. We want to ask for His will to be done and at the same time for truth to be revealed in every situation.

o Pray for Protection and Rebuke: If Narcy's behavior is being influenced by the demonic, you cannot control what Narcy allows the demonic to do in her life, but as a believer, you can control how that demonic influence impacts you in your presence. Any space that you occupy can be protected and the time you are in contact with Narcy can be protected.

o There is instruction Jesus provides in Matthew 18:15 for how to handle this conflict if Narcy is a believer. Gathering your witnesses to address Narcy.

· Put together scriptures you can have handy as you pray or when you are about to interact with Narcy. This is a great time to start or add to your scripture journal.

o Psalms 31:3, Job 42:2, Proverbs 16:3, Luke 10:19, Isaiah 54:17, Romans 16:20, Romans 14:11, 1 Corinthians 15:57, Ephesians 6:10-17 – The Armor of God, 1 John 4:4

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

Have a great week!

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

Dawn Simmons 10/9/22 Dawn Simmons 10/9/22

Knocking Out Narcissism Near You, Ep 14, Part 1 of 2

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.

Welcome Back! I am Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to talk about narcissism and how we manage our reactions to a narcissist. We are going to define a narcissist, identify the traits and the demonic influences generally associated with narcissism, discuss some specific cases involving narcissists and out of that give you some ways to manage your day, your time, your life, your job in relation to narcissists influenced by demonic spirits. There is so much to discuss and to do it correctly, we need time, so this will be 2 episodes. Also, be sure to listen at the end for the giveaway. We have already contacted the first of 4 winners of our giveaway for October.

Ok, let’s start knocking out some narcissism. I have never said the word narcissist so many times in my life as I just did. If I take all the times I have said it over the course of my life put together, I still don't think it's as many times as my opening. This episode is a result from emails I am receiving from you, and struggles you are having so let's get on into this conversation.

Fist let's discuss the origin of narcissism, which we will start with Greek mythology. You may remember way back when in probably elementary school when we are taught about mythology, there is Greek mythology and then later Roman mythology that is based on Greek Mythology. The Romans liked many aspects of Greek culture so when the Roman empire covered areas previously influenced by Ancient Greece, the Romans just created or you could even say duplicated much of what the Greeks created but gave it a new Roman name. So in Greek mythology, Narcissus was a character that was considered to be incredibly handsome and when he saw his own image reflected in a pool of water, he fell in love with himself. So I ask you, who does that sound like? If we take a look at Ezekiel 28: 12-17, ‘You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.13 You were in Eden, the garden of God;
every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper,
lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl.[b] Your settings and mountings[c] were made of gold;
on the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub,
for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.
You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth;I made a spectacle of you before kings.

When we think of someone today as a narcissist, we think of someone who is self-obsessed, self-absorbed, egotistical, self-centered, no concern for anyone else, conceited was the word we used when I was in high school, we didn’t use the term narcissist. I don't really think for me at least, back then that there were very many narcissistic people. I went to 4 high schools, one in Los Alamitos, CA, where I graduated, Spokane Washington, Belton Texas and Stuttgart Germany. So that's a broad range or at least a good cross section across a large amount of geography and I do not think there were more than a few narcissistic people in each of my high schools. Today, it seems like that is the way, like it's a requirement for social media content. Psychology Today doesn't agree with me, however, they say research doesn't support an increase in narcissism in the world today. I think I am going to stick with my opinion, but you are welcome to decide for yourself based on what you see out there. Where we do want to agree, however, are how the traits. We touched on them briefly already, but let's get more specific and start to tie traits to demonic influences. It's fair to say that not all narcissists are demonically influenced. Sometimes people just have a bankrupt character and that leads them to their specific behaviors, but more often than not, there is a demonic root and that's what we are here to address. So let's list our the trait and then the corresponding demonic influence. When we are speaking in general terms like we are here, we are not trying to identify the root because each person is different so we can't categorically say what the root is. In a case where it is someone you work with, for example, you may not have enough intimate knowledge of the person to be able to identify the root, so we have to work with what we do know and develop a strategy to manage how the demonic influence affects us.

Trait: Need for excessive admiration continually

Demon: Pride, Insecurity, Fear of disapproval,

Trait: Expectation of special treatment, they are superior to others

Demon: Pride, Insecurity, Competition, Perfection

Trait: Lack of Empathy for everyone else

Demon: Pride, Hatred, Cursing – belittling others, gossip, mockery, backbiting, Intolerance

Trait: Need to constantly be the center of attention

Demon: Pride, Fear of Rejection, Jealousy, Loneliness, Paranoia, Material Lust, Sensitiveness

Trait: Need to always be the one who is right

Demon: Self Righteousness, Rationalization, Self-delusion, Fear of Failure Self-Deception: Demonization involves a person who is unable to see themselves as anything other than what they say they are. They can contradict themselves and cannot see their error in contradiction. They are unteachable. An argument cannot be won with this person because they cannot see any wrong in themselves.

Trait: Need to always have their feelings be validated over everyone else's feelings

Demon: Insecurity, Inferiority, Bitterness, Dominance, Jealousy, Indifference

Trait: Controlling, power hungry, anger

Demon: Control, Rejection, Anger, Dominance

Trait: Lack of patience for others that doesn't benefit them

Demon: Unforgiveness, Resentment, Bitterness, Indifference

Trait: Deceitful, cunning

Demon: Jealousy, Paranoia, Fear of Authority – Lying, Fear of accusation

Trait: Antagonism

Demon: Rebellion, Bitterness, Jealousy, Indifference

Trait: Manipulative

Demon: Witchcraft, Control, Theatrics

Trait: Expects others to meet their needs regardless of what is required, grand gestures

Demon: Insecurity, Jealousy, Distrust, Ego, Argument, Perfection, Material Lust, Greed, Self-Delusion

We may have a need to feel justified or validated when dealing with a narcissist. Don't fall into that trap. What drives or motivates a narcissist may or may not be demonically influenced, so we come at the situation with what we can do in our authority based on how the Bible guides us in these situations.

Let's talk about some real of the life examples that you all have provided and are struggling with how, as a believer, to respond to a narcissist. All of these people who are sharing their story have one thing in common, they truly want to be able to have the issues resolved with Narcy and be able to salvage the relationship. Their heart is in the right place and if you have a Narcy we need to start from there. We may at times not feel that way, but in order for the Lord to honor our prayers and move on our behalf we have to have our heart aligned with the Lord.

The first two we are going to discuss involve work situations. One is with a coworker and the other is with their boss. The second two are family situations. For ease of conversation we are going to refer to the narcissist in our scenarios as Narcy, a made up name for our discussion. I do have to strip away specific details to ensure anonymity so it may seem vague, it is so by design. Give me some grace in these scenarios that I am not over dramatizing, these are truly painful, frustrating situations. Also, I am referring to Narcy as a female, just for ease of conversation between the 4 stories.

Narcy is the manager of the department. Narcy is charming, charismatic when she needs to be to get everyone to agree with her. If you do not agree with her, then you are not valuable to her. She has no patience or concern for employees who do not agree with her. She will use manipulation and has even been deceitful about job openings, pay and other information relating to job benefits. At least one job has been left open for 3 years although it could be filled by multiple qualified people in the department, but she doesn't like any of them, so excuses are made as to why the job remains open. She likes to remind others of her status and power. Her mood can change the atmosphere of the department. Decisions made are not always made for the benefit of the department, but more favor what is in her best interest. She uses favoritism to single people out and show others they are expendable.

I'm describing this one as if we are the one dealing with this for ease of conversation.

Narcy is the coworker and at one time she our friend, so she knows personal information about us and what is happening in our home life. Recently, there were some changes in the office and we received a new manager. The manager knew us from another department so the manager trusts us, likes us and looking back and that's when we noticed a shift in how Narcy began to treat us. About a month later another coworker pulled us aside and let us know that Narcy was turning people against us with false accusations. These false accusations made Narcy look good and us look bad. In making herself look good, she is becoming more the center of attention in the department. She has shared some of our personal information with others, again to make us look bad. At some point because of the nature of our work, her accusations, if believed could affect our work assignments. As Narcy is making us look bad, she is working to garner support of other coworkers to build herself up in the department as the go to person. We have attempted to confront her about what she is doing to put an end to it, but she has turned it around to make it be our fault and that we are making up lies. There has been some misconduct on her part during this time you have witnessed which could result in her termination or a demotion. This situation has been continuing for 4 months.

The next two situations involve family. Both are sister-in-law situations, but we will address each separately.

Narcy is our sister-in-law and anytime we are in group settings, whether family or friends, there is a continual picking at us. A pointing us out in front of others and getting others to agree with whatever Narcy says. This has gone on for years, unfortunately our husband isn't helping us navigate this or speaking to the sister about her behavior. We are not purposefully saying or doing anything to warrant this attention, it is a kind of bullying about who we are in general. We do not speak up for ourselves in the moment because we do not want to create an argument or tension in the family because we are the new one to the family. This treatment is also occurring at church functions in large women's group meetings. Narcy speaks to us as if she is better than us and our feelings don't matter. We have attempted to have a one-on-one conversation with Narcy to find out why she is treating us this way and to let her know it hurts, but Narcy brushed it off as if it were my problem and she was doing nothing wrong. This has been going on for 3 years.

Narcy is our sister-in-law and we have grown close over the last year. Growing close is a wonderful thing for the family and I feel closer to my brother now. The difficult part is that when they are in a fight and she confides in me, it seems like Narcy is always the one who is right, Narcy's point of view has to always be validated as if only her feelings matter. She needs to be told over and over how mature she is being in the disagreement and how immature my brother is in however he is responding. There is no patience for allowing my brother to work through their marital issue, he is just expected to immediately bend to her every time and he is faulted when he fails to do so. I try to remain unbiased; I know my brother can't be perfect, but he reacts pretty normally I think so I don't agree with all of her fault finding which of course makes her mad. She doesn't understand or want to listen when I tell her we all process differently and maybe he just needs a little time. She wants him to immediately feel the way she feels about everything. She isn't concerned that he also has feelings about their fight. My brother knows she talks to me and he doesn't mind because he trusts me, but I can't get through to her that everything can't always be about her and she can't possibly always be right in every situation. I don't want to be involved anymore but I know that allowing her to talk to me gives my brother a buffer while she is angry. This mostly comes out in her when someone disagrees with her, but I have to admit that we were not close before because she was very dismissive of me. She was nice when she needed something but then as soon as she got it, I was dismissed, like literally asked to leave even.

OK, so those are the scenarios that we are working with. If you have a narcissist in your life, hopefully somewhere in those scenarios you found some things you can identify with. If you don't have a narcissist in your life, be thankful. Just reading these sounds exhausting. So we are going to go through what we as believers can do to limit the affect of any demonic influence toward us. I will say, that even if there isn't a demonic influence and these steps will still help to change the dynamic of the relationship. Again, we don't think there is a demon under every rock, but applying Biblical principles is always the right way to handle whatever we have in our lives.

In essence, in dealing with a Narcy, you are dealing with someone who is a self-idolator. Paul discusses this in 2 Timothy 3, and here is what he tells us: But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

That to me is a description of narcissism. It is also a lot of what is going on in our world today where so many think that their feelings matter more than anyone else or that no one else matters if it disagrees with what they want or think. In Paul’s case, he is telling the church how to handle someone in their midst and while that applies to some of our discussion, in the case of a coworker, we need to have another approach. So next week we will discuss the things we can do to give you some ways to manage your day, your time, your life, your job in relation to narcissists influenced by demonic spirits.

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

· The origin of “narcissism” as we think of it starts with Greek mythology, but in reality, if we look at Ezekiel Ezekiel 28: 12-17, we see a description of satan that is identifies him as the first narcissist.

· We discussed common traits of a Narcissist and identified demons associated with those traits

o Need for excessive admiration continually, Expectation of special treatment, they are superior to others, Lack of Empathy for everyone else, Need to always be the one who is right, , Need to always have their feelings be validated over everyone else's feelings, Controlling, power hungry, anger, Lack of patience for others that doesn't benefit them, Deceitful, cunning, Antagonism, Manipulative, Expects others to meet their needs regardless of what is required, grand gestures

· Don’t fall into the trap of having a need to feel justified or validated when dealing with a narcissist. You cannot win that battle because it is not based on reality.

· We discussed the details 4 real life examples of dealing with a narcissist that are being lived out right now, 2 with coworker situations and 2 are family situations. You may not know these people, but please include them in your prayers.

· Paul discusses dealing with narcissist people in the church in in 2 Timothy 3, and defines narcissist behavior as a self-idolator.

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.

Be sure to join me next week for Part 2 of Knocking out Narcissism. Have a great week!

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