From Truth to Freedom (Deliverance)

Welcome to the From Truth to Freedom seminar. Glad to see you out this morning and looking forward for a blessing from the Lord as we look into his word. Anything that I say this morning, really, we've got a lot of slides to look at.

The only thing that's worth taking away is the scripture. That's it. No fancy slides, technology, anything can replace Jesus or his word.

And the power is found in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in his person. So before we start, let me just open in a word of prayer and we'll begin. Heavenly Father, we come to you in Jesus' name this morning, and we do thank you that you are the God of truth, that you have revealed yourself through Jesus Christ, and that Lord, we have the privilege this morning of coming to your word.

We pray that your Holy Spirit would quicken our hearts to understand and cause us to remember these things, that we would be able to be a blessing not only to ourselves or families or others that we talk to, that Jesus Christ especially would be glorified as a result of what we look at and as a result of how you change our lives. So we invite you, Holy Spirit, to move amongst us, to teach us, to strengthen us, to bless us today. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Now, you'll notice you have handouts. And by the way, anything that you see today, everything is available on a digital copy.

So if you want to let me know, I can send you copies. I would discourage you from reading through the handout. As we go, everything that's in the handout will be on the screen and then more as I talk.

So there might be a few times I ask you to reference one of the pages there. But I was thinking this week of a verse in Ecclesiastes 12-12. I used to like this when I was going to school and then university.

Of making many books there is no end and much study wearies the body. And here's what I know through my lifetime. And that is that there's lots of books written.

Christian books abound. Every month there's hundreds of new books coming out. But especially in this area of our authority over the enemy, our position in Christ, and deliverance and all of this, there are a plethora of books out there.

And to be honest, much study does weary the body when you look at that. And the truth is, many people have told me that they've read these books. And when it comes to dealing with, say, difficult situations in their home, demonic situation, or dealing with other where there's demonic involvement in people's lives, that these techniques and prayers never worked for them.

Some it did. But many say, Mark, we just gave up because nothing worked. That's the one thing I've heard many times.

Nothing has worked. I also learned that God's word is very clear. And when God teaches something, he makes his teachings simple, clear, and to the point.

Einstein once stated that genius is found in simplicity. I had a friend by the name of Dave a few years ago who was considered one of the top five conceptual thinkers in the United States. Brilliant, brilliant man.

He became a Christian later in life. He had mentored one of the wealthiest men in the world before Bill Gates came on the scene. This man himself owned 50 mid-cap companies on the New York Stock Exchange, just to give you an idea of his wealth.

And he used to say to Dave, Dave, I've got lots of consultants around me, but when I talk to you, everything you say makes sense. And Dave told me once, he says, Mark, do you know why I make sense when I talk? He says, because unless you can explain what you know so that an eight-year-old understands it, you really don't understand it yourself. Ecclesiastes 6.11 says this, the more the words, the less the meaning, and of what benefit or how does that profit anyone? Two weeks ago, I preached the message on the Church of Pergamum, and in Revelation 2, we learned that it was a city where Satan had his throne.

And the sin of that church was they had begun to tolerate things, specifically idolatry in their midst. And we learned that Satan can't attack a church or a home directly unless there's a backdoor of disobedience in that place of worship or in that home. And so, the purpose of this seminar is to bring to our attention the many schemes that the devil has for infiltrating a church or homes or lives if we're not careful, because in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 11, Paul writes this, in order that Satan might not outwit us, for we are not unaware of his schemes.

So this morning, I want to talk about what the Bible says regarding the occult and give a description of occultic practices that we can fall into or occultic items that we can possess, and see how these things give ground in our homes, in our churches, and what the Bible says in terms of us dealing with this so that we're free. One of the things that we need to understand is that Satan is a legalist, and he plays for keeps. Let me give you an example.

Let's assume you go down to an Airbnb in Texas. You're going for a cheaper vacation, and you understand that there's this Airbnb on a 1,000-acre cattle farm. So you go there, and it's beautiful.

There's lots of trails. And one afternoon, you go out for a walk. And as you're walking, you find this pathway.

You kind of get lost. And before long, you all of a sudden are confronted by drug members of a cartel. You don't realize that you've crossed from Texas into Mexico.

And you protest to them and say, you know, we shouldn't be here. No, we're going to take you to our drug leader, our drug lord. No, we shouldn't be here.

We were walking in Texas. You know, the fact that we inadvertently and in ignorance cross that border does nothing to free us from our situation. And until someone comes and redeems us and pays that ransom money or deals with us to get us free, we're trapped.

Because the enemy, if we walk into his territory, if we go into his areas, he will not let someone go easily. I'm not talking about possession. I'm just talking about how he can have a legal ground to bother us, to affect us, to keep us from being blessed as the world wants us to be blessed.

Now, when I was younger, I often thought of idolatry as something that the Old Testament people did. They bowed down to gods of stone or gods of gold or silver or wood. And so, I thought that's what they did.

And maybe some people in third world countries still do that. But it never occurred to me that idolatry is commonplace. And I would suggest even more prevalent in our churches today than it was back then.

You've all seen this quote, I'm sure, before. Pascal, the French philosopher said, there is a god-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing but only by the God, the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ. And whether we realize it or not, the human tendency is that we will attach our hearts to things other than to the Lord.

And if Jesus is not number one in our lives, in the sense that we love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, then other things will slowly creep in and replace the Lord Jesus Christ. And these things are called idols in our hearts. Now, I've mentioned this before, talking about idols in our hearts and quoting this scripture.

It's the only scripture that I have ever quoted in all the times that I've spoken at different churches or wherever I've spoken, where people afterwards will actually come up to me and say, Mark, we don't believe that that verse is in the Bible. I said, what do you mean? We've never read that before. Well, here it is.

Ezekiel 14.3, son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces, should I let them inquire of me at all. And so, our tendency to fall into idolatry is so great that when the Lord, think about 10 commandments, what are you going to put as the first two commandments of the 10 commandments? Here's what the Lord did. Look at the first, if you can focus on the screen, you shall have no other gods before me and you shall not make for yourself an idol.

So, this was not just an Old Testament tendency. I mean, the Lord didn't use extra words when He didn't need it. He's saying, guys, the first two things you need to know of all the commandments I could give you is don't fall into idolatry.

That's what the tendency is to do. We think, oh, that's Old Testament. Well, we come to the New Testament, as we saw two weeks ago in the church of Pergamum.

And of the seven churches that are dealt with where Jesus dictated a letter to John to give the seven churches, two of them, the Lord didn't exhort them, but I think they were okay. Of the remaining five churches, the first one to be dealt with idolatry was Pergamum, and the next one we're dealing with, the church of Thyatira, likewise is indicted about idolatry. Two out of the five, that's 40% of the churches that needed correction were struggling with idolatry in their midst, even though that was in the New Testament.

And things haven't changed in the modern day church since then, except that the idolatry we fall into can be much more subtle and generally tolerated by the church at large. So, what is the biblical definition for dealing with idolatry? How does the Lord look at this? By the way, this was the verse that I actually shared with Josie in Staples that day, a number of months ago. When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.

Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interpret omens, engages in witchcraft, or cast spells, or who is a medium or spiritist, or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable practices, the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God.

The nations you will dispossess, listen to those who practice sorcery or divination, but as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so. Let's take a look at another verse, Acts 19, 17, moving into the New Testament. Now, it says, when this became known, what became known? You remember the story of the seven sons of Sheba? They had seen Paul cast out demons, and so they went to a house, and they tried to cast the demon out of a man.

And they said to the demon, in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches, we command you come out. And the demon looked at them and said, Jesus I know, and Paul we know about, but who are you? And they beat them. The one demon possessed man beat the seven sons of Sheba so badly, the Bible says he stripped them, and they ran out of the house just wearing their life.

That was it. They escaped with their life, bruised, bleeding, cut, because of one man. They tried to exercise authority that they didn't have.

So, when this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly.

When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to 50,000 drachmas. That's about 10 million dollars in today's money. And in this way, the Lord, or the word of the Lord, spread widely and grew in power.

So, these were very specific occultic things that were listed. Now, since that time, the heart of man is deceitful above all else, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Men are always devising things.

The thoughts of men's hearts are only ever evil all the time, Scripture says. Since that time, and this is just a smattering, if you want to look in your manual so you can see it, it's pretty hard to see this on the screen, this is literally a summary. This is the tip of the iceberg of occultic practices that are prevalent today.

If you're interested, you could ask me and I can send you a link where I've got eight pages listed, at least eight, and there's things on there that I've never even heard about. So, in the minds of men, as we think about in terms of Scripture, this is what proceeds from the heart of men, and I don't want to talk about all of these, there's so many. I want to highlight around eight or nine of these that I've seen commonplace in churches over the years, and suffice it is to say that because of the evil in these eight or nine things, you'll see a correlation between these things and many of the other items listed there.

So, what I'd like to do is, there is a blogger on YouTube, a YouTuber and a blogger as well, by the name of Stephen Bankars. He was a former New Ager, had lots of followers, quite articulate, quite studied in New Age and yoga, and he became a Christian not long ago. So, what we're going to do is just watch this few-minute clip on yoga, and bear in mind, on that sheet and screen we just looked at, almost every single one of these, the reasons they don't appear to be necessarily bad to us is because we don't understand their roots.

We don't understand what these teachings were intended for when they began. Some of these go back pre-times of Christ, some go back to the Egyptian time period, many go back to Chinese mysticism or Hindu mysticism. So, understand when it comes to yoga, because I know many churches today actually have yoga classes, or they have Christian yoga.

I think if you could spend like probably like two minutes on this whole yoga thing, because I think I, yeah, just go for it. In a nutshell, yoga, which, you know, apparently some Christians are practicing in church and stuff, like churches having like women's yoga classes and stuff. So, the word yoga means union, and union, it's referring to the spiritual goal and agenda of yoga, the word union.

What they mean is that there's a universal impersonal spirit called Brahman, which is this force in the universe and the substance of reality, the substance of the universe. And the goal of yoga is to bring your individual self into union with this universal consciousness, this impersonal field of consciousness, where you recognize that your personal sense of self, your Atman, as they would call it, is ultimately Brahman, is ultimately God. It's ultimately an expression of this oversoul of the universe.

And so, when you reach this state of consciousness of realizing that, they call that moksha. So, the entire goal of yoga is moksha, which is a state of being conscious that you are essentially God. Well, it's essentially what it is.

So, yeah. So, what would you say to a Christian who says, yeah, but I'm just doing the stretching? Yeah. Well, the stretches, aside from the fact that regular stretching has been shown to be just effective in treating things like back pain as yoga, the issue with yoga, I mean, one issue is that it's idolatry because the positions that you're doing in yoga, they're meant to honor the sun, the moon, pagan deities, the polytheistic gods of Hinduism, they're named after polytheistic gods of Hinduism.

And when you hit these positions, what they're meant to do is invoke the properties of these gods or the power of these gods. So, here you are, you're in a yoga studio, there's incense burning, you got idols up everywhere, you got some demonized yoga instructor, who knows what. But then you're in a trance-like state of consciousness.

Your brain waves are changing, you're an open door, you're more susceptible, your defense systems have been brought down, and you're opening up yourself up to demonic possession, demonic oppression. And people are saying, well, no, you're just crazy. Okay, well, let's look to something called the Kundalini effect in yoga, where people who practice yoga, they believe they feel this serpent of energy, as they'll call it, crawling up the base of your spine through your chakras, your energy systems of your body, up to your third eye, and then illuminating your third eye and enlightening you.

But here's the problem, you get side effects like migraine headaches, like depression, like suicidal thoughts, like sickness. And you feel, there's people, there's all blogs of people asking, I have the Kundalini effect after doing yoga. I don't feel like I'm... Yoga's jacking me up.

Yeah, yeah. They'll say, I don't even feel like I'm alone in my own body anymore. I need help.

And the reason why is because you're getting demons. And proof of this is in Hinduism, there's something called siddhis. There's primary and secondary siddhis, which are meant to be essentially consequences of practicing yoga.

When you practice it properly and effective, that would be a primary siddhi or secondary siddhi, such as secondary ones would be being able to revisit the past lives of the gods and like see in trance what they did. Being able to leave your body and go into another person's body. Okay.

Being able to read another person's mind. So yogic traditions tell us that when yoga is done properly, the way it's supposed to be done, you're going to be able to do things that the Bible tells us are only possible with demonic power. Okay.

And you're going to feel messed up. You're going to feel like you're not alone in your body. And then you're going to need help.

You're going to need help from people getting delivered. So it's dangerous. Yeah.

You're just opening up the door to the demonic. Yeah. You're opening up the door to the demonic and you can't separate it from its theological, spiritual roots.

The whole purpose of yoga is not stretching. It's psycho-spiritual. It's moksha.

Another one is samsara. It's leaving the cycle of death and rebirth, leaving the cycle of reincarnation. And you do that by reaching a certain level of consciousness, a certain state of self-awareness of yourself as the creator.

And now you no longer have a need to reincarnate. So those are the two goals of yoga. It's not just to go get fit and wear lemons or whatever, you know, and look like relatively cute because you like yoga pants.

Like that's not what it's about. It's like, it's, it's relatively, it's, it's really dangerous and it's an open door. And my best friend of 12 years was a yoga instructor.

And when I got saved, it threw him for a loop and he tried to get me to do yoga with him. And I just said, no, I can't do it. I'm convicted.

I can't do it. And he got really offended by that. And so him and I haven't been really in contact.

I saw him once since I got saved and the spirit really filled me before that. And I wasn't trying to say anything convicting, but I feel like when you're filled with the spirit properly, people can sense God. They sense change and that, and that, that witnesses to them enough, you know? Yeah.

And, and, and if they're not ready to, to receive, they can be very hostile. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Yeah. That's right. So I shared Christ with them.

I shared the gospel, shared the atonement and, um, planted seeds and haven't heard from him since. But, um, yeah, yoga is not, it's not even close to being acceptable within the body of Christ. Right.

Yeah. He'll, he'll get it. He'll be saved like next week.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Hey, uh, let's thank Steve. Can we just. All right.

One of the things that I hear from people and they're actually right is when we're dealing with this, I'm going to mention some more, uh, things that individuals, Christians, churches can fall into with respect to idolatry or occult is that I'll often hear, but it works. It has to work. You understand that, right? Satan has to make these things work.

Acupuncture has to work or else people wouldn't do it. Reiki has to work or people wouldn't do it. Yoga has to work or people would not participate in it.

Witching rods have to work. You know, dousing for water that you, you take, they used to use a cherry branch, but you can take two rods, like take a hang or cut it to make two L's and that's the way they work. And I know that because many Christians, especially in farming communities everywhere, Canada and the US, I know for sure use them all the time.

When I was in Ohio visiting a Christian friend of mine, I went to his farm and he said, I'd never heard of these things. He says, hey, he called, he didn't call it witching rods. He called it dowsing.

He says, hey, have you ever seen these things? You can find water with them. So I said, give me those things. Let me see how it works.

So in his basement, he happened, they had just poured a new cement slab and under the slab that he knew exactly because he had been part of this with his dad, organizing everything. There were water lines, there's a water line, main water line. Then a little farther there was an electrical line and a little farther there was what he called tiles, I guess, sewage pipes.

So he said, hey, grab these and see what you find. So I'm walking along and all of a sudden they cross. So I said to him, what's under there? He says, oh, that's where the water line is.

So I went, walked farther and it went up, walked a little way down to the other end. Oh, that's another water line. So I'm thinking to myself, wait a second, this doesn't seem scientific.

I'll do an experiment to see if this is metaphysical, spiritual, or it is really physics. So I concentrated. I didn't tell him what I was doing.

I concentrated. I said, okay, I'm going to focus on the electrical and not the water lines. So I walked, walked over the water lines, nothing.

Then I said, what's under? He says, oh, you just bypass the water and three feet away, that's where the electrical line, the main line comes in. So I went back and I said, didn't tell him what I was doing. I said, I'm going to focus on the tiles.

Went over the water, went over the electrical, came to the tiles, and I started to think, this works, but Satan works. And I got convicted about it a few weeks later. We asked one of the professors at school about this and he says, that's demonic.

You need to repent that. So these things, just because they work, don't mean that we should participate in them, because there is God's power and God's laws, and there is Satan's power, and he counterfeits things that God does. I'll give you another example.

A lot of Christians fall into going to, like a fortune teller, they think it's not harmful at all. Do you know, when you go to a fortune teller, they know. The demons in them, the familiar spirit in them, knows, can know about you.

Specifically, if you're a non-Christian going to a non-Christian psychic, they know things. The demons will tell them things. They can tell you anything you want to know about yourself, anything about your past, they can know.

They can't know the future, because that's an attribute relegated to God. He's omniscient, all-knowing, knows the beginning from the end. But they can manipulate it, manipulate the future, especially if you're a non-Christian.

So for example, I used to own a garage and body shop in Montreal, and one day, he was a fireman, came in with a beautiful firebird, a fireman with a firebird. It was a yellow firebird, I think it was like a 1969 or 70 firebird, if you know the old muscle cars, with a nice double black stripe on the hood. He says, I want you to restore this thing like it came right out of the factory.

So he said, he agreed to a price, and I redid his car. It was stunning after, new paint job, everything. Friday night, he comes in from work, and as I'm standing at the cash, taking his payment, he says, you know what, my stupid wife, she went to a fortune teller last night, and you know what that woman told my wife? I said, what? She said that I'm going to crack up my new paint job.

Can you believe how stupid that woman was? He was going on and on. I think, oh man. So he paid me.

Two kilometers from there, there's a bridge that went over to the subdivision where he lived. I get a phone call. He says, you're not going to believe this.

I said, what? He says, I just cracked up the new paint job. My car is a write-off. Why? His wife gave ground to Satan by going there.

Satan didn't know he was going to crack that car up, but he orchestrated that, because she opened the door for him to do it. I'll tell you another story so you understand how this works, that when you're a Christian, you are forgiven of your sins, you are filled with the Spirit, you love the Lord, you know that you cannot be read. A friend of mine came to my house a number of years ago.

He says, I want to become a Christian. So I shared with him in scriptures the things he needed to do. He needed to repent of a lot of things, which he did.

And wonderfully, the Lord saved him that night. Wonderfully. He had lived as he would describe a pagan lifestyle.

Debaucherous, drinking, womanizing, whole nine yards. That was his life. And he comes to Jesus, and he's forgiven.

He's cleansed. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come.

He was so excited, he left that place as a brand new Christian, just hours old in the Lord, knowing nothing. His brother had invited him over for dinner. He came from quite a wealthy family, and his brother and their friends and executives and other senior people were meeting in his brother's very large home for a psychic reading party.

And there was 30 of them that came, and they each had to pay $200 each, because the man from Toronto who was conducting this was well known as the real deal. This guy was sought after. So for a $6,000 fee, he was going to come, and for about an hour and a half, he was going to give everyone their private readings.

My friend walks into his brother's house. He walks down the hallway, and he notices a door that's open just a crack, and he looks in, and here's this man bowing down, and he has an upside down cross. It was the reader.

He was getting ready by worshipping Satan for what was about to take place. He said to me, Mark, the Holy Spirit spoke to me at that time and said, don't say a word. Be silent.

I said, okay. Goes back into the living room. The man comes out with a very perplexed, troubled look on his face, and he looks at my friend's brother named Greg, and he says, Greg, I can't do anything here tonight.

He says, what do you mean you can't do anything here tonight? Everyone's here. We've come special for you and given you six grand. I can't.

I'm sorry. I can't do anything tonight. He says, why? He says, I can't give a reading because there is a Christian in our midst tonight.

So Greg says, well, that's me. He says, no, it's not you. He went around the room, 29 of them.

Everyone said, I'm a Christian. I go to church. No, it's not you, he said.

No, nope, nope. 29th. He comes, and he looks at my friend, and Greg, his brother, says, are you kidding? Him? You think he's a Christian? He's the biggest heathen in this place, and my friend, remember what the Lord says, shut up.

Don't say anything. He just sat there, and the man just didn't ask him, and he says, I'm sorry, folks. There's a Christian here tonight, and I am being blocked from telling you your fortunes, and he left and gave everyone their money back.

These things on the occult, they work, but they work from a position of a demonic realm. We could talk about crystals. If we buying a crystal from someone who's a mineralogist or a rock collector, that's fine, but if you go into a store and buy crystals just because they look pretty, unless you know the source, many of those things can be cursed by witches covens or at the source where they are created.

They can be cursed, and we know from experience that whereas demons can possess people, demons can attach themselves to inanimate objects, and so, for example, I mentioned last time when we had question and answer, one of my friends, Bill, gave me a call one day, and he said, you know, in my home, there's terrible things happening at night. We hear banging and crashing sounds. We see apparitions.

We see like this demonic looking dog running around. It sounds like a grand piano is being dragged across the floor of our house. My kids, they were in their 20s.

Both of them, the son and the daughter, were petrified to go to sleep at night, and I said to him, oh, did someone in your family go to Africa recently? He said, how did you know? I said, did that someone purchase masks? He says, yeah, my son Dan purchased three masks, and he brought them home. I said, I'll come over. We went over.

We looked at this. We went through some of the verses that we're looking at this morning, and he renounced. He repented.

We prayed. He got rid of the masks, and immediately, all oppression stopped in the home. All oppression.

Now, fortunately, it was bad enough that it was so overt, he knew there was something wrong. Do you know what the worst thing to happen is? Just a little bit of oppression because of it. Just a little bit of tension, and fighting, and arguing, and anger, and bitterness, and an alienation from God, and disinterest in reading the word, or prayer, or fellowshipping, or exercising, or gifts, or witness.

That's worse because we don't really recognize that something has come in to our homes, our lives, and changed it. We're not aware of it. The same can happen with music.

You know that Satan, one of his roles when we read scripture, it would appear that it talks about him being amongst the timbrels, musical instruments. There is a good chance that he led worship in heaven before pride was his downfall. And so, the enemy knows the power of music because we read about the millions and millions of angels, and joyful assembly, and the souls of righteous men made perfect, and these are all worshipping God in heaven.

Worship and music is very powerful. Handel's Messiah, Handel said that when he wrote that, he wrote it in just a matter of days, he went into a trance, he said, and he heard the music, and the angels singing, and he transcribed that into the Hallelujah Chorus, and other parts of his musical score. Satan knows this.

And so, when we purchase music, and specifically in my day, there was a lot of acid rock, demonic rock, back masking, where you could turn the records back, remember, and you could hear demonic messages. But that kind of music, if we have it, we're not to allow it to get into our soul. This, we now sing the praises of Zion, not of Egypt.

We're to move on and get rid of that stuff. And I mentioned again in a question and answer last time, but it bears repeating in case you didn't hear this. One of my friends, Steve, was speaking on this at a church not far from here.

It was, I believe, St. Catherine's or Grimsby. And he talked on this, and they had a burning after of any occultic items. And so, they had a 50-gallon drum in one of the farmer's fields.

They stoked up. And as the young people began throwing in their albums and CDs at the time, as the flames went up, they heard screams coming out of those flames. Now, I have never experienced that, and I've not talked to anyone else who has.

But the Lord allowed that to happen as a sign and warning to those young people that they shouldn't do that again. It was a real warning to the church through that. We don't have time to talk much about Harry Potter and the Twilight series, except that when you read those books, even if it was years ago, there needs to be repentance and asking God to forgive and cleanse you and deliver you from any assignment that's attached to that in your home or your life.

Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling incorporated actual curses and rituals that Satanists use. These are the real McCoys. She didn't just make these up out of the air.

It's not just fantasy. These are the ceremonies that they utilize. I remember one home back, I guess, it would have been the early 2000s, one of the big things was not only Harry Potter, but the Twilight series, the Vampire series.

I remember one elder in the church I was attending, he says, Mark, I don't know what's going wrong. We hear doors opening and closing and banging in our house, and it's just started. So I went over to talk with him, and I said, what books is your daughter reading? He says, oh, she's got the Twilight series.

There you go. She repented of it, threw it out, everything stopped right away. The same is true for Halloween.

Halloween, as Josie mentioned, it's not just dressing up and getting our kids to look cute. When we do these things, we are honoring a very wicked day. If you're interested, I've got a message I preached years ago.

I transcribed it. It's called Halloween, Trick or Deceit. I go through the roots of where Halloween comes from, how it honors Satan, and it's representing the night of the dead.

It's got demonic roots. If we participate in it, even though it might look cutesy with our kids dressed up like a pumpkin or something, this is dishonoring to the Lord, and there can be an oppression in the home because of that. Another thing that we see is demonic figurines.

If we purchase for our children, and Disney is notorious for this. Disney, in my day, was good. You could watch Disney.

There was nothing wrong. I used to watch it all the time, but Disney today has become very occultic, very anti-God, anti-Bible, immoral, and if we allow that to come into our homes and our children to watch that, that can also oppress them. Another thing, we work with designers, my son specifically, and I get involved with them with HGTV.

We've done well over 100 TV shows. We work with some of the top designers in Canada, and so even with something as simple as designing a home, there's something called Feng Shui, and Feng Shui basically is a way to make sure there's no obstructions, and there's freedom, and a certain feel in a house or design, but few people realize that Feng Shui's roots are in Taoism, where it deals with yin and yang, energies, etc., and it finds its roots in Eastern mysticism. Now, there's nothing spiritual about having clutter all over the house.

You stub your toes when you bang into the tip. We're not talking about that, but if we embrace an ideology or a system that finds its roots somewhere in something occultic or the worship of demons, then that displeases the Lord, and it becomes, as Ezekiel says, an idol that provokes the jealousy in our hearts, and we have to repent of that. Doesn't mean we can't have order in our homes, but we have to repent of saying, I believe in Feng Shui.

I believe in, here's another one, the Enneagram. I don't know if you are aware of this. This is taking churches and Bible colleges by storm.

A few years ago, the Enneagram, by the way, is a personality test, as if we need more, and I remember at one church, as leaders, they were going out to a retreat, and we were going to be tested with the Enneagram to find out what our personalities were. Now, I don't understand why you want to do it. Once you get to like 40, 50, you already figured out who you are.

If you don't, your wife's told you. You don't need a personality test, right? So, I said to the pastor, why are we doing this again? Last year, you did another personality test. Like, what? There's no one here under 40.

Like, we don't need this. Give this to kids, not the Enneagram, but personality tests and spiritual gifts tests. They eat that up, but for old coots like us, we don't need it.

So, oh no, we're going to do it, and I just felt in my spirit something wrong, and he sent me the link on the website, and when I looked, I didn't bring a graphic, but if you go on to Google Images, type in Enneagram, E-N-N-E-A-G-R-E-M, it actually looks like a pentagram that's been modified, and immediately when I looked at that, I went, oh, don't even need to look for it, but anyways, I'll search it. And the Enneagram back, I think it was the 80s, right around that time, it was channeled. Three men got involved, but one specifically channeled a demonic spirit, who through automatic writing, when a demon takes control of your hands, he wrote down all of the tenets of the Enneagram and the testing.

Put that together into the personality test, and now it's being used in churches all over, at least North America, from what I've heard. I called that pastor, and I said, what are you doing? I said, you have brought the Enneagram into the church, you have brought demonic games into the church that you and the young people are playing, you play Dungeons and Dragons, you play this vampire game where it was crazy, and they'd have a games night, and they would all come and play this. I said, you have grieved the Holy Spirit, and unless you repent, God's hand of blessing will be removed from this church, and there will be a curse on this church, and nothing you try to do will ever succeed.

He said, I'll pray about it, and see what the Lord tells me. Calls me back the next day, he said, I prayed about it, and I, he said, I do listening prayer, but I didn't hear God say anything to me about this, so I guess it's okay. If you ask the Lord for wisdom and guidance on something that he already tells you in his word, he's not speaking to you.

He's already spoken to us. If God warns a Christian through another person who has experience in this, and says, don't do this because, and we do not listen, God will not speak to us, he already has. So these are just some of the things that we can fall into, and so because there are so many items here, and let's assume we had never heard a message like this, a seminar like this, or a sermon like I preached a couple weeks ago about this idolatry, and how it affects us.

How would we know? Could we know? Absolutely. In Romans 8 12 to 14, therefore brothers, we have an obligation, but it is not to the sinful nature to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God.

Galatians 5 18 and 25, but if you are led by the spirit, you are not under law. Since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit. The wonderful thing about being a Christian, is according to Ephesians 1 13, having believed, we are marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit comes into us, he communes with us. He told the disciples, Jesus told the disciples, the spirit, when he has come, will lead you into all truth. The Holy Spirit can speak to us.

If we're... Here's the way God's Word works. If God knows that we will come to him and say, Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name, I ask you to speak to me and show me the truth. If he knows we're sincere, he will tell us.

If he knows we're not going to listen, we're not going to hear anything from him. I was talking this week to one of my co-workers, one of the fellows we subcontract work to. And I was talking with Greg, and Greg became a Christian later in life.

And Greg says, you know what was really interesting, Mark? When I became a Christian, he says, no one had ever told me this. I just came from a pagan roots. I become a Christian, and at the head of my bed, I had what looked like a Star Wars temple guard.

You know those ugly looking creatures, if you've ever seen them? And he had this little figurine, and he said, that was kind of like what guarded me at night, and I put it on the head of my bed. And when I got saved, I walked into my room, and the Holy Spirit said to me, that's evil, get rid of it. And he did.

How did Greg know that? Never heard a sermon on the Holy Spirit speak to him. Those who are led by the Spirit are sons of God. So we really need to pray and seek the Lord, or talk to other people who have been involved.

And then take a look, if you take a look on the internet, please don't go to Snopes, or fact checkers. They're not going to tell you the truth. Even some of the Christian websites, they basically say, well, we don't see anything wrong with it.

But you've got to go to the roots. What was the, what was the foundation of that practice to understand the evil? Now we don't have time to talk about this, just to briefly mention this. I've left this to take a look at for later.

But the sins of the flesh, these are not dealing with idolatry or occult. However, sins of the flesh, one of them would be in Ephesians chapter 4. And let me just see if that's there. Okay, we'll leave that there.

But so here we are in Ephesians chapter 4, 26. We read, do not let the sun go down while you're angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. James 3, 15 and 16.

Such wisdom does not come down from heaven, but is earthly, unspiritual of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. The only reason I put this up is this, is if we struggle with anger and bitterness and unforgiveness and hurt, and we don't deal with it, that in and of itself is enough, according to Ephesians 4, 26, to give ground or a physical space to the devil.

It's not possession, but the enemy has a right to just push our buttons. And it will affect the rest of the home or the rest of the church. If that can happen through that sin, we have to understand that if we live in perpetual other sins, especially in sins of selfish ambition, and envy, and anger, and bitterness, a root of bitterness defiles many.

The writer of Hebrews says in the church, it defiles many. That the enemy can get ground even through that and it needs to be repented of. But once we become a child of God, and we're going to move on from this.

Once we become a child of God, we have been rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light, according to Colossians 1, 13. Satan no longer has control over us, according to 1st John 5, 18, and 19. But he still has two powerful weapons that he uses against both unsafe and especially Christians.

He more wants to work, he already has the unsafe, but these are the two weapons he will launch against every believer. And the two weapons are lies and deception. John 8, 44.

You belong to your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

And if we believe Satan's lies and fall into his deception, then he will succeed as the first verse talks about in John 10. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they might have life to the full.

If he can get us to believe his lies, his lies about who we are, his lies about the fact that God hasn't forgiven us, his lies about what we think about other people, their motives. Many times people get jacked up, not because of the sin that was committed, but what a person didn't say or didn't do. In other words, we're not upset about what a person did or said, we're upset about what they didn't do and didn't say.

That's the subtle thing in the church or homes. And so if he can, through lies, he'll steal from us our joy, steal from us our blessings from the Lord, steal from us our love and our prayer lives, all because we somehow have believed his life. And that's why you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

Now here's God's provision for us, truth. Truth is the antidote for deception. To overcome the enemy's strategies, it's not just enough to know that Jesus died on the cross or to forgive us for our sins.

That's true, but we have to understand that when Jesus died to forgive us, he died to free us. That's why when he rose from the dead, he led captives in his train. He broke the power of death.

When we die to Christ, that's what's what's symbolized in baptism. We die to our old sinful nature. We're risen to newness in life.

That's how we're freed from our sins, but we have to believe it. So unless we know that the chains of sin and bondage and fear and anxiety and oppression have been broken at the cross, irrespective of what we've done in the past, unless we know that, we will live as if we haven't been freed. It'd be like you have a fine of 10 million dollars, you know, and you're locked away in a prison somewhere.

What good does it do if someone comes and pays for your fine and doesn't tell you and you languish there in prison? You're free to go. You've been set free. Your debt has been paid, but many of us live as slaves to sin.

That's why in Romans 6, Paul says that we're not slaves to sin any longer. We have to understand that we've been broken, that sin has been broken. John 8 32, that you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

What's the truth we need to know? Colossians 2 15, having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over by the cross. Galatians 5 1, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Years ago, and I'd mentioned to you in the past, that I always thought I was a Christian. I was brought up in a Christian home. I prayed the sinner's prayer three times, nothing happened, and I gave up on living the Christian life.

I said that's for God's special people. One day when I was 26, I was out west and an old missionary shared with me those two verses, Colossians 2 15 and Galatians 5 1, and he said, Mark, you don't realize this. Christ has completely set you free, if you will believe that, because he disarmed Satan's power on the cross.

And I went back that night to my motel room, and I got down on my knees, and I prayed a prayer I'd never prayed before, based on the book of Hebrews. And the words just came out of my mouth, and I said these words, Lord, I am not going to confess the sins that I have confessed a thousand times to you before. Even confessing sins for what I'm about to do, please forgive me.

You know them all. But I'm going to confess, Lord, before you tonight on my knees, the greatest sin that I've ever committed in my life, and that is what Hebrews calls an evil heart of unbelief. An evil heart of unbelief.

I was like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, whom Jesus said after he discoursed with them, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. And I said, Lord Jesus, please forgive me for my sin of disbelief. I now know that you forgave me, not just to cleanse my sins, but to free me from them.

With forgiveness comes freedom. I accept this. I believe it.

Satan has lied to me. You disarmed him. And think about this.

If you were walking out of this church today, and someone was there with a gun, and they said your money or your life, you might give them your purse or your wallet, because they're armed. But if Mike goes out there, does a martial arts kick, kicks the gun out of the hand, grabs a gun, and goes and drives away, that person has been disarmed. But that person is a liar.

And they're wearing a trench coat. And the next person that comes out of the church, they put their hand in their trench coat, and they make like a gun, and they say your money or your life. If you don't know that they've been disarmed, they can rob you and steal from you.

And that's what the Lord showed me, Mark. Satan, the only weapon he has right now, because you now belong to the kingdom of light, and you're no longer part of the kingdom of darkness, the only weapon he has against you, your family, and church, is lies and deception. Let's look at Christ's power.

To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. So now, we understand that Satan has been disarmed. We understand we've been given freedom in Christ.

But there's more truth we need to understand to set us free. And that is the truth, as we read in these verses, that Christ lives in you. Not just the Holy Spirit.

This is the mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Ephesians 1, 13, and 14. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.

Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession, to the praise of his glory. First John 4, for you, dear friends, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. If we could put on spiritual glasses this morning, we would learn, as Elijah's servant learned in 2 Kings chapter 6, 16, and 17, that those, and I'm quote, those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

And he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots and fire all around Elisha. I learned many years ago that demonic forces are more afraid of Christ in us than we should be afraid of them. And this is why a Christian walking in the light, as 1 John 1, 7 says, has protection and power over the enemy in their prayer, emotional, and thought lives.

The fact that as Christians, we have authority over demons, is not something that we should be proud of or overly joyful about, because most of us will never be in a situation where a demon needs to be cast out of someone we know or someone we meet. That is so rare as to not even talk about it. But it does not negate the fact that we all have the Christ-indwelt power to do so if necessary.

The 72 returned with joy and said, Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name. He replied, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I've given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and overcome all the power of the enemy.

Nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. At that time, Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned and revealed them to little children.

Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. The Lord has given us authority over the enemy in specific situations. If he attacks us, if he attacks our children, if there is even a demonic assignment on a person in our family, we can have authority over that.

I'll give you a quick story about Bill. Bill decided to come and talk with me back December 2nd, 1989. I'll never forget the date.

It's indelibly etched on my mind. And he said, I want to become a Christian. And he said that I feel that there's this darkness surrounding me.

And so I said, well, let's talk and we'll go through scripture and you can call on the Lord and he will save and deliver you. And so he came that night. And as he was coming that night, he worked with the government and he grew up in a very powerful, at the time, the most powerful political family in Canada.

So as Bill was walking across Nathan Phillips Square, he hears this voice who says to him, sit down on that bench. And so he sits down on this bench. And the voice said to him, we have been assigned to you since you were little.

We caused your mother to have a divorce so she would marry your stepfather so that you could be groomed. And the purpose of that was we wanted you to be in a position of power so that when the Antichrist comes on the scene, he will have people in positions of power to worship him. And the voice said to Bill, if you go to that man's house tonight and get saved, you're going to lose everything we're going to give you.

We will give you money. We will give you power. We will give you all the women you want and we'll take care of your wife.

She won't have to worry about anything. So Bill thought for a second. He said, he's carrying on this conversation.

But if you give me all of this and I die and I go to hell for eternity, what good is that? And he got up and not telling me this, he comes to my house. As he sat there listening to me, and he was across the way, maybe a little less than from where I am here to the front row, immediately I could see in his eyes they changed. And it was no longer Bill looking out through his eyes, just deep evil.

And he got up and he lunged at me. And later he told me, the demon says, you get up and you kill Mark. And he lunged at me, he was a lot bigger than me, to kill me.

And what does it say about our authority? I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions. I looked at him and I said, in Jesus' name I command you sit down. Immediately he fell back into his chair.

To make a long story short, after two hours of prayer, him on the floor beating his fists on the carpet saying, get this thing out of me, God wonderfully delivered him. That was a Friday night. Three days later on Monday, he's walking back across Nathan Phillips Square and his pathway is blocked by five Satanists, black robes, black hoods, pentagrams.

He stops and he looks at them. And the leader in the center looked at him and said, are you the one who was born again on Friday night? Bill said, how did you know? He said, our master has sent us here to kill you. He opened up his robe along with the others.

And we're going to gut you like a fish. They pulled out fish knives and they all lunged at Bill to kill him. And Bill remembered this.

He said, in Jesus' name I command you put down the knives. And immediately they all dropped their knives and they couldn't use them. And the leader said, you Christians, you throw around that name of Jesus like it's nothing.

But there's power in that name. There's power in that name. There's power in that name.

And he took off with three of his friends and the last one, the fifth Satanist, stayed back, fell on his knees, repented, and got saved in front of Bill. We have authority over Satan. You know, there are many verses, or not many verses, there are many books written about our authority over Satan, about how to do this, prayers, techniques, and all of this.

And I know because I read them. You know, it's very interesting. The Lord starts us in our Christian life very simply, but quickly we can complicate it.

It's not just enough to have the Word of God. It's not just enough to just be obedient to the Lord and serve Him. We want to learn more.

And we go onto the internet. We buy books and all these things. And so I did that because, you know, when I first got saved, God would send people to me and allow me to help people who were possessed or oppressed or whatever.

I thought, that's really neat. But man, if God's going to do more of this, I better learn more. So I started learning all kinds of things.

And I even started, I went through books. I even had a video series of the church I was going to and teaching this. And then something happened.

For six months, I couldn't sleep at night hardly. Every night for six months, I was attacked by a demonic force in my own room. And all the prayers and all of the techniques, I tried and nothing would stop.

While I was being attacked at night and shaken violently in bed to the point where I would cry, nothing worked. And after six months, I walked out of my bedroom one morning in the hall. I was alone.

And I said, Lord, You have always answered my prayers. You have delivered many people. And yet now I'm under attack.

And I can't get out of this. Why are You not working? Now I was desperate to hear, right? The Lord knew He had me where He needed me. I was going to listen.

And He spoke to me as clearly as I'm speaking to you, but in my heart. And He said, Mark, you are being attacked because you are going beyond what is written. 1 Corinthians 4, 6. We read, Do not go beyond what is written.

The Lord asked me this question. He said, How many verses in the Bible deal with speaking or addressing demons or Satan? Write it on a piece of paper. Oh, I didn't need to write it on a piece of paper.

I knew immediately what He was talking about. There are only, how many verses do you think in all the Bible talk about someone talking to the devil? Do you have any idea? Three. Three verses in all the New Testament, one in the Old Testament, two in the New Testament, that talk about someone or some like an angelic demon talking to the devil.

There are 12 verses that talk about Jesus casting out a demon and one verse that talks about the Apostle Paul casting out a demon. And here are the three verses along with a principle at the end in Isaiah that deals with this. Look at, think about this, folks.

There are books, volumes of books, seminars are unbelievable out there. How? This is what the Lord showed me. The Lord said, Mark, you've gone beyond what is written.

You are now, for me, because it was so serious, I want you to fast and pray for three days in repentance. Then I want you to preach a series, I think it was three in total, a series called True Spiritual Warfare based on Ephesians 6. And I want you to stand up in front of the church and ask them to forgive you for going beyond what is written. And I did that.

Here are the three verses. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, the Lord rebuke you, Zechariah 3.2. The Lord said to Satan, by the way, in Zechariah 3.2, there was a priest by the name of Joshua. Not Joshua, Moses, Caleb and Joshua era.

This was another priest by the name of Joshua, who was there to offer offerings and incense before the Lord. And Satan comes at that time. And this is now the spiritual story in heaven as seen by the Lord.

The Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire? Because Satan, he's called the accuser of the brethren, went to accuse things that were wrong in Joshua's life to the Lord.

And this is what the Lord, the Lord himself, think of this. This isn't Peter. This isn't Michael as in Jude 1.9. This is the Lord himself.

The Lord even says, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. There's a lesson in here for us. Matthew 4.10, Jesus said to him, away from thee, Satan, or get thee behind me, if you've got the power of King James.

For it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. And how do we have authority under certain conditions to actually address Satan or demons? Here, Isaiah 54.17, no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is their vindication from me, declares the Lord.

Now, why am I saying all of this? Because it may become necessary in our lives or amongst people that we know, to one day actually deal with making sure that a person cleanses their home of any of these things and more, and then prays, and we're going to talk about a prayer of renunciation at the end, and renounces these things, and therefore, having done that, to command Satan or any demonic presence to leave our midst. Years ago, I was contacted by a man, he was the vice president of one of the largest telecommunication companies in Canada, very intelligent, articulate, well-read man who happened to be a Christian. He attended a very large Christian fellowship in Toronto, well over 3,000 members.

He was an elder on the board of that church. He was connected with international ministries. He had a prayer team that he could call anywhere internationally, and he comes to me and he says, Mark, for the past number of years, my wife and children and I are terrorized at night.

There's demonic presence in our homes. We can't get rid of it. We have international prayer teams praying for us.

We've had Christians come and anoint our home with oil. We've prayed all of the prayers that we need to pray, gone through all of the techniques, and nothing happens. Nothing works.

So I had him come and basically just shared the verses that I'm sharing with you this morning. I said to him, you need, you have gone beyond what is written. Those Christians have gone beyond what is written.

This is what God says. This is what you need to do. He took seriously what was said.

He asked God his, they didn't have any, by that time they had nothing in the home. They got rid of everything and it's still, nothing stopped. He repented of what? Going down to Egypt, going through all these techniques, trusting in people instead of trusting in the Lord.

He asked forgiveness. He says, I'm going to believe you. Lord, no weapon forged against us will prevail, and I can refute this, and he refuted it.

Do you know, he called me two weeks later. He says, Mark, we have peace in our home. There is nothing anymore.

We have peace and joy and harmony now in our homes. About three months ago, I was contacted by one other man who I met in ministry close to 15 years ago, and he has a ministry around the world with audio sermons, and he said, you know what, I've had, we've had problems in this home, much oppression in this home, and can you give me any guidance? I have had to sell my home or leave my home twice, move to a new place so that we could get out from under this oppression. My son for five years has been experiencing terrifying dreams, nightmares at night of coven members surrounding him.

We've had people around the world praying, many godly Christians praying, and the relief is only temporary, and then it comes back. I said to him, your son Noah, can I talk to him on the phone? Can we do a conference call? I did a conference call with him, and I shared again just simply some of the verses we've looked at. Never, I don't think I've ever shared more than 20 verses with anyone in my life in counseling this, and so this little fellow Noah took to heart what was said.

You'll see pictures here in a moment. I'll put them up on the screen. He printed out verses that I had sent him, memorized them, put them on the walls of his bedroom, and a couple of nights later or so, he had an attack by the enemy.

Another attack, but he knew what to do. First, here's a picture of Noah's room. There are four passages.

Here's a close-up of the one that the Lord used to save me and deliver me. Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross, and by the way, I included in your manuals the written testimony here, in case with the sound we don't hear clearly, but here's Noah's testimony. He sent this this week.

After he was set free, he witnessed and told people at church, and he blogged about it on his blog site. Here's his testimony. Hello, my name is Noah, and I'm nine now, and ever since I was five, I had nightmares and like attacks in my sleep, and when I was nine now, Mark came to me, and I had like a video call with him, and he talked to me and taught me a few things.

First, he taught me what Christ did on the cross, how he first took our sins on himself, and then he triumphed over Satan, those of us who have Colossians 2 15. He disarmed the powers and authorities, and put them to open sin by triumphing over them in him, and the Mark told me that in my sleep when the devil attacks me, there's no authority to do it to me, and that if I command him in Jesus' name to go, since I have the Holy Spirit in me, if you're saved, you have the Holy Spirit in you, and I can command Satan to leave, and when I had bad dreams the next night, like I was having like demons, and like demons and wolf on my sleep, and I commanded them in Jesus' name to leave, and ever since then, I haven't had attacks in my sleep. What did the Lord say to his disciples? I've given you authority, and he says, I praise you, Father, that you've revealed this, not to the learned, but to who? Little children.

A nine-year-old has the authority, and as I told Noah, I said, you know that Christ in me is no more powerful than Christ in you at nine, and he was able to deal with what had oppressed him. Since that time, my friend says, all of the knocking noises in their home that they tried to escape for years, it's quiet now. Peaceful.

No nightmares after years of trying every technique. Remember, the Word of God is sharp and powerful. It's amazing.

Just the Word of God. It's Jesus. It's him, not the techniques.

Confession and renunciation. This is, before we talk about a prayer that we, an example of a prayer we could say, if we've been involved in any of these items, look how important confession and renunciation. Sometimes we just confess our sins, but we need to renounce them.

This is a biblical principle in turn. Proverbs 28 13. He who conceals his sins does not prosper.

In other words, we make excuses. Other Christians do it. That's the big one.

Oh, other Christians do it, and they're okay. What is that? Remember the disciples, you know, Jesus was talking to them and made it sound like all of the disciples were going to die a martyr's death, except maybe John, and the other disciples looked at him and said, Lord, what about him? Meaning John. And Jesus says, what is that to you? You follow me.

For me, God has called Christine and I to separate ourselves from a number of things that other Christians do. I don't talk about it because that leads to legalism. But the Lord has said, I want to separate.

Do you want my power in your life for this? Then I don't want you participating. I don't care how many Christians do that. I don't care what the what the Christian websites say.

This is not for you guys. I want to separate you to myself. So I don't talk about it.

I'm just saying the Lord will call us by his spirit to separate ourselves from certain things. Acts 19 18 to 20. Many of those who believe now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.

A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to 50,000 drachmas. In this way, the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.

First John 1 9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, what used to be commonplace in the early church has all but disappeared in modern church tradition. We have records dating all the way back to the second century of early church fathers giving instructions about baptism.

I'll just read this before we conclude. Then the presbyter, this was Hippolytus writing, then the presbyter taking hold of each of those about to be baptized shall command him to renounce saying, I renounce thee satan and all thy servants and all thy works. So here is a prayer of repentance and renunciation and I've just thrown an example.

I have never prayed this exactly. I pray as the Lord leads, so every prayer is different, but this gives an idea of our hearts as we come to the Lord. The Lord is not just looking for us to say the right things.

He wants us more to say the real things. Heavenly Father, I come before you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, acknowledging that you are holy, righteous, and forgiving God. I come in obedience to Proverbs 28 13 to confess and renounce my sins that I might receive your mercy, forgiveness, and deliverance.

I admit that according to Psalm 51 4, I have sinned against you and done what is evil in your sight. Therefore, I ask you to forgive me for the sin or sins of. I renounce any ground given to Satan through participating in and I repent of having ever committed it.

Your word says that if we confess our sins, you are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Therefore, according to 1 John 1 7, I believe in and accept the cleansing of the shed blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of my sins. Heavenly Father, fill me now with your Holy Spirit to overflowing.

I surrender my life to you and seek to live for you and you only. I renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil and will gladly take up my cross daily and follow you. And now, Satan, may the Lord rebuke you since I am but a burning stick snatched from the fire.

Based on the authority Jesus has given me in Luke 10 19, I command you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to leave me or my family and never return again. Now, that's a lot of information and I want to just throw this out that if if anyone wants to know more about this or pray with me about this, you're welcome to contact me later. But these are steps that if you're comfortable, you can do in the privacy of your own home.

Just to renounce these things and see the freedom that the Lord can bring. In a few minutes, we're going to have question and answer. I think because I've gone a little bit over time here, why don't we take a five-minute break or something? Just a refreshment break and then come back if there's comments or questions.

We can do those. It'll be offline at that point. But please feel free to chat with me or Christine and we'd be glad to help.

So, God bless you. Let me just close in prayer. We'll take a break and then go to questions and answers in a few minutes.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the word of God. We thank you for your truth. Your word is truth and we'll know the truth and the truth will set us free.

And Lord, I just pray that if anyone like I did got involved in things that were displeasing to you. Generally, Lord, this happens out of ignorance. But we just we know that you are the one who delivers.

You are strong to deliver and to free us. And I just pray that in our homes, Lord, we would be willing to get rid of everything, regardless of what other Christians do, say or think. Anything that you by your spirit tells us that we have to get rid of, that we would rid ourselves.

Because in your word, it says that when the people did this in the Old Testament, then the fear of God fell on the nations around them. But not before they rid themselves of their idolatry. So, Lord, we pray for times of refreshing to come to us in our homes, in our church again.

We pray that you would be pleased with us as you see us, as our brother has preached last week, to be vessels clean and fit and ready for the master's use. So, thank you, Heavenly Father, for what you will do. For we ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.