Confronting the Spirits
The overarching theme of Jesus’ message was the Gospel of the Kingdom. After Jesus is baptized in the River Jordan, goes through the wilderness and comes out in power, we see that His primary message was changing people’s minds to orient around the Kingdom of God. We see Jesus demonstrating the Kingdom in Matthew 4. When we transition into Matthew 5-7, which is famously called the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus pulls back the curtains of society and reveals what’s at stake and the Biblical values of the Kingdom that we as the people of God need to fight for.
I believe that Jesus confronting the Devil in Matthew 4 was done with divine purpose. God does not want to clueless to why the world is the way that it is. The god of this world, Satan, is the one who is behind the scenes, tempting and convincing people to live demonic lifestyles. The sins that Jesus confronts are:
Compromise (Mixture)
Absence of Good Works/Mission
Anger
Sexual immorality/Perversion
Divorce
Lying
Retaliation
Love of Money
Worry
Lawlessness
Although the passage does not describe these sins are spirits, but that is what they are. They are unseen realities that blind our eyes from the truth. Satan is the god of this world and has blinded the eyes of unbelievers. All of these sins blind us from the truth and it keeps us sedated and compromised, robbing us of our destiny of being on mission for God.
These are spirits, because are are unseen and they cannot be touched. Like the wind, they are not visible, but they are felt. For example, people can often feel anger. It doesn’t need to be expressed for someone to command the room, because everyone is feeling their rage. The symptoms point to the source, just as you can know a tree by it’s fruit. When see the behaviors of people, we can often pin point what’s inside of them. You can also pin point what’s on their hearts by listening in on their conversations and what comes out of their mouths.
The Sermon on the Mount needs to be read and followed again in our nation. In the name of Tolerance, we have strayed away from these timeless truths and have opened up ourselves to the influence of the enemy.
Satan has been raging and has seduced and deceived the majority of the church. This is why we have many who are casual when it comes to their relationship with God and no trace of revival. Many are compromised by believing in Satan’s lies and have been subdued by the spirits of this age - human anger, a murderous spirit; lust, sexual immorality and homosexuality, a perverse spirit; divisiveness; lying, a deceptive spirit; and retaliation, a spirit of hatred and contention. These practices are not limited to unbelievers, but it has infiltrated into the church. If we do not see an awakening and repentance fall upon the House of God, we will be met with a rude awakening and pre-mature deaths. Every time a person lives under the covering of Satan, there will be pre-mature death, loss and destruction.
BUT God is giving America the chance to repent and choose righteousness. We need a national deliverance. We must repent for the 60 million innocent babies murdered, the perversion of sexuality, racism, deception and corruption in government. The church must also repent for its casualness and compromise when it comes to the Great Commission. When we were commanded by God to make disciples and influence culture, culture has influenced the church.
2021 will be a year of restoration and mission. Proverbs 29:18 says “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint.”
Familiar Spirits
I had a very disturbing dream where I was married but I was having an affair with a girl, who seemed familiar, but I didn’t know who she was. I went to a retreat that was put on my one of the pastors in my area. He was spearheading a revival. Eventhough it was a sacred and holy setting, I went to this spiritual retreat with the familiar woman and during worship, I continued to have an affair with her.
When the pastor came to where I was, I found myself with my pants down and doing abominable things with this familiar woman. When the pastor came to me, I stood up embarrassed with my pants down to my ankles. I felt the sting of remorse, but not convinced to repentance. He invited me to part of what God was doing, but I responded with, “Sorry, I’ll come back when I’m ready.”
I woke up from that dream and I knew immediately that I was visited by a familiar spirit from the past. After having that dream, I got into some disagreements with my wife and all of a sudden the atmosphere changed in our home and for the next three days, our home became a war zone. My wife began acting like our first years of marriage. To give some background, our marriage is far from perfect, but our first years compared to what we have now is like night versus day. Since we’ve been married my wife has received so much healing and breakthrough, but this fight we were having was strangely dark.
I knew it was familiar spirit from the past, because my wife shared with me of how she felt very similar to the days to the first years of our marriage where she was constantly visited by thoughts of depression and suicide. She hadn’t had those feelings until these demonic attacks came to our family.
When the moment of breakthrough came, she was totally set free and it was as if all those clouds of confusion and depression lifted in one instant. After going into battle of intercession for my wife for three days, we were out in the clear. It was a beautiful time of deliverance.
I felt like the Holy Spirit was saying that in the dream, I represented the casual, compromised and clueless Christian. Many Christians go to church every Sunday continually having an affair with their demons. Sometimes out of remorse, we just keep out demons at bay without actually banishing them from our lives. As a results, we see God moving in our generation, but because we are riddled with so many demonic dysfunctions, we are blinded from the truth and we are held in bondage by the devil, never accessing our destiny.
Many Christians are saying to God, “Sorry, not today. I’ll come back when I’m ready.” But if not now, then when? May revival and awakening not be put on a back burner.
Many of us treat the Great Commission like a school assignment and we procrastinate. When it comes to life and death, we should never procrastinate. When it comes to the Kingdom of God, we should never give up or give in and give it all we’ve got until we’re take up into glory. It’s the sheer mercy of God to send His Son Jesus Christ to deliver this message.
We get to listen to the very words of God that poured out from the lips of God Himself. The crowds hung on every worth, because Jesus spoke with such divine authority. May we not neglect such a salvation and get on with God’s mission while we have the beat on our hearts, breath in our lungs and the life in our bodies.
“Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life (John 4:34-36)