The battle we wage is not
against flesh and blood..
The human being is created in the image of God. This is not said of any other creature on Earth. What does this mean? In part, it means that we are spirit, soul and body wrapped up into one being. The parents supply the biological portion, the body but Yahweh provides the soul and spirit at conception, thus humans are sacred and eternal. Western thinking has reduced man to a bio-machine without soul or spirit, just a living body. This denies the eternal and divine nature of man and reduced him to a biological organism like all animals. I flies in the face of the Truth but lets man off of the hook from seeking, knowing and answering to their Creator, Yahweh. The tragedy is that every man will stand before their Creator and give an account for their choices during this life and if they have not acknowledged their sins and self-centeredness and Yeshua as their Redeemer they will spend eternity with Lucifer instead of their Creator.
We, as humans are born into a world not of our own making. We appear on the scene in a fallen world that denies their Creator, surrounded by evil and its consequences, sickness and death. Our parents teach us to understand the world around us. If they are Christians they at least acknowledge their Creator and pass that on to their children. However, most Christian churches have a system of theology and works instead of a relationship with the Living God who is spirit. Their understanding of the spiritual realm is primitive at best and their effectiveness in the battle for the Earth and humanity is ineffective. Many deny that Lucifer even exists, let alone fallen angels and demons. Yeshua did not have this problem. He engaged them often and removed their influence every time He did. He set the captive free. Most churches do not even see the connection between diseases, sin, and demons. They have bought the Western thinking of the bio-machine without a spirit or soul; that is Evolution and a doctrine of demons.
Paul knew better and states that: [our battle is not against flesh and blood (bodies) but principalities and powers, spiritual forces in high places]. This is an area that is mentioned many times in the scriptures but not explained. The understanding comes as a result of revelation as we engage in the battle against Lucifer and his forces. Experience is the best teacher. However, the Church has taken a bunker mentality. They hide in their buildings, talking about God and how to be a better Methodist or whatever denomination they are and then sneak out hoping they do not get mugged, cancer, robbed or taxed too much and show up next Sunday for another cheer section without ever considering that they should get into the game. If they perchance think that they do have something to offer and should participate they are told to get a proper education or sit down and let those who are trained do the job.
The Church is called to engage in battle to the degree that the gates of Hell cannot prevail against it. This war was started back in the Garden when Yahweh commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply fill the Earth and take dominion over the Earth. After all Yahweh made the Earth for man not for Lucifer. Adam was commanded to take it back, as is the Church. Adam was the first causality of the war. He was conquered by his disobedience and became a slave to sin and Satan and enslaved all of his offspring. Yeshua was sent by Father to set us free to be righteous so we can engage in the battle to set others free to also engage in the battle. The battle rages all around us even inside the doors of the churches. The churches have not even driven the enemy from inside their own gates let alone taken the battle to the gates of Hell. There is just as much disease, divorce and dissention in the churches as there is in the world around them. This ought not to be.
It is written that [my people parish because of lack of knowledge]. The churches, of all places, should be the sites of advanced education on how to fight the spiritual war raging all around us. The bastion of freedom and liberty, healing, deliverance and new birth, the hospital and armory for the Yeshua`s soldiers is the Churches calling. It should be brisling with spiritual weapons and power always training new troops in hand to hand combat, on the attack in every believers household until each home is freed and functioning as a nurturing center and fire base for the Kingdom of God.
Instead we have churches that are infighting over who get the special parking place, who teaches Sunday school, who did not give enough money and with the next church down the block over their heretical theology. This is absolutely shameful and an indication that the churches have already been defeated!
We need some basic instruction in spiritual warfare!
The scriptures mention many different kinds of spirits. The following is a list of those mentioned in the King James Translation:
Spirit of:
God
Man
Philistines
kings of the Medes
Wisdom
Understanding
knowledge
Fear of the Lord
counsel
might
heaviness
deep sleep
Living Creature
Jealously
my understanding
Judgment
Burning
Fear
whoredoms
grace
supplications
unclean devil
infirmity
divination
holiness
adoption
slumber
world
meekness
revelation
the mind
the mouth
faith
glory
anti-Christ
truth
error
life
Our experience in the deliverance ministry for the past 30 years has revealed that there are many times the number of spirits in the list. There is a spirit for every kind of human activity and sin. There are also spirits of animals. The normal spirits of animals are different than the spirits of men as seen in ECC 3:21 [ Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?] The implications of this text is that man`s spirit is eternal but animals are not. It`s possible that the animal spirits end up roaming the earth but I do not believe that is case. I think that the animal spirits you find in deliverance are demons mimicking animals. We have seen demons mimicking humans, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. Of course the Scriptures mention fallen angels mimicking God`s angels of Light.
The one consistent attribute of fallen angels and demons is that they are liars and deceivers. This requires the use of the gift of discerning of spirits to enable you to recognize and remove the demons from a persons life. Reading scriptures to them is useless unless the Holy Spirit specifically commands you to do so.
When a child is conceived the Father breaths into the cells a soul and a spirit. If Father does not do this then a miscarriage takes place; that is a body without a spirit was formed but there is no self sustaining life in it. The spirit is for all practical purposes dead to God since the child is born in sin. The child`s spirit cannot interact with its Creator, however, it can respond to Lucifer`s realm, since it is a slave of sin and Lucifer. The interaction is unconscious and appears to be involuntary but is in fact tired to the choice to sin. The human body is similar to the human spirit. It has five senses like the spirit. It has a mouth for eating and breathing like its spirit. The body is essentially a glove over the spirit. The life in the body flows from the human spirit. If you remove the spirit the body dies. If you wound the spirit it effects the soul and the body. This is the source of disease.
The soul is the part of us that contains our personality. Only the body is male or female, not the soul or spirit. Our memory and reason are not in our physical brain. They are expressed through our physical brain to our body but do not originate there. Our body is the interface we have with the physical world as our spirit is our interface to the spiritual world. Our will resides in our soul. We make choices with our soul based on input from both our bodies and our spirit.
We cannot receive input from Yahweh through our spirit before we are born again, because our spirit is dead to Him because of sin. We therefore cannot choose righteousness but only sinfulness because sin separates us from Father. If we are taught to do right by our parents for example, it counts for nothing since what we do come from and empowered by the Spirit of the Lord but merely an action carried out by a sin based body without the leading from the spirit. There is no Life in it and it is a dead work. It is simply conforming to someone else`s desires but not true goodness. The interface to Yahweh is not functioning, it cannot. This is religion, actions that look Godly but are not living. They do not count for us but against us since they are false. However, once we become aware of our sinful state and Yeshua`s redemption we can be born again. This happens because someone has interceded for us by asking Father to forgive our sins opening our soul up to input from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then reveals to us our condition of sinfulness. If we respond with acknowledgement of our sin and Yeshua`s righteousness and redemption, He then offers to save us. This comes by revelation, that is understanding comes from Yeshua to our soul from His spirit in the form of Love. We receive a revelation of His love for us and if we accept His redemption He quickens our spirit and we are born again, and we know it. Life and death are in His hands alone and only He can breath life into our spirit. Our spirit comes alive, a new baby with all of the appetites and senses He designed into us. Our first response is to seek His presence and food. He responds with His love and draws us close to Himself and begins to feed us by His spirit. This feeding is carrying out by fulfilling His desires as He reveals them to our spirit, such as testifying about His redeeming us, asking others to forgive us for the times we sinned against them, spending time praying (communicating and communing with Him), meeting with fellow believers, reading about Him in the Scriptures, etc. Those actions that we responded to that came from Him, out of our spirit are credited to us as faith and righteousness. These are very personal leadings. It does not take long until other `Christians` begin to instruct us how to life. Unfortunately much of that instruction is more religion than life and works against our new found life drawing us back to religion and self righteousness.
Our struggle with sin comes soon after the new birth. We discover that there are forces that do not want us to walk in this new life. This is where the baptism of the Holy Spirit comes into play. It empowers us so that we can overcome sin and satan. In most of the areas in our lives (the flesh) before our new birth we did not resist sin but gave into it, even gave ourselves over to it. In these area`s we came under demonic influence or oppression. These various demons made it their business to lead us deeper into these types of sin, forming habits and lifestyles in our souls that eventually affects our bodies. Sometimes these demons were with our parents oppressing them and when we were born in the flesh it was easy for them to influence us as well. These are called familiar spirits that is they came down through our family. This is because the sins of the fathers are visited on four generations of the children. These familiar spirits know this and take advantage of it to oppress those children. These influences can be very subtle or blatant, all of them deceptive. A person under this kind of oppression is not aware that they are sinning and being influenced, and even controlled by demons. They believe that they are normal. Entire families, cities and even nations can fall to this type of deception and oppression. An outsider who does not have this oppression can look in and easily see it, even the unredeemed in some cases. This kind of deception cannot be easily broken. It takes the Power of God to do it and then not without a fight. The oppression cannot be removed by confession but takes deliverance.
The purpose of the demons controlled by Lucifer is to lead a person to the point where Yahweh will give up on them and give permission to Lucifer to take their lives so they will never have a chance for eternal salvation. Lucifer has rightfully claimed them from their physical birth as his own and he does not intend to give them up with out a fight.
Lucifer operates by the Old Covenant Law which is the Law of Sin and Death. He does nothing that is unlawful (it applies to him as well). Lucifer, his fallen angels and demons have had centuries to fine tune their deceptive tactics against the children of God. They know the Law and the scriptures better than any human and very effectively use it against mankind. However, he has no power against one who operates under the Law of the Spirit and Life. He and his angels are extremely intelligent, cunning and deceptive. There is a demon behind EVERY deception. (Deception is believing something to be true that is not.) However, they are no match to Yeshua and the Holy Spirit. The creature is no match for the Creator. Fallen man has no chance against them. Redeemed man in his own strength and wisdom is also no match for them. However, a redeem man who has been broken of his own strength and wisdom and is lead by the Spirit is a formidable weapon in the hands of God against the powers of darkness. The flesh of man is Lucifer`s play ground. It must be put to death for a man to be effective against these enemies. Deception is so effective that it cannot even be exposed without a revelation of God to the person deceived. No amount of discussion, explanation, or logic can do it. This is one of the reasons `Christians` spend hours and hours debating some doctrine, convinced that they are right and the other is wrong..deception. The one walking in Truth need not debate, Yeshua never did.
The works of the flesh (sinful nature) are listed in the scriptures:
Imaginations,
Disobedience,
Lust,
Pride,
Drunkenness,
Revellings,
Affections,
Adultery,
Fornication,
Lasciviousness,
Uncleanness,
Idolatry,
Witchcraft,
Hatred,
Variance,
Emulations,
Wrath,
Strife,
Seditions,
Heresies,
Envyings,
Murders,
Vain glory,
Provoking one another,
Envying one another
The works of the Holy Spirit (in our new born spirit) are also listed in the Scriptures:
love,
joy,
peace,
longsuffering,
gentleness,
goodness,
faith,
Meekness,
temperance
These are a good starting point to help recognize the source of a spirit influencing a person.