The New And Living Way Church, Ikorodu
Meeting: Sunday Service
Date: 25th April, 2021
Ministers: Bro Happy
Bro Happy
(Romans 8:13) The way we will mortify our flesh is not by our capacity but by the leading of the spirit. Our regenerated spirit is supposed to lead the soul.
A Christian can be oppressed or obsessed in the body or soul by demons. We don’t own demons as believers and the reason why is because when we gave our life to Christ, we’ve been saved. The only place Satan has little influence on (even though he should not have) is our soul. To a great extent, our spirit cannot be possessed by demons. Our spirit is saved but our soul isn’t, that’s why we can still receive whispering from Satan which is why scripture asks us to mortify our flesh.
We cannot be demonically possessed, but we can be oppressed or obsessed.
To be oppressed means we are receiving suggestions that we are not comfortable with. Scripture says take no thought but we are not to take those wrong thoughts. When we are oppressed we must learn how to fight oppression because when we take those thoughts, we can then be obsessed.
The realm of the soul is the realm of our thoughts and because our soul/thoughts have not been regenerated, we can be oppressed by Satan. Oppression leads to obsession.
To be possessed of that thought means it has become: A way. These thoughts then start to define things around us. They become the leading of the soul, that is, what the soul does.
HAGIN’S VISION
In 1952, Hagin had a vision in which the Lord Jesus appeared to him and taught him concerning devils, demons and demonic possession. The Lord Jesus showed him in the vision a woman who used to be a child of God and the wife of a pastor. The woman was in the singing ministry and had a beautiful singing voice. The devil came to her, in the thought realm (in a little monkey-like form, sitting on her shoulder) and told her “you’re a beautiful woman, and you have been robbed in life. You are being cheated. In the world, you could have fame, fortune and popularity”. The woman knew it was the devil speaking those thoughts to her, so she said, “Get behind me Satan.” Immediately, the demon speaking to her jumped down and left.
The demon came back the second time and the woman was still able to resist him again. At this point, the demon was only oppressing her and as a Christian, she exercised her authority over the oppression the devil was bringing against her through such suggestions.
However, the devil came back again and brought the same suggestion to her.
Unfortunately, this time, she began to think and accept the devil’s thought. She began thinking of her beauty rather than keeping her thoughts centred on God, thus she got lifted up in pride. At this point, she knew what she was doing. She could have at any time said “these thoughts are of the devil, and I refuse to think like that. I command you Satan, to leave me alone. Get behind me in the name of Jesus and Satan would have obeyed her.” But she actually liked to think she was beautiful, so she continued to think in that manner. She could refrain herself and could not rebuke Satan.
Eventually, she left her husband and took up with about 5 different men and did not marry any of them. Even at this point, the lord didn’t count it against her, she was fully possessed by the devil, he had control over her now, but only by her permission she willingly and deliberately implied that she does not want Jesus.
Thoughts are not things we deal with once, so we must not stop hearing, because, satan doesn’t stop peddling our soul with thoughts. Satan is not tired of saying the same thing to us over and over again and we also must not get tired of hearing over and over again. We are not just hearing for hearing sake, we are hearing to receive resources to overcome those evil thoughts.
The woman in Hagin’s vision was first oppressed, she resisted for a while but because the love for that thing was in her soul, she eventually accepted the thought. We must not be light in the spirit, we need strength to confront Satan and we are strengthened by the word. Satan’s continuous speaking can weaken a man if he does not continually give attendance to the word of God. We must see that even if she took the thought, her soul was still saved because the Lord told Hagin that He didn’t count it against her.
The Spirit is Christ and doesn’t die easily. Nothing can kill Christ unless He is denied. The taking of thoughts does not make us unsaved, our spirit is still saved.
It was her denial of Jesus that led to death (second death). (2 Peter 2:19-22) The spirit of a man will not die until we willfully deny Christ. It is a mature Christian with the knowledge of the Lord that can do this; a man must have escaped the pollution of this world then be entangled by it again. He understands the repercussion of breaking the law. This man is he that can be possessed by the devil. (Hebrews 10:26) This man understood the gravity of being possessed by Satan. His will is involved. This is why if we come out of fellowship, we need to get back in fellowship as fast as we can.
When we got born again/regenerated, the Lord did not take over our will. We still have our own will and we make our own choice (Deuteronomy 30:19). Not even our Pastors can hijack our will, the place of our will is a man’s choice and responsibility. We must consciously choose life. Even Jesus still had his own will (Luke 22:42). Our will is what we use to sustain our life. What happens in the Church is to receive resources for life’s journey, we receive the capacity to tame our will but it is our will to obey or not. We must submit our will to God.
HOW TO STAY WITHIN THE CONFINE OF GOD’S WORD IN OUR THOUGHT REALM
(James 4:7; Phillipians 4:8) The kind of thoughts we think on or fellowship with is how we submit to God. So we need to know what things are pure, honest, of good report etc by constant hearing. The woman knew the thoughts coming were not pure thoughts.
The first place we will gain victory is in submitting to God. Our conviction in the Lord will help us fight and overcome the thoughts. (Matthew 6:34) When scripture says take no thoughts, it doesn’t mean we should not pray about our natural, but it is because thoughts attract other spirits. By taking one thought, we can invite many others.
God wants us to pray about our needs. In fact, He knows of our needs but He doesn’t want us to pray vain repetitions because it can lead to us constantly thinking on the natural and it can open us to evil.
One of Satan’s greatest and most powerful weapon is the weapon of suggestions. No Christian is immune to Satan’s suggestion (thoughts) but we are not to take it. We learn to not take his thoughts by the leading of the spirit. (Proverbs 16:18; Luke 4:1) Satan can say to us as he did to Jesus. The temptation of Jesus was in His thought realm not as in a physical location. We cannot stop his suggestion but we can limit it by constantly rejecting his thoughts by submitting ourselves to God.
AUTHORITY OVER DEVILS
(Matthew 18:18) Every believer has the authority to use the name of Jesus and to take our stand against the devil. We do not need the gift of the spirit to deal with the devil when he harasses us. (Luke 10:19) Jesus has handed power over to us and we are the ones to cast out demons, Jesus will not come and do it for us. (Matthew 16:21-23) A man can have a spirit of anger around him, we should deal with the spirit and not hate the person. Jesus didn’t hate Peter, he knew it was Satan and not Peter talking. So we must understand that Satan has influence even over believers and that these things, thoughts and atmosphere can be transferred. We must be guarded spiritually in our thought realm, we must be able to discern atmosphere over people as well so we can guard ourselves (Romans 12:21). Satan hangs around things in the natural that we don’t know.
No one can get a person delivered if he wants to keep an evil spirit (John 17:12). Jesus could not change Judas Iscariot because his will was involved.
We must fight to live peaceably with all men (James 3:14-18). We must not have bitter envyings etc because they lead to all manner of evil. We should not glory in things that are not peaceable, that are not pure or easily entreated.
CONCLUSION
As believers, we are to operate under the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus and not under the law of sin and death. He that is in us can resist Satan’s suggestion. We must always yield to this law so that we can have total and complete victory.