Why Does God Use Angels?

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A question that some readers have asked me is “Why does God use angels?” After all, we have Jesus, and the Holy Spirit lives in us, so what role could angels possibly play that God Himself can’t just take care of on His own? I see the logical reasoning behind the question, but I think that it leaves out a lot of details about who God is, how He works, and what we have seen Him do throughout Biblical history both before and after the cross.

First, we need to recognize something about God’s nature. The very first thing we see about God’s nature in the Bible is in Genesis 1, where God reveals Himself as Creator. God likes to create. If we consider the sheer number of different insect species in the world, not to mention all the birds, fish, mammals, etc. He has a limitless ability to envision and create living beings. God created Angels, Powers, Thrones, Dominions, Living Creatures, Elders, and more in the heavenly realms, possibly all before He even began to fashion the earth. God did this partly because He loves to create. He also loves to love, and I personally believe that part of the reason God created such a myriad of different beings was partly because He wanted to love them. God gave us a job in Genesis, which was to take dominion over the earth. The Bible speaks of angels’ primary job as being messengers. If nothing else, God made angels to serve certain functions in His universe, in the same way that He created us to serve certain other functions in that same universe. So the first reason angels do certain things is simply because God designed it that way.

Second, let us look back at the work of the Holy Spirit and angels in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit appears in a few places: as the Cloud and Pillar of Fire (Exodus 13), where He comes upon Saul (in 1 Samuel 10:10), and when the priests made sacrifices to consecrate the first Temple 91 Kings 8:10-11).

Angels appeared *many* times throughout the Old Testament: to Hagar (Genesis 16), Abraham (Genesis 18), Lot and his family (Genesis 19), Jacob (Genesis 32:1), Moses (Exodus 3), the Israelites (Exodus 23:20-23, 33:2), to Balaam and the donkey (Numbers 22), the nation of Israel (Judges 2), Gideon (Judges 6), Manoah and his wife (Judges 13), David (2 Samuel 24), Elijah (1 Kings 19, 2 Kings 1), Daniel (Daniel 6, 10), the prophet Zechariah (Zechariah 1-6). Furthermore, Angels showed up in the New Testament to Joseph (Matthew 1:20, 2:13, 2:19), Zechariah (Luke 1), Mary (Luke 1), and a group of shepherds (Luke 2). Angels play a consistent role as messengers in the Old Testament, so it should not surprise us when God uses Angels in such a role today.

Another point to consider is that the Bible speaks of angels in a few different places in both the Old and New Testaments as being involved in heavenly warfare. If we think about the implications of this, it means that there are a bunch of spirit beings who are not God the Father, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit who are warring against one another in the spiritual realms. We are instructed by God to be involved in this battle, and God didn’t simply exercise His God-level powers one time the moment everything went wrong and squash all the baddies. For whatever reason ( *ahem* free will), God decided not to do that and has involved angels in that celestial battle. As such, why should we find it surprising when God uses angels to fight in what is literally a spiritual holy war?

We also need to remember that Heaven operates on a hierarchy system. God is the Supreme Emperor of all things. Monarchs don’t do everything themselves—many things they delegate to their subjects. The Throne Room in heaven also has twenty-four elders (Revelation 4:4) and four living creatures (Revelation 4:6) who presumably have some sort of ruling authority, with one-hundred-million angels surrounding them (Revelation 5:11). We see in Joshua 5:13-15 that God has an army, and that the army has a commander. Daniel 12:1 refers to Michael as a “heavenly prince” and in Daniel 10:13 Michael is referenced as “one of the chief princes”, meaning there are other chief princes and other not-chief princes as well. Ephesians 1:21 and 6:12 and Colossians 1:16 also list rulers, authorities, dominions, thrones, powers of this world, and wicked heavenly spiritual forces. If heaven operates on a hierarchy system, and it clearly does, why would we expect God to do everything Himself when He has clearly designed other beings for us to partner with to release His will in the earth?

At the end of the day, while the answer “God made it that way” isn’t a very satisfying answer, that really does seem to be the most apparent reason why God uses angels, but as we have seen, the entire Bible supports this fact as well, so when angels are sent to us by God we can be confident that we are not only permitted but encouraged to partner with them to bring heaven to earth.

If you want to learn more about how to partner with angels, join my free email list (below) and you will receive my ebook “Engaging Angels” as a thank you.

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Things Your Pastor Never Taught You About Elemental Spirits In The Bible

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Roughly a decade ago, I was working on my wife’s shoulder which was bothering her, and I had a visionary experience. I was trying to concentrate on what I was working on, but had this really irritating picture in my head of something that was doing a sweeping motion that I couldn’t get to go away. Whatever the thing was, it was messing with my concentration, to the point that I was spending more mental energy on making the image go away more than what I was doing for my wife’s shoulder.

At first I didn’t realize I was having a vision, and then I realized that it wasn’t going away due to the nature of the vision, so instead of trying to make it end, I began to pay attention. As I focused in on the sweeping motion, I sort of zoomed out and realized it was a broom that was sweeping off our front porch. Stuck in the cracks of the stone was a piece of paper, which I proceeded to pick up. I tried to read what was on it, but couldn’t.

As I did this in the vision, a really ugly spirit of some kind approached me and said something (I forget now), and I made him leave. Directly after that, I asked Holy Spirit how a demon could appear in my vision and interact with me, as I found that both confusing and new at the time. What He said to me was this:

“It’s not a demon.”

I was like “It’s ugly enough to be one… So what was it??”

Holy Spirit replied “An air spirit.”

I can already hear the sound of a record player coming to a screeching halt as someone says “wait, what?”

Right after Holy Spirit said this to me, He reminded me of Ephesians 2:2 which refers to Satan as the “Prince of the powers of the air.” The word ‘powers’ there is the word exousias, which is used in 2 types of places:

1) used when the New Testament talks about power, also thought of as virtue or energy, of the kind that Jesus used to heal people
2) found in the lists of heavenly hierarchies, specifically Colossians 1:17 and 2:15. In these lists, it’s the same word being used, but in reference to angels and/or other sentient spirit beings.

While one could make a reasonable argument that there is no connection between “Powers of Air” and what I would refer to as elemental spirits, there was something else that made me pay a little more attention to what He shared with me. Years ago, my friend Ben (I talk about him in my book The Beginner’s Guide to Traveling in the Spirit) was telling me once about an experience he and a couple of his friends had. They were practicing their gifts of discernment together, as Ben was a feeler, and one of his other friends was a seer. The name of the game was basically “How many angels are in the room?” They identified 11 angels in the room, except for one thing . . . some them weren’t angels—they were Powers. He described what they looked like to me. Of the Powers, one looked like a fountain. The other one was like a pillar of flame.

A seraphim/fiery burning one caught on camera

Now, I don’t believe in coincidences. When I put that story together with the Power of air that Holy Spirit showed me in that vision, suddenly we have air, fire, and water, 3/4 of what are typically known in mythology as “elemental spirits”. Furthermore, the Bible makes another somewhat veiled reference to this in Psalm 104:4 (which is later quoted in Hebrews 1:7) which states: “He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants. (NIV)” In this passage it suggests that God uses either a sentient wind or Wind/Air spirits his messengers (or angels, as it could be translated), and he has servants who are flames of fire. Interestingly enough, “seraph” means something to the effect of “fiery burning one”. If that doesn’t sound like a fire-spirit of some kind, I don’t know what does. Now, while I’m not making the argument that seraphim are fire elementals, my point is that throughout scripture we actually see more references to Powers, or elemental spirits, than we might realize.

Did you know that elemental spirits are also referenced elsewhere in scripture? They are. Strong’s G4747 is the word “stoicheion” which means the following:

any first thing, from which the others belonging to some series or composite whole take their rise, an element, first principal
the letters of the alphabet as the elements of speech, not however the written characters, but the spoken sounds
the elements from which all things have come, the material causes of the universe
the heavenly bodies, either as parts of the heavens or (as others think) because in them the elements of man, life and destiny were supposed to reside
the elements, rudiments, primary and fundamental principles of any art, science, or discipline
i.e. of mathematics, Euclid’s geometry (taken from Strongs Concordance, Blueletterbible.org)

What the Bible refers to as “stoicheion” are literally elemental spirits–formed of the elements from which all things come from. Stoicheion are referenced in 7 places in scripture: Galatians 4:3, Galatians 4:9, Colossians 2:8, Colossians 2:20, Hebrews 5:12, 2 Peter 3:10, and 2 Peter 3:12. When we read these verses, it specifically refers to elements of creation. Galatians 4:3, the first mention, states “Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world . . .”

One of the things I have come to realize in my life travels is that *typically* most people are in some measure of bondage to the elements of the world. And when I say “world”, I mean creation and the cosmos, not just planet earth. Think about it. The entire reason astrology works is because we are connected in some way to the cosmos, and even our position in space at birth causes us to be influenced in subtle ways by the energies of other stars and planets. It’s difficult to explain why astrology even works, but it usually does. The problem is that we aren’t *supposed* to be subjected to such things, but most people still are anyway. Thus, there is something about breaking free from the influence of elemental spirits, or at least the ones that don’t serve God, that is important. If Satan is in control of the elemental spirits of the air, then what other elementals are under his control?

While I have heard stories of people who have encountered elemental spirits, I have had some encounters of my own. Some of these spirits serve God, but more often than not they are ignorant of God’s existence and are very self-seeking and selfish. In fact, Colossians 2:8 says, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” Something about elemental spirits tends to involve deceit, and one friend has pointed out that they tend to work through illusion, which makes sense in context of this verse.

Galatians 4:9 tells us that elemental spirits are actually far weaker than we realize (it says they are “weak and beggarly”), and from what I understand, they use deceit and illusion to get us to come back in bondage under then, and in so doing, they can use our power as their own. Why would they want to do this? 2 Peter 3:10-12 suggests they will be destroyed by heat and fire, and it is likely they want to use our power to somehow avoid that fate. Furthermore, there appears to be a connection between elemental spirits and getting us to follow highly proscribed rules and religious structures. There is something about getting us locked into definable patterns that helps them to engage and use our power.

I first wrote about this topic on December 1 of 2009, 10 years ago. Before then, there were a few people talking about it, but very few. In the last ten years, God has been giving even more people revelation about this subject and not only how elemental spirits can influence us, but what we can do about it and how we are supposed to bring them under the dominion of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don’t pretend to have it all figured out, but I do believe that God wants us to have a greater understanding of this subject as a whole.

If you want to hear more about this topic, consider listening to a podcast episode on Discovering Truth with Dan Duval called Stoicheion, Elementals and Rudiments with Ruthie Andrews.

Can a Christian Have a Demon?

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This is a pretty common question that I hear people ask, and there are (unsurprisingly) two main answers: Yes and No. And in reality, there really are only two possible answers, although the different camps tend to break their beliefs down into further detail on the specifics. Before answering this question, I’m going to explain why it’s important to know whether a Christian can have a demon or not.

The answer to this question helps explain a number of significant things in the life of a believer. It helps assign blame appropriately when things go wrong in life. It helps us understand the root causes and influences of personal vices, sins, and ongoing life struggles. The answer helps us realize why we sometimes have difficulty overcoming in certain areas of our lives, while other areas we see great victory in. Most of all, the answer to this question helps us know how to walk in the freedom that Jesus Christ already purchased for us on the cross over two-thousand years ago.

The answer to the question is “Yes”. Yes, Christians can and do have demons. But that’s just the beginning. Not only can we have them, but we can have them influencing us in ways we never realized, and once we uncover their work and get rid of them, we can walk in levels of freedom, peace, and joy in Christ we never realized were possible. Many times we have been so used to demonic resistance in those areas that we just never realized there was something better to enjoy in God.

“But Michael, it says in the Bible that Christians can’t have demons!”

No, it actually doesn’t. People simply make assumptions based on what they wish were true and ignore the facts to arrive at that conclusion.

The most common verse people use to “prove” that a Christian cannot have a demon is from James 3:11, which states “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?”. The idea is that “fresh water” which supposedly represents the Holy Spirit here, cannot coexist with “salt water” which supposedly is demons, and thus a Christian, who has the Holy Spirit indwelling him or her, cannot have demons. The problem with this verse is, well, the first problem is that salt water isn’t used anywhere in all of scripture to describe demons, so it’s basically making things up. The second problem with this verse is that the context is extremely clear, and it is very plainly obvious that this passage is not talking about demons. Let’s look at the passage a little deeper. By reading a larger section of James 3 and not just cherry-picking verse 11 out of context, it gives this passage a pretty obvious meaning. James 3:7-12 says:

“All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 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.”

The entire passage is about the tongue, and the terms “fresh water” and “salt water” here are referring to our words, not the Holy Spirit and demons. Furthermore, in verse 10 it says “my brothers and sisters, this should not be” It doesn’t say cannot be, meaning it is impossible, but rather that it currently happens but it would be a good thing for it to not happen. So even if we pretended this passage was about demons and not about how we use our words, the passage would prove to us that it is possible, not the other way around.

In Acts 8, Philip went to Samaria, and verse 7 tells us he healed many people and cast demons out. In verse 15, it tells us that many new converts had been baptized with water, but had not yet received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. From this, we can recognize that Philip was doing a few different things all at the same time. He was preaching and converting people, casting out demons, and healing the sick. If all he had to do to make the demons leave was convert people, which the passage shows us he was already doing, why bother casting out demons? Why not just skip that pointless step and convert everyone if indeed conversion brings total and complete removal of all demonic forces from the body and soul? Simple: Because as much as we all wish it did, that’s not how it works.

In reality, demons make people uncomfortable. The idea that there are non-visible evil entities that can live inside us and influence our thoughts and behaviors is kind of creepy. The idea that we have a special protector named Jesus who keeps all the bad things away is of great comfort to many. The problem is that they take this fact to the extreme and apply it in ways it was never meant to be applied and in situations where it doesn’t work that way. While Jesus does give us the power to oppose demonic forces, that fact doesn’t automatically eject ones that have already taken residence up within us, and people have a hard time swallowing that. Actually, most people avoid all involvement with the demonic as a whole, including casting them out of people. I attribute this largely to a combination of fear and ignorance.

Many are afraid of demons, so if they ignore them, they can feel like demons aren’t there. Others are simply ignorant of the workings of the enemy and simply don’t have a clue of what is going on in the unseen realms around them. Still others have no clue but don’t want to get a clue because remaining ignorant means they get to stay happy in their self-protected bubble of inaccuracy. Ignorance, however, is not part of the armor of God mentioned in Ephesians 6; on the other hand, the belt of Truth is.

If we want to lead fruitful and effective lives, throwing off “everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles (Hebrews 12:1b),” then we need to include casting out demons in the mix. This goes for Christians, not just unbelievers. Most of the people I have cast demons out of have been followers of Jesus for years, oftentimes a decade or more. And while the common party line of those who erroneously think Christians can’t have them is “Well, they must not have been really saved to begin with”, the fact is they’re just wrong and don’t want to admit it.

Some people find it easier to play a round of theologymnastics to try and make all life situations fit into their inaccurate belief system than it is to admit they are wrong and learn new things. That seems silly, fruitless, and extremely immature to me, so I don’t play that game. If I’m wrong about something, I might as well realize I lacked sufficient information before, then include new information to arrive at a better understanding of how creation actually works. There is nothing shameful or wrong about not knowing something, and we are all hopefully learning new things on an ongoing basis. What is shameful is ignoring the truth when it is presented in favor of further entrenching oneself deeper into ignorance.

Casting out demons may not be everyone’s preferential way to spend their time, but it is important to at least know what to do when demons decide to unexpectedly appear. As believers, the Bible says we have been given authority over unclean spirits to cast them out, and we need to both understand and walk in that authority, even if we do so infrequently. If you don’t know much about this practice, it’s time to learn because demons don’t stop their work just because you don’t know what to do when you discover a Christian has a demon.

Below are a series of articles I have written that may help you better understand how to deal with demons when they manifest in yourself or those around you:

http://www.thekingsofeden.com/2016/04/divine-healing-that-works-part-2/

http://www.thekingsofeden.com/2016/05/divine-healing-that-works-part-5/

http://www.thekingsofeden.com/2018/01/dont-fear-demons-make-demons-fear/

http://www.thekingsofeden.com/2015/08/the-influence-of-demons/

Inner Healing Encounters: Guardians Assemble!

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As a strong proponent of inner healing and deliverance, from time to time I learn new things. Recently, I was taking a little time to do some inner healing on myself, but kept getting interrupted by demonic activity inside my system (for some background, read these posts about systems and fragments and alters.) Normally, I have all the parts with a particular issue or emotion gather into one location in the system, then I pray a prayer for us as a group out loud, and usually, most every part receives healing for that issue. We kept getting interrupted in a variety of ways inside by the demons which prevented me from getting anything done.

Honestly, it was annoying. I’m used to it because this is common when I do work on myself, but it is still annoying. On this particular occasion, however, inspiration struck. I had a bunch of guardian parts fend off the demons while I did inner healing with everyone else, and it worked great! Then, I asked all the parts who were ready to integrate to raise their hand, which they did. I then prayed for all of them to integrate not into my core/main/presenting self (ie. Me), but into all of the guardians. What this did is it gave each of the guardians a larger portion of my soul, and thus made them each a little bit stronger. I’ve done this before in other situations and with other people and it has worked well, so I did it here to good effect. I could sense the guardian parts not only getting stronger, but they had an easier time keeping the demons away as well! Since it worked, I continued to do some more inner healing without interruptions thanks to those parts doing a great job protecting everyone inside the system.

To back up a little bit, let me explain what a guardian is. As best as I understand it, a guardian is a fragment or alter who has become a protector of other parts or things inside the system. Unhealthy guardians often prevent inner healing work from getting done because they see the prayer counselor and sometimes the presenting personality as threats to the well being of them and those under their protection. On the other hand, a healthy guardian is not just experienced at some level of spiritual warfare, but is going to work with you to get things done. Knowing this, I leveraged their influence and it worked well.

I posted a status about this on social media and a friend asked how it made them feel. These were healthy guardians, so they handled it just fine as far as I could tell. If they hadn’t been, I don’t actually think the method would even have worked. On the other hand, I also don’t think it’s a fantastic idea to only integrate parts into other parts. Most of the time if I integrate a part, whether working with myself or someone else, I do it to the main self, and if I am ever unsure what to do, I ask the Holy Spirit for guidance. So while I don’t plan to constantly integrate parts into the guardians, I think I’ve got myself a new tool for inner self-healing, and from what I can tell self-inner-healing tools that work with fragments and alters are growing in demand.

#AvengersAssemble
#GuardianPartsForTheWin
#BrokenToWhole

If you want to learn more about working with fragments and alters and doing inner healing on your self and/or others, consider the following book I coauthored with other inner healing ministers, authors, and survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse called Broken To Whole.

You might also be interested in some other self-healing exercises and related articles:

http://www.thekingsofeden.com/2016/12/did-self-healing-integrating-fragments-and-alters/

http://www.thekingsofeden.com/2017/09/focus-healing-fragments-alters/

Reassigning Angels

Just the other night I was driving with my stepdaughter to a local open Thrive meeting. We were about 30 minutes early, so we decided to stop in at a Trader Joe’s grocery store that was on our way and grab a bite to eat. We were hungry and it was going to be written off as a business expense anyway, so we figured we might as well. As I pulled into the parking lot, I realized I had been here before, but it had been a while. The building on the far side of the parking lot from the store was a place where a ministry I used to be on staff with hosted conferences a number of years prior.

Feeling like this was a God-timed moment, I drove over to the building and parked the van. My stepdaughter was confused, and I probably didn’t explain clearly, but we got out and walked up to the door. I then prayed something to the effect of “I lay claim to every heavenly deposit that was left here from the previous events that we did and for every angelic assignment that has been left untended and remains here. I lay claim to those blessings and angels and attach them to the ministry of The Kings of Eden in Jesus’ name.”

I turned around to walk back to the van, but suddenly was hit with the power of God and instantly became what is known as “drunk in the Spirit.” As I walked to the vehicle, I could sense a roughly fifteen-foot-tall angel following right behind me, and by revelation I knew that there were in fact three angels that had come with me. While one of them is called To The Nations, I’m not certain yet what functions the other two serve.

The encounter itself was somewhat profound and entirely unexpected, and the next fifteen minutes of being drunk in the spirit while shopping for snacks was also fun, but as I reflect back upon this event, there is more to it than meets the eye.

How long would those angels have waited there for someone to give them something to do if God hadn’t brought me by that night?

The Bible says, “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14). Angels, and the heavenly host as a whole who have been sent to earth at God’s command, have been sent to serve us in a myriad of ways. When God gives them an assignment, it doesn’t end because we neglect them. Rather, they are still waiting for us to engage them again and to partner with them to fulfill their heavenly mission. Some assignments are sent to specific people, but other angels are assigned to fulfill a particular mandate. While the gifts of God will not be removed from us, mantles and mandates can pass us by if we remain stagnant or fail to move into all that God has for us.

This begs another question: How many others of the heavenly host are waiting for someone to help them complete their assignments here on the earth? And if angels are waiting for us to come and pick them up, what are we waiting for?

I firmly believe that God has many more angels assigned to us than we realize, and probably many who are waiting for us to release them to get things done! Pray this prayer with me:

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the multitudes of the heavenly host that you have sent out on our behalf to bring your light, life, and love to the world. Wherever there are unused and abandoned angels whose mission is aligned with ours, we ask that you would transfer them to us and to the things you are doing in and through us, our lives, family, work, and ministries. We apply the full armor of God to ourselves and our angels. In the name of Jesus, we activate and release every angel who has already been assigned to us to go and accomplish all you have sent them to do. We ask that you would assign additional angels to us according to your will and perfect design, and that you would open the storehouses of heaven to bring us every spiritual blessing that has been stored up for us in heavenly places in Christ, and we ask all of this right now in Jesus’ mighty name! Amen.

The Kingdom Within—The Reality Of The Inner Dimension

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In my growing experience doing inner healing, I have come to understand that Inside each of us is a dimensional space of some kind. In this space, we actually have far more activity than we might imagine. For those who have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), this is where the various personalities exist when they are not the presenting part that is using the body at that moment. This is also the realm where demons inhabit if they are inside someone. It might be known as an “Inner World” or “Inner Dimension”, but it has a variety of names. I personally refer to it as one’s “System” simply because that is what my friends call it, but any of those three names are equally relevant, as might many more.

Luke 17:21 references this inner realm, saying, “nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” Consider what that might mean. The Bible says that we each have the Kingdom of God inside of us. That passage doesn’t say that Jesus lives in us (although He does for those who are saved), but that within us is an entire realm of the Kingdom of God. Let that sink in. We know the Kingdom of God isn’t a tangible location on the earth. I can’t buy a plane ticket and fly there for the weekend, but we know it still exists, so its location must be other-dimensional. Some argue that it is a dimension that overlays ours, others think it is in outer space somewhere. I think it is probably both and more, but it is clearly also a dimension within each one of us.

This has some interesting implications. As I mentioned above, this inner System is where demons go when they are inside someone. Luke 11:24-26 says, “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” Also echoed in Matthew 12:43-45, this passage contains some interesting secrets. While I will not delve into the Greek here, there are some interesting details having to do with translation—ultimately the passages should say that the house is swept, ornate, and empty (read this article if interested in the Greek)

When we cast demons out of a person, if all we do is cast it out and do nothing to influence how the demon was able to get inside the system to begin with, then the demon will simply return later, find that the system it left earlier was cleaned up a bit and made nice and pretty for it, and it will bring roommates with it. When I cast out a demon, I first find out how it got access to begin with, and we remove the point(s) of access, often through prayers of renunciation. After making the demon leave, I pray for Holy Spirit to fill up every place the demon vacated. In doing so, it stops being swept clean and empty, but rather the door locked to the demon, swept clean, and filled with God’s glory.

This inner dimension can fit a lot of stuff because it isn’t relegated to the size of our bodies. Angels can be in there, demons can reside there, and Jesus can be enthroned in that dimension as well. This inner dimension is where strongholds are located. The Bible speaks in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 about them, saying “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” At first glance it appears that Paul is talking about demolishing arguments other people are making, but if you read the sentences more closely, it actually seems Paul is talking about the inner world. We cannot take other people’s thoughts captive; only our own, so Paul is clearly talking about our own inner soul here, at least to some extent. Thus, if we understand that strongholds are some kind of castle or fortress, it makes far more sense that we can have strongholds inside us when we realize they exist inside the System. When we use the power of God to demolish those strongholds, we are waging war internally against the demonic, taking over Kingdom ground within us.

One observation about the Inner System is that we can create anything there that we want, literally by saying it. Job 22:28 says, “You will also declare a thing, and it will be established for you; so light will shine on your ways.” We create things with our words, and the workings of the System is a very good indicator of this. For example, I was recently working with one of my granddaughters, and this particular part was upset because she felt God doesn’t answer her prayers. I had this part ask God why her prayers aren’t answered, and from what she relayed to me, one of the reasons had to do with a lack of faith. She wasn’t sure what to make of that, so I began to explain what the Bible says about faith being a tangible force and energy, and then said “There is faith right in front of you. Look at it and tell me what you see.” This part, who is looking in front of her while inside the system says “Oh, I see this glass vial with blue liquid and it has a cork in it.” My declaration that faith was in front of her caused this spiritual item, a small glass bottle to appear inside her System. We must remember that God spoke and in speaking created myriads of realms, and we are made in His image. When I am doing inner healing with someone and speak something in faith, I release it into their inner system, and they can verify that it is there. This happens consistently, not just with that vial of faith (which, by the way, I had that fragment drink and she informed me it tasted like strawberries, cherries, and chocolate. What fun!).

When we decree a thing into the System, we establish it in the inner dimension. Because I know this when I start working with someone I make sure to add a few things that will help them. I decree a spring of the water of life appears in their system, that continually flows and turns into a river that runs throughout the entire system. I decree the Tree of Life is planted inside the System as well, and oftentimes parts who like gardening will grow them in their garden, which is again located inside this inner world. I have a friend who had one fragment who likes to garden, and this part began to weave small rafts of willow leaves and sends plant starts down the river into other areas of the System that we haven’t been able to access yet. The third thing I usually do is I decree a Healing Center into existence, and if the person doesn’t have any fragments or alters who are good at doing inner healing work (such as with my grandchildren) I staff the Healing Center with angels. By decreeing it, God assigns angels and they get sent into the System to staff the Center. All of these things have long-term positive benefits and ensure that healing is taking place inside even if we aren’t doing inner healing prayer at that time. And all of it occurs simply by declaration! No wonder the power of life and death is in the tongue!

I began pursuing inner healing and deliverance around fifteen years ago, in my early twenties, and working with the System is the fastest, easiest, and most effective manner of ministering inner healing I have ever seen. The reality of the Inner World is important to understand, and it helps provide a practical backdrop to understand where demons reside in a person before they are cast out and how multiple personalities can function. In general it helps us understand how we can work with the functions of the multidimensional reality we live in to help bring the healing power of Jesus Christ to the individual.

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A Sinister Undercurrent In Disney

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I have never been to Disneyland or Disney World, and as amusement parks, they are probably very fun. Some of the shows on the Disney Channel are far more wholesome than most adult shows. And most kids enjoy at least some of the Disney Empire of movies. Nevertheless, I have recently become aware of a nefarious and even occult undercurrent with the company. Yes, I’m talking about the Magic Kingdom, Mickey Mouse, the Disney Princesses, and all of the rest of it, and more specifically in their movies. It is very hard to pinpoint, but there is some type of occult and/or satanic influence behind Disney. I’m not saying that everyone who works for Disney is evil, nor that the Board are satanists, and it is admittedly difficult to pinpoint the exact nature of the problem. However, it has become apparent to me the past few weeks through a series of synchronous encounters the Lord brought across my path that there is indeed a sinister undercurrent in Disney.

In my own inner healing journey, I have shared a good bit on blog posts about working with fragments and alters. I can’t explain everything here, but you can read a series of blogs on inner healing here that should catch you up a bit. I haven’t shared many details of my own inner healing sessions, but I discovered recently that the word Disney itself was a significant trigger to my inner system. In the process of unraveling the trigger, we located a part named Lacy Susan who kept talking about Maleficent, the witch from Sleeping Beauty. This part was very scared and kept saying “She cast a spell on me.” That is strange enough in and of itself, but it made me start wondering. Was there some member of the Disney crew who, in production, added some spell to the movie? I don’t know, but my one granddaughter is terrified beyond reason of Maleficent, and I will have to do some inner healing with her on the subject fairly soon.

The very next day, a friend, who is also a survivor of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) and who knew nothing about my inner healing encounter, messaged me about a dream she had that was filled with Disney references. Not only was this dream filled with Disney characters and references, the entire dream was actually someone trying in real life to access and regain control over one of the parts in her system. In talking with this friend more, she has identified this same sinister undercurrent in Disney and its involvement in her ritual abuse. As part of her own inner healing journey she avoids all things Disney, and wisely so.

The day after that, my wife and I were talking with a friend and mentioned our growing suspicion about spiritual problems with Disney. She informed us that as a kid she really liked The Little Mermaid, but that ever since, even in adulthood, she is somewhat plagued by the songs from that movie, as they randomly pop into her mind throughout the week . . . almost every week. I led her in a short prayer of renunciation and she could feel something shifting inside her as she prayed.

I pondered all of this, as anytime a subject like this keeps coming up in a short period of time, it’s something God wants me to take note up. I thought some more, and realized that in the movie Cinderella, the fairy godmother teaches the listener a set of spell words—an incantation. Wanting to test my theory, I prayed to renounce the words she said in the song: “Salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo”. I immediately felt something shift inside me in the spirit. I had a family member (who is of similar age and watched the same movie as a kid) test this for me as well. I called up a super-prophetic part of hers, had this part pray the same prayer of renunciation, then asked her to tell me what happened inside her system. She told me she also could see something lifting off of her in the spirit.

The difficulty with some prophetic revelation is that it’s not always clear. For example, I don’t know if it is specifically the movies, something about the movie characters, or something else about Disney entirely. I’m not sure if the characters are putting spells on people, if the issue is subliminal messaging (there are a bunch of subliminal images and hidden auditory soundtrack in older Disney movies), or some combination thereof. It could be that there is something spiritual tied to the movies which is why the issue is so vague. At some point in time, even if I don’t have all the answers, I’m simply not going to do Disney anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly fawning all over the company to begin with, but if their products are that much of a spiritual problem, I am more than happy to do without. And realistically, I encourage you to do the same.

While yes, it does open the door to some pretty frustrating questions such as “If Disney is bad, what is okay for the kids?”. Honestly, I really don’t know anymore. I’ve heard stories from reputable sources about Cabbage Patch Kids causing serious demonization of children, as well as Pokemon being based on actual demons and their attacks based on how demons actually influence on people. The truth is that it easy to create spiritual problems and/or add demonic undertones in entertainment, especially children’s entertainment, and the reality is that there is an express goal by certain parties to do exactly that. In the same way that SRA is far more widespread than anyone realizes, occult influence in Western Culture is also far more pervasive than many realize. Frustrating? Sure. Nevertheless, it seems prudent to me to walk wisely and limit areas in my life (and my family’s lives) that give easy access to the enemy.

Have you noticed anything similar about Disney or other entertainment, whether for kids, adults, or the whole family? What has God been showing you about the subject?

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According To Your Faith Let It Be Done

I was doing some inner healing with a family member recently. We had identified a particular demon, identified the boss demon in charge of that one, and I then interrogated the boss about their points of access. In this process I asked that boss about HIS boss. I didn’t get very far as he said he didn’t really know anything. Mind you, demons are liars so it can be difficult at times to know when they are telling the truth or just lying again, but in this particular moment it seemed to have answered truthfully. Thus, I asked it “Who would know?” After being evasive for a bit, it informed me of another fragment in the system we hadn’t know about before that knew who the Big One was. Progress!

After casting out the boss and his lackeys, I spoke to that part he had told us about, whose name was Penny. Penny was very pleasant, and extremely helpful. She told me that the Big One, (whose name she didn’t know either, so that’s what she called him) is a principality, a territorial spirit over the USA. More specifically, the Big One is very big, and affects many people, targeting many individuals throughout the nation and sending groups of demons against them to prevent them from walking out their purpose. Penny shared that the Big One appears like a dark fog that creates a dampening field over the nation to prevent the work of God from progressing. One particular area he dampens is the ability of miracles to function.

While that revelation in and of itself is heavy, what Penny told me next made me laugh. I asked Penny “Do you see him affecting me as well?”

“Not very much. . . largely because you don’t care and don’t believe he can.”

There is a valuable truth contained in the last thing Penny said. While yes, it is helpful to know that there are spirits specifically sent against the people of God to prevent us from performing miracles and to keep us walking out our purpose and destiny, of much greater value is knowing how to reduce such negative influence, even if you aren’t spending any time praying against the Big One and his demonic henchmen. The key Penny shared was that our faith changes any dynamic.

Seriously, think about that. This part just told me that there is a principality, a powerful ruling territorial spirit over this vast nation who attacks the people of God to prevent them from living out their purpose, but he is only able to influence me to a small degree for one simple reason:

Because I don’t believe he can touch me.

Sometimes it literally is that simple. Jesus spoke about the power and importance of faith and the converse, unbelief, on multiple occasions. In Matthew 9:29-30a Jesus was praying for two blind men and the scriptures say, “Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith let it be done to you’; and their sight was restored.” He was very clear that their faith was the influencing factor in that situation—the factor that decided how much healing they received. Mark 6:4-6 says, “Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.’ He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.” We see this same dynamic repeated yet again, but in the negative. This time, due to a lack of faith, widespread miracles are unable to be performed and Jesus was limited to healing just a few sick people.

Imagine that Israel had a territorial spirit like the Big One trying to prevent the miraculous. Then enters Jesus—a man who knows who He is in the Father, and knows the authority and power he has been given from Heaven. While yes, the unbelief of a group of people does affect His ability to function in the supernatural at the highest levels, He is still able to heal sick people in spite of their doubt because He knows He has the faith needed to get the job done.

It can be very easy sometimes to fall back on the “it doesn’t happen in the US” crutch. But what would happen if you decided that demons didn’t have the ability or right to operate around you? What if you decided to extend your faith to believe for a devil-free, doubt-free zone around you wherever you go? What if your faith created a spiritual anti-dampening field that combats the demonic dampening fields set against us in this nation? In reality, what makes us think that every nation doesn’t have a principality assigned to do the same? We must learn to understand and activate the power of our faith to destroy the work of hell and release the virtue of heaven in our midst.

There is nothing super-special about me more than anyone else that makes me less-affected by this principality. The only difference is in how much we believe it has the right or ability to affect us. After all, if things are done to us according to our faith, then let us be people who believe what Jesus said of us in 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.”

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Seeing In The Spirit To Release Physical Healing

A couple of months ago my wife and I got a gym membership after talking about it for over a year. While our fitness goals differ, we have gone faithfully each week for the past few months to enhance our health primarily through swimming. Well, Sunshine took a big hit this past week when her back went out on her. The cause is unclear, but when it was time to go to our next “gym appointment” we decided to go anyway—me to work out and her to gently rehab her back in the pool. After I finished swimming however-many laps (I find it too hard to count so don’t bother), we were slowly going up and down a lane together chatting when she asked me “You know thing where you look at people’s physical bodies and see what is wrong with them? Can you do that for me?”

I proceeded to look at her back in the spirit and saw this strange-looking thing that was a bit like a combination between a black eel, a pair of those tongs they used back in the day to pick up blocks of ice, and one of those black spiked collars you might put on your junkyard guard dog. It had lodged itself in her back at the location/level of the vertebrae where she felt the pain and tightness. Anyway, I hadn’t even prayed yet, as I was silently looking in the spirit to see what I could observe, but while I did she felt something lift off her shoulders and was like “Wow, that’s amazing! It feels better already!” I didn’t tell her that I hadn’t even prayed yet. I’m guessing an angel must have taken care of it, but I don’t really know. Next, I told her what I saw and pulled it off of her back. Then I told her to see how it felt. No joke, she was twisting and turning with a significant increase in range of motion compared to thirty seconds prior. She wasn’t totally healed at that moment, as she ended up having more issues later on that night, but the immediate change was substantial. As I thought about it later, I wanted to share this story on the blog because I think it will help a lot of people.

I have touched on this subject before, in my article “Healing With The Seer Gift”, but in short I look in the spirit at the person or problem I am trying to “diagnose”, and as I do that I start having visions about the nature of the problem. In my wife’s case it was a demonic entity of some kind, but sometimes I will see colors instead of beings. Other times I will see objects, spiritual or psychic devices of some kind that are influencing the area in question. Once, my wife was telling me about a headache she was having and said “it feels like there is a nail in my eye.” I simply reached out toward her face, acted like I was pulling a nail out of her eye, and the headache left immediately. The reason she felt like there was a nail in her eye is because there was a nail in her eye—just not a physical, tangible one.

I think sometimes we forget that the unseen realms are in fact very real. My grandfather once had a ceremonial African mask hanging on his wall at his house. I told him about the demon I saw sitting on top of it (it looked like a big black chameleon and it hissed at me), and he basically didn’t believe me. My reply to him is key to this subject. I said, “Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean I can’t see it, and it doesn’t make it not there.” The unseen realms are all around us, and our inability to perceive them doesn’t make them go away. If a demon or witch or whomever drives a spiritual nail in someone’s eye, it will remain there until it gets removed, either by us or an angel. In the same way the physical realm has object permanence, so do the spirit realms. The gifts of the spirit are part of our tool-kit that help us to interact with these invisible realms, but many times people don’t know they can activate those senses on their own, at will, and when they do, they don’t always know what to do with what they see.

Some of it is trial and error, but a big part of it is being led and guided by Holy Spirit. As I have dealt with spiritual objects, spirits, and more over the years I have learned a few things, but I still have to ask Him sometimes what to do in a situation. Following His lead is the first key to using this ability to heal.

The next thing we have to recognize is that when we act something out we aren’t just playing make-believe. Our imaginations aren’t just a pretend thing. The way we interact with the spirit realms is through our desire, intention, and belief. Our imagination is actually a vehicle that puts our belief into action. In other words, when we imagine something, we are using our power as co-creators with God to actually create that very thing. When I “imagine” myself pulling a demon off my wife’s back, I’m not just playing make-believe—I am activating my spiritual abilities to actually pull a demon off my wife’s back. While some find this hard to swallow, the proof is in the fruit. If it didn’t work, and I really was just pretending, my wife’s back would have had no change at all. Sure, someone could argue that my pretending activated her faith to believe it was better, but that doesn’t usually work when the problem is a demon, because they will fight back against you, and in a situation like this where the faith is supposedly “make believe” to begin with, how would that force a demon to leave? No, in pulling the spirit off of her back, I was making use of my authority as a son of God to do what Jesus said we could do in 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.”

The third thing we have to do (in no particular order) is engage the angels. Whether we do it by speaking to them directly, praying to God to have them do something, commanding a thing to change, or simply praying to God for a situation to get fixed, all of these are valid ways we can engage angelic assistance. Everyone has ideas about which of the above options are permissible for the believer. Instead of arguing with others over what we are allowed or not allowed to do, just pick the one that fits for you and move forward. Get angels involved in the situation. They are ministering spirits sent to us to minister salvation (Hebrews 1:14)—the saving, healing, delivering power of God.

Seeing in the spirit is an incredible key to helping physical healing manifest when we pray, and it works for emotional healing too! Not everyone is automatically gifted in this area, but it is a skill that anyone can learn. Some may have it easier than others, but to say that one is incapable of seeing in the spirit is like saying some people get born with eyes. While that may happen in real life in a rare case, I assure you that the person’s DNA contains the information on how to make eyes, but something got messed up along the way. Likewise, your spirit-body has eyes (Ephesians 1:18), and if it doesn’t for some weird reason, then it’s something God needs to heal and fix, not a handicap to live with. I have learned over time and through practice to both see and hear in the spirit, and I personally think that every believer needs to have both skills trained through regular use. The enemy wants to block our ability to perceive what God is doing in any and every situation, and sometimes if I am unable to see clearly, I can hear God speaking to me. If I can’t hear Him, sometimes I will have a vision. If neither work, sometimes I will have this inner-knowing, a perception of some kind, about what to do. I encourage everyone to train your spiritual senses so that you can hear God, do what He is doing, and manifest the life of Christ Jesus on the earth. And who knows? Maybe the next time you have back pain, or a headache, or some other ailment, you will remember about this article, take a look to see what the problem is, and discover that this really does work. Don’t just take my word for it—try it for yourself and see what happens!

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Despising Spiritual Gifts

Have you ever had a loud ringing sound in your ear? I have. In fact, I was woken up the other afternoon with my right ear ringing quite loudly. I’ve had this happen many times before, the ringing, but never for this length of time, and never such that it woke me up from sleep. The droning noise went on for hours!!

It’s bad enough that I have trouble sleeping at night sometimes due to working night shift, but its even worse when I can’t sleep during the day. Thus, when I woke up around 2:30 in the afternoon, the first thing I did was roll over and try to go back to sleep. That didn’t work so well. At first I thought it was something mechanical, as I can often hear the ringing sound from televisions when they are on, fluorescent lights, and other devices. In fact, when I was a child I could know the moment someone in the house turned a television on even if it was on another floor in another part of the house simply because I could hear the frequency of the television regardless of where I was. This should say something about the pervasiveness of electromagnetic frequencies in our homes and lives, given that this was 20-plus years ago and we have even more technology now, but I digress.

At any rate, I assumed someone must be using some extremely annoying piece of tech nearby that I was hearing, as that was the only explanation my sleeping brain could come up with. After an hour or so, when I finally gave up on getting more good sleep (I had close to 6 hours total I think) and just got up, I realized that it probably wasn’t technology as I have never had tech be this loud and persistent before. From there I realized I might be discerning witchcraft taking place.

It might be a jump to the reader for me to say “ringing in the ears equals witchcraft.” The meaning of this particular manifestation of the gift of discernment of spirits is something I have learned over time. Hebrews 5:14 explains this saying, “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” I simply know it from having it happen over and over. I don’t have a scripture verse to explain it or any other clear marker that points to why I know this is what it means, but typically when I hear ringing in one ear or the other, that’s what I am discerning. This is very different from the medical condition known as tinnitus which is also a ringing in the ears, but a steady and ongoing noise. In my case, it is only ever in one ear or the other, both the pitch and volume vary each time. Usually, when this happens I will pray, and directly after I do the sound fades away, lasting in total for about five to ten seconds (if you feel you understand the significance of which ear means what, please comment below). Thus, one can understand my concern when this lasted for hours.

Again, I’ll point out that I was fairly slow on the uptake to even realize what was happening (although I’ll blame a little of that on sleep ^_^ ), but in retrospect I will also say that my attitude was a bit of a problem. I complained multiple times to my wife, “This is SO ANNOYING!” She took it quite seriously, prayed for me, and was incredibly sweet about trying to help. It did nothing to change the sound at first, which was quite disappointing, but sometime over the next half hour or so the sound did dim down a bit even though it persisted. I found out about an hour later (about four hours after it started) why that was.

I have multiple friends who are victims/survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA). One of them had a problem that afternoon, which likely began around the time I was woken up by the shrill ringing noise. Without going into detail about the situation, I eventually realized my one friend might be having a problem, I called, and sure enough that was it. This person was even thoughtful enough to apologize for causing me problems, even though it wasn’t their fault to begin with. While the witchcraft I was discerning was certainly a big issue for my friend, there was another problem that was probably just as large for me:

My attitude.

I have spent a lot of time over the past fifteen years honing my ability to see, hear, and perceive the spiritual realms. This is something that I have given immense amounts of prayer, practice, impartation, book reading, more prayer, and more practice. So when I am actually getting the very thing I have prayed for, I’m all bent out of shape about it?? That doesn’t work.

I had to repent about it once I realized how bad my attitude was. Mind you, I wasn’t walking around grumbling to everyone I met about the problem, but my internal state that was an issue nonetheless. In Matthew 5:27-28, Jesus was teaching the Jews, saying “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Jesus raised the bar of expectation somewhat higher than the law. It didn’t matter if one actually committed adultery or not if the idea resided in the heart. This same idea is echoed in the book of Samuel saying, “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). God is more concerned about what is in our hearts than our actions, because it is the things within our hearts that cause us problems (Mark 7:15).

My take-away lesson was that while spiritual gifts can sometimes manifest at inconvenient times and in inconvenient ways, I need to have gratitude the Lord has answered my many prayers in such a way. After all, I have not only asked for discernment and to flow in prophetic gifts, but I have asked the Lord to make me aware of what the enemy is doing so that I wouldn’t be taken by surprise. As I reflect back on this, the Lord actually was quite good to me in the situation. After all, I wouldn’t have been able to pray and assist my friend if I hadn’t been made aware of the problem, and I wouldn’t have been able to grow through the encounter if the Lord hadn’t revealed my attitude problem. I would much rather be the guy who has the Lord interrupt my life with inconvenient things for the Kingdom than the guy who has a predictable life and makes little to no impact against powers of darkness to begin with. And in the end, I guess all of that is something that I really can be thankful for.