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Hello, hello you guys, and welcome back to Saved. Not soft. Hello everyone. Hope you guys are doing great and amazing. Living blessed. I know I am, you guys. I know this episode today is going to be an episode. I know everybody saw the title. I have felt a certain way about this topic for a very long time and I am very, very, very, very, very, very, very excited to deliver it here on today. And I wanted to start off, I was just telling the lake before we started the cameras because this is the second time I did the intro because I started to sense a wrestle with the discouragement and I'm just vocally processing out loud kind of what's happening on the inside of me right now as I prepare to talk about this topic. And I've sensed that the topic we're talking about here today has been a stronghold on my life for like the past few years. That's been a mission to indoctrinate myself from false doctrine and seeing the authority of the cross. I think what we're talking about here today brings up a lot of emotions that I was just trying to push to the side and just white knuckle through. And I think it's because I've lacked the awareness or I guess not even the awareness. I have the awareness of it more so the welcoming grief that came along side the consequences of misunderstanding this topic. And I'm going into this conversation incredibly compassionate and as graceful as I can, while simultaneous, while simultaneously being incredibly confronting. This has been a topic that I've seen take over churches, ministries, leadership that has masked fear as faith. And I believe that today's message for a lot of people who have orchestrated and perceived everything to be done demonic and are in invisible chains, that this is going to break off something in your life that you possibly may have been praying for for a really long time. And I wanted to be extremely transparent going into today's episode that I've struggled. I've ward with topics. This is one of the ones I've ward really heavy with, which is why there's a deep passion that comes out of me when we talk about demonology, the truth of demons, the devil, principalities, strongholds, the authority of Jesus, the blood, the cross, all of these things mean so much to me. And I think one thing I've seen weaponized in the American pulpit in the past few years is fueling people's faith with fear. And it's been used as a manipulation tactic to keep the brethren in chains. My goal today is to no longer see the sheep bullied. My goal here Today is to remind you that Jesus Christ has all the authority, dominion and power and telling you the truth about these spiritual principalities, darkness and demons and devils, because they are real, they do exist. And I'm not playing a game that they don't. But I'm also not playing a game that they have more power than they actually do. Amen. So, yeah, that's kind of my heart. I feel really good letting that out. That felt so liberating to just say that because I also don't want to act like this topic is just something I grew an expert in just because all of a sudden I became an expert in it. This topic was birthed from a lot of deceit, attempts of deceit where people have tried to deceive me. Lots of crying, lots of fear and paranoia and prayers that were performance based and not biblical or intentional or intimate. So I'm excited also, if you see me on TikTok, I've talked about this a multitude of times and I think it's really important. So, yeah, you guys, today we're going to talk about the truth about demons. We're going to talk about demons, we're going to talk about the devil, and we're going to approach it in a sense that's incredibly biblical. I have brought so much scripture here today because this is one of the topics that needs the most of it. I want to pray over you guys and we'll get straight into the topic and into the teaching. Amen. So let's pray. Spirit of the living God, thank you, Father. Thank you, Father. We thank you, Lord, for this message that's about to be released. Lord. Lord, I thank you for your majesty. Thank you. I thank you, Lord, for your omnipotence, for your omnipresence. I thank you that your prayer presence is around us no matter where we are. Lord, fill this room with your presence. Allow the hearts on the other side of the screen to be filled by your spirit, no matter where they are. Lord, I ask that as the word is deposited into this podcast episode, that we have hearts that are ready to receive the truth of the gospel, the truth of the crucifixion, the death and the resurrection, that we receive the truth of the authority of Christ. Lord, would you magnify your son? Would you magnify your majesty? Lord, would you tell us the truth about the Bible? Would you tell us the truth about spirituality? Would you tell us the truth about our faith, Lord? Lord, I thank you that you have showed us in your word to test every Spirit According to First John 4, Lord, would you keep teaching us and would you keep encouraging our spirits to test everything by the word of God? That the word of God stays at the surface and simultaneously in the depths of our heart, that it's embedded and tattooed into the deepest parts within us. That, Lord, whenever we face trials and tribulations, whenever we face principalities and strongholds, that we have enough discernment to know what the real battle is. Lord, I ask that you give us a great discernment of what a real battle is. If it's between us and the enemy, if it's between spiritual strongholds and principalities, or if it's just the warring between sin and living a crucified life. Lord, would you show us the. The reality, Father, of our faith today and the suffering that we have to endure, but more importantly, the victory that comes from the endurance of faith. Lord, would you show us here today? And I pray that chains are broken off of each and every single individual who is listening to this podcast and believes that there is a spiritual principality over their life that's dictating and forcing things to happen and causing a ruckus, whatever it would be, Lord, may you just tear down every scheme of the enemy, every deceitful lie, Lord, and would you pull down every illusion, every distraction, every imagination that does not align to Christ, and would those things submit to the authority of Christ right now in the mighty name of Jesus? So, Lord, I pray and I declare liberation and freedom over the people who are listening to this, to this podcast. Lord, would you set them free? And would they be free indeed? And would they stay free, Lord, would you keep them, keep them free? O Lord, bless this message today. Let confidence come out of my mouth, sharpen my tongue, let me be slow to speak, quick to listen, and may your spirit flow out of my mouth. I fully belong to you. I cannot do any of this without you. This is your podcast. This belongs to you. This is all yours. This is all yours, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. In Jesus mighty name we pray. Amen. I usually give a, I guess like a pre notion before every episode and I feel really emphasized in spirit to project it again is that this podcast is not replacement to God's word. And I say that every episode. I really want to emphasize, emphasize it right now because oftentimes when we look up to very godly people who are great stewards of God's spirit, who walk in the spirit of God, who live a life of holiness, that perception and that visual, that visual that we see of a person almost provokes an instinct on the inside of us to just trust every word that they say. And what I'm not saying is to excuse, I guess, people or I guess the main point I'm trying to get across is no matter what teacher you listen to, no matter who your favorite pastor is or preacher or Christian influencer, everything is tested by the will of God and his Word, which is the Bible right here, you guys. Everything that comes out of my mouth, everything that comes out of your pastor's mouth at church, I don't care who it is, everything must be tested by the word of God. Every single spirit. I'm really encouraging that today because if it wasn't for me testing everything that has tried, try to go through my ear gates, I would have never hit this revelation and gotten free. It's important to test your word or to test the word of others to see if it aligns with the word of God. Because the majority of times we have to understand that the full authority is within the scriptures. It's not within the passion of how someone speaks. It's found in the scriptures that test about Jesus and test about God and test about the Holy Spirit. So I say all that to say that no matter where you go, test everything by the word of God and don't just eiseny the scripture, meaning you're aligning it and converting it and transforming it to your image of what you think scripture should be, but you exegesis it meaning that you're taking the scripture for what it actually is, not what you want it to be. Right? Right. That's how you test the Word, that's how you test the words of others, is that you bring the word of, of God for what it really is, not what you want it to be, but what it says for it to be. And you test it from the authority of the scriptures. So again emphasizing that, because that's how I got to this conclusion. And I encourage each and every single one of you to do the same. I want to open up this conversation about the difference between sin and demonstration. My observation within the past three, four years that I've been in church. I've been in church longer, but specifically in the window of the past three to four years, there has been a. There has been a mass projection upon the brethren that everything is a demon and everything is a spirit. I want to acknowledge that there's two sides to this pendulum that we're seeing in American Christianity. And it's the side that everything's a demon or nothing spiritual exists at all. And there is no Demons and there is no devil. We have this insane pendulum where on one side people are incarcerated by so much fear and they don't know it. But then on the other side people don't acknowledge that spirits and principalities and that demons exist, which they do. And I want to give a healthy space here today to acknowledge that these things are real while simultaneously pulling the sheep out of the flaming pits. That these things have more power and authority than Jesus. And you may be sitting on the other screen, you're like, well, I know that Jesus has more power. I beg to differ because sometimes our prayers sound like we actually don't believe that the cross was enough for us. Let's create a great baseline here today that sin and demons do not equate and that demonology does not carry more authority than the power of the cross. So there is a misdiagnosis in the church heavily right now that everything that is sinful is a demon. And when we blur the lines between sin and demonology, it puts us in a space of Gnosticism or what is Gnosticism? Gnosticism is the belief system that everything spiritual is good and everything physical is bad. And when we embed ourselves into that belief system, it blurs this line and it jacks up our theology to where anything in the world that's prompting itself as sin or worldly is not bleeding it to the lines of demonology, which is now misdietening, which is then prompting people to misdiagnose actual problems that are happening in the church. Which I would say the biggest one is, not everything is a dang demon. It might just be your sin. Not everything is a demon. It might just be your sin. I have to confront this very harsh today because I am sick of people in the church excusing their misbehavior and not taking accountability by pinning it on a demon. Which by the way, probably doesn't exist. Which probably doesn't exist. I'm coming for all the people today. I'm sorry, I don't care if this messes with your theology or not. This is straight from the Bible. There's nothing in the Bible that talks about an incubus, a succubus, a mermaid spirit. I do not care the authority of Jesus Christ. The sprinkled blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. And the Bible tells us about what spirits we need to look out for. And I'm not for for These mid century 1700s mid folk demons that we've made up and we're associate associating it to our sin. Things that we need to take accountability for. It's not a dang demon. It might just be us. And the majority of the time it is. It is you guys. And I'm going to hold your hand as I say this. It is. And this is why God had to send his Son in the first place. Because Jesus came for our sin. There was a price that needed to be paid. So we're gonna talk about this, Break this down in a moment because I feel myself incredibly passionate. But we have to understand that human sin and moral failure appear over about a thousand times in Scripture, right? So if you grow up with the belief system or you've been indoctrinated that everything is a demon, everything spiritual, everything comes from a demonic force, a devil, everything that is bad or sinful stems from the. Stems from the devil. The Bible mentions human failure, iniquity and sin over a thousand times in the Bible. When we look at the words like demon, devil, Satan, impure spirits, evil spirits, they're only mentioned over a hundred times. That is like a 10 to 15 ratio, meaning that every time that the word demon, evil spirit, impure spirit is mentioned, the word sin or iniquity and God addressing the brokenness in our hearts is addressed 10 times more than that. So I bring this to this conversation to give us the awareness that we're having a wrong priority about what we're talking about. And a lot of the times we'll say that something is a demon when it might just be your sin. And even the Bible measures up to this standard. So I even want to give you numbers depending on the translation. Spiritual beings opposing God's Word are mentioned only a few hundred times in total. And demons, the words demons in specific, it's less so depending on your translation. Demons is mentioned about 60 to 80 times in scripture. Unclean spirits is mentioned about 20 to 30 times. Evil spirits is mentioned from 15 to 30 times. Satan. The word Satan is mentioned 50 times and the word devil is mentioned 30 times. That's about a hundred and something times that demonology is. In all of scripture, the words are being used and sin is mentioned about 10 to 15 more times than that. I think that's something we have to pay attention to. If we do understand the weight of sin and what sin actually is, we're going to bleed these two components together and it's going to jack up our theology. Right. So what is sin? I was reading James 1:14 and I read it says each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. One more time. Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by what? His own desire. Sometimes we think that a lot of the desires that we have. And again, I'm trying to speak about this as compassionately as I can because I understand there's so many people who have grown up thinking that everything is a demon, everything's a spirit, and that everything is in control of a demon. When it says that each person is tempted, each person counts for people like me and you, people like Malik, people like my bestest friends, people like your favorite pastors that you see on social media. Each person is tempted when. When he is lured and enticed. When you're lured, it's. I'm bringing you closer to the desire. What is the desire? His own. So sin, we have to understand, isn't something that the devil created. Sin is a byproduct of us refusing God's goodness. So because God is good. And again, this goes to the principles of free will. This goes to the principles as to why God created the heavens and the earth the way that he did. The reason as to why he created human beings for us to have a heavenly and eternal relationship with the Father is because when we bring in the component of love, since God is love, love requires freedom. Freedom is synonymous for us to make a choice. So here's a question. If Malik, for an example, were to come into my life and say, we didn't know each other, we weren't married or anything, and he was like, you have to marry me. And he's like, this is love. Like, you have to marry me because this is what I want and this is what I made. I wouldn't consider that love like you, fine, babe, love you. And simultaneously, when you limit a person to make a choice, that is not love. It's dictatorship, it's manipulation. And so God in his goodness created a species to where we have the power to choose God or anything else apart from him. So what I'm not implying is that God created darkness. What I'm implying is that God created free will. And in that choice of us not choosing God's love, darkness was then created from rebelling against God's goodness. And that happened to Satan during the fall, and it happened during us during the actual fall. In the Garden of Eden, sin came into the earth because humans were not forced to listen to Satan. They were tempted by Satan. There was a desire in the human heart in the very beginning of age to have power and dominion apart from God. That is not demonology. That is sin. And when we blurred these lines together, it confuses us. And sometimes we think that the devil is the originator, that he created sin. No, it just says that he's the father of lies and he's been sinning from the very beginning. That's 1 John 3. 8. Next verse. Hallelujah. The devil has been sinning from the beginning. He is a liar and the father of lies. Like PETA says, the devil has been sinning from the beginning. If sin and demonology equated, the Scripture would have said the devil has been deviling from the beginning. Sinning is choosing a path that's apart from God. That's it. And the reason as to why we're able to choose that path is because God has given us the gift of free will for us to freely choose him. Because apart from that, it's not real love. It's not real love. Like, apply that to anything in your life. That majority of things that I love in my life was because I was empowered by the choice to love them. Not because of a forced accusation or a forced prompting, but because God empowered me in his spirit with freedom of choice to choose and love these things. So again, sin is not demonology. Sin is just the opposite of us choosing God's will. Okay, I have to echo that a few times because I know sometimes we might lose it. Sin is a distortion of good, not a created thing. And created means turn away from God's order. Yeah, everything I wrote down, I just said, oh, I love Colossians 3:5. Colossians 3:5 says, Put to death. Therefore, what is earthly in you? When Paul writes this, he's not saying, put to death, demon opposition. He's saying, put, put to death. What is worldly, what is earthly on the inside of you? Meaning that there's a part of us that wants to thrive in worldliness. There is a part of us that wants to thrive in pride, thrive in vanity, thrive in sexual immorality. Can we be. Can we actually be real? Some of us are struggling with so many things, and we're not actually reaching freedom because we're blaming on a stupid little demon. And I'm not saying it doesn't have any power. It does, but not when we equate it to the power of the cross. And I would actually argue that worldliness and the enticements of the earth pulls more of a temptation more than spiritual oppression. But spiritual oppression is for sure real. I. I've experienced it multiple times, and there's been times I Didn't seek a breakthrough in my life because I never actually questioned if it was sin because I thought it was a demon the entire time. And again, I thought these things were poor indoctrination. The leadership I was under, you name it, just very, very poor theology. But when it says put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you? Paul is commanding us for us to crucify the very things that, that are trying to entice us and persuade us back into the world. Be aggressive with your sin. I think that's also why I'm coming in the tone that I'm coming today, because we're not playing with this, like, what are we talking about, you guys. I want to encourage you guys on the other side of the screen, you are too valuable by God and too loved and cared for and adored for to be thinking that everything is set up for failure. And you're also too empowered by God and what is said in his scriptures for us to not take this head on. So let me just encourage you for a moment. Girly bop on the other side of the screen. God has breathed enough, enough authority on the inside of you to not only rebuke a demon, because hey, we could cast out demons all day. And what we cannot cast out is a season that God has ordained for us to go through. And sometimes that season that we're supposed to go through is a tedious wringing out of sin. And God has given you the power through his Son penned up on a cross, to live in that freedom and resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus Christ and him crucified is what grants us freedom. So let's live actually free. Who the sun sets free is free indeed. The sun set free all of us when he was on that cross. So why aren't we still free? And when sin is primarily blamed on demons, three things happens. Repentance becomes shallow. You're not repenting because you have nothing to repent for, because you don't think it's you, you think it's a demon. Responsibility is displaced. Accountability and responsibility is out the window. But because we're not placing it on the correct, in the correct place, we're putting on demon instead of actual sin that we're needing to ring out, taking up our cross each and every single day, right? And then sanctification is delayed. We're delaying our growth. We're delaying our growth because we're blaming and misplacing accountability and responsibility on things that doesn't require for us to grow. Instead, it keeps us stagnant in a way where we're almost chasing our own tail like a dog. Right. And I want to talk about over spiritualization. I'm going to go into one of my favorite teachings ever, and I'm so excited. Um, I'm going to give a few examples about over spiritualization. We see in Scripture. The first One is John 9:1 through 3. As he went along, he saw a man. Wait, let me give you context. The context of this is that Jesus was healing the sick. He was casting demons out of people. He was making blind eyes open. The lame walk, right? So this is in the middle of Jesus's ministry. And it says In John chapter 9, verse 1, as he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents that he was blind? Neither this man nor his parents sinned, said Jesus. But this has happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. So we see a man who is blind and the disciples automatically over spiritualize the situation by saying, rabbi, someone must have cursed him. He must have sinned. His parents must have done something. This might be a spiritual principality and strongholds. Like why is it this man has sinned? Like, tell us why he is blind. And that's the thing about us, is that we equate any sort of suffering to sin and demonology and the consequences of it. My overall question is if we believe that everything bad and anything around suffering equates to demonology. Let me ask a question about your theology. Do you think the devil sent Jesus to the cross? Just think about that for a moment. Did Satan himself, Was he the one that sent Jesus to the cross? No, no, no. Let me tell you for a moment. The devil did not send Jesus to the cross. Sin sent Jesus to the cross. Which is why it says in Galatians that not only did Jesus die for our sins, but he became it for us. Sin is the separation of godly order, of rebelling against the will of God. And Satan didn't send Jesus on that cross. God in his heavenly place, sent his one and only son. John 3:16. For God so loved the world, he gave his one and only son. Because the world was incarcerated by sin, God in his holiness set the blameless, unblemished Lamb upon the face of the earth, not only to die for our sins, but to become it. God sent his one and only son on that cross. And some of y' all, 2,000 years ago would have probably over spiritualized that and said that Jesus was sent by a demon to get on that cross. It Was God. It was God. So we cannot equate human suffering to demonology. And, and that the devil did it. Suffering is what we have to walk through in the Christian life. It's essential. We talked about that like a few episodes before this. It might have been the one before that. We talked about it on this podcast already. Suffering is essential to the Christian life, okay? And it doesn't mean it's a. It's a demon. Jesus suffered. Jesus suffered. And he was without blemish, without sin, and he lived perfectly. Truly. We could suffer and still be in glory. Do we understand? Next one Matthew 16:22 through 23. This is when Jesus is again around the, around the death of the crucifixion. And Jesus is sharing with the disciples what's about to happen. And it says in verse 22, Peter took him aside and began to rebuke Jesus. One the audacity. He said, never, Lord, this shall never happen to you. And Jesus turned to Peter and said, get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me. And you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. Peter over spiritualized the will of God due to his standard of what is spiritually and morally correct and what was the will of God. So when we over spiritualize things, it often bleeds into areas where God has actually ordained us a path to walk through. Again. Doesn't mean it's a demon, it's the will of God. And just because it's the will of God doesn't mean that he created darkness. It's just the reality of what's happened since the fall. Right? Ecclesiastes 7, 15, 18. I love this. I actually found this as of recently. I was like, wow, this is so powerful. I've read it before, but I believe it really hit me so differently. Solomon writes, in this meaningless life of mine. Dang. In this meaningless, like brother. Okay, let's keep going. In this meaningless life of mine, I have seen both of these. The righteous perishing in their righteousness and the wicked living long in their wickedness. Do not be over righteous, neither be over wise. Why destroy yourselves? Do not be over wicked and do not be a fool. Why die before your time? This is the part of the verse I love. It is good to grasp one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes. All extremes. One of those extremes being over spiritualization, over righteousness. Overly legalistic, right? Because grace doesn't come into the picture. Accountability doesn't come into the picture. When we don't do those things. And again, what I'm not condoning is to ignore everything that acts like it's not real. There is real strongholds, principalities. Even Ephesians 6 says that we do not war against flesh and blood, but against principalities and strongholds. Right. So there is a realistic standard that we are constantly fighting against principalities and strongholds that are spiritual. But it doesn't necessarily mean that it equates to a demon. It could just be the spiritual tension between us and sin. Does that make sense? And then the last one, Matthew 23:2,4. This is Jesus and the Pharisees. And this is Jesus rebuking the Pharisees. This is one of my favorite scriptures ever. Just this whole entire thing. Jesus is saying, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses's seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you, but do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Jesus strongest rebukes were not towards sinners. They were towards religious leaders who over spiritualize control while living inconsistently. And I would say that over spiritualization's bestest friend is inconsistency. It is over spiritualization stems from a place of inconsistency. Would you like me to prove it? I know plenty of people who won't drink a Frappuccino or get an iced latte from Starbucks because it got a mermaid spirit tied to it. I cannot have Starbucks because, like, the Lord has convicted me that like it's tied to demons and the originality of it. And again, I'm not saying that this could or cannot be true, but the hypocrisy and the inconsistency is that a person will. A person will drink a drink from Starbucks that has an entice mermaid spear to it. But you'll go sharp, you'll go shop at Target where they sell a Ouija boards in tarot cards. Like, I won't drink at Starbucks and I won't do anything that has to do. Do you get what I'm saying? But then do other things that carry the same principles. Like, there's an inconsistency. There is an inconsistency that always comes with over spiritualization. There's even so many people who are like, I won't use chat gbt, I won't use AI. That thing is demonic. It's a demon. But yet you have Instagram and every time you scroll, you're powering the most super intelligent supercomputer of all time in the whole entire world, which is also AI, it's artificial intelligence. So over spiritualization always mirrors inconsistency. And my thing is, if you want to spiritualize everything, then spiritualize everything. But don't demonize a person because they go to Starbucks and you're this holy of a person because you don't drink a Starbucks Frappuccino because the thing doesn't have a demon. But yet people still watch certain movies. Like, this is my question, if everything is a demon, then how do you live life that's free from the demons? Like, I actually have a question, because if you're like, oh, I won't go to Starbucks because it's rooted from siren mythology and a siren spirit and a water mermaid spirit, whatever it may be, and that's the reason why you don't go to Starbucks. And that's your conviction. Okay, go you girl. My question is, is then what's the difference of anything that's in your house? How do I know that when I bought this cup from anthropology, a Satanist didn't craft this with his or her hands? Like, how do you know that? How do you know that anything we eat or drink, et cetera, it's always moving forward in the confidence that just because we're apart from the world through the blood of Jesus Christ doesn't mean our location of us living on the earth has changed. Does that make sense? I would even argue that over spiritualization is mismanaged fear. We are so scared and so many of us don't feel safe that when we point something out in fear like, oh, this is a demon, and this is that it gives us the illusion that because we're aware of it, we're safe from it. When instead us keeping ourselves entrapped and everything's a demon, everything's a spirit, everything can hurt me is keeping us in more fear. It's hyper vigilance that's fueled by fear. It's not faith, not in safety. Because awareness doesn't always equate to safety. This is also completely psychological. There's so many things that I've learned even just through therapy, me growing that my awareness wasn't what healed me. I could become aware. And it's great that I know what's happening simultaneously. Awareness does not equate to us being healed. Awareness gives us the opportunity to heal. But sometimes we think that hyper awareness and hyper vigilance is what heals us. Instead it could cause more rooms of panic, of fear, of paranoia. And many of us are operating from that. And I'm speaking from somebody whose whole entire, and this is me being so transparent with you guys who, whose whole entire life has been shaken and in shambles by thinking everything was a spirit living in fear all the time. No peace of mind, no peace in my spirit. And what I'm not saying again is not acting like none of this is real. It is. And it's not as big as we think it is. And I think that's one of the fabrications of the enemy, is that he always wants to make himself bigger and better than he already is. And as if the battle hasn't already been won. Like Jesus already defeated the enemy and the enemy is trying to pull on as many people as he can to stay in his field and on his playground. But it doesn't mean that when I'm visibly and constantly living a life for Jesus that the enemy can force me to do anything. So let's just get that very straight again. I'm coming from a place who's been scarred from this topic and I know there's plenty of people who are like, well they were ex witch and they understand how these principalities work and et cetera, like that. And I would like to argue that I come from the opposite side of that pendulum, that I'm a God fearing woman, a woman that took all those things into accountability and, and it left me in more fear. So there has to be a truth that there's people who have came out of practices and saw the works of darkness. But you have to understand these people who are ex witches and people who came out of witchcraft and et cetera, they did not have the blood of Jesus upon their lives while they were doing these things. So they saw this power apart from Jesus, so they saw how strong it was. But when you equate witchcraft and all these things next to the power of Jesus, it is nothing. It is literally nothing. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means it cannot conquer the blood of Jesus. It is no match to the blood of Jesus. This is why I plead the blood of Jesus over me and Malik every single day. This is why we take communion, this is why we read the scriptures, this is why we're filled with God's spirit. Because. Because nothing, no word curse, no witchcraft, no nothing could conquer that. And so when these witches, which they go on TikTok and they're like, oh, I used to do these things and it was so scary. And these things work. Yes, they do. They do work. They absolutely do. And they don't have more power. That's it. And so when we're addressing these things and giving awareness to their existence, we could. We could unconsciously endorse and enable power that it actually doesn't have. Mirroring correct who Jesus is, the authority does not equate by a long shot. Like Hebrews 13, the sprinkle blood of Jesus. Do you know how much blood fills a person? That means a sprinkle, like a dot, a speck speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Any workers, any enchantment, any hex, any witch from warlock, any demonic influence, the spirit of God, the blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Right? Talked about Gnosticism. And again, Gnosticism is thinking that everything spiritual is good, everything physical is bad, and living in the world is not the same as being spiritually compromised by it. Right? So just because I live in the world doesn't mean I. Like, this is my thing. If we think everything physical is bad, then why do we sleep? Why do we eat what we eat, why do we live where we live, et cetera? Like, you have to question everything. And that's not where God wants us. We live in the world, but we're not of the world. So this is our residence as of now, and this is our home until we go to heaven. Right? So, yeah, I'm gonna drink a poppy. Because it's. It's a poppy. Like, it's of the world. I'm not being formed by anything of the world. Like, anything in the world is not forming. What's forming me is the Scriptures. What's forming me is the love of God. What's forming me is the crucified Christ. It's looking at him and wanting to look more like Him. That's what's forming me. And I think people don't understand that bridge. So people just aren't flat out enjoying their lives because they think everything's a demon. And it's like, no, if you're being formed by it, flee from it. But, like, just drink a poppy. Like, drink a Coca Cola, like, you're fine. It's not that deep. I promise you. We're good. We're fine. Okay. Oh, goodness. I also wrote when Jesus was praying for his disciples in John 17, he said, I do not ask for you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. That's it. It's not an extraction from the world. It's even the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who arts in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive those. And forgive us for our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, or the evil one in some contexts. Right. The enemy's trafficking job is to tempt, to deceive, right? So we could be dragged by our own desires and our own sinful nature for the devil to expand that by like a hundred milli percent. And when we call on the grace of God to help us to not be tempted by these things, he will be faithful and answer us all because we're peeling our eyes to Him. Okay, and the last thing if holiness. Holiness is not about avoiding everything. It's about refusing to be formed by anything other than Christ. Okay? The thing is, is that that was all kind of side notes I had. This is the real teaching right here. And I feel like it took me long to get to here, but we had to vocalize anything. And I would encourage you, please listen to this. Oh, my gosh. This. This message was birthed out of an incorrect teaching that I sat in on, and also an incorrect teaching that I've heard not in just one church, but a few dozen churches all over. The Scripture has been incorrectly taken out of context in so many congregations. And I want to bring clarity and theology of what the Scripture actually means as it refers to demonology. And we're going to be reading from Luke chapter 11 today. And we're going to start in verse 24. This is the verse in regards to Jesus casting out a demon, the crowd seeing it, and him responding to the crowd with a teaching. Okay, here we go. Verse 24. When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest. And after finding none, it says, I will return to my house, from which I came. And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits, more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first. How this message is often preached is that if you don't break out of yourself, if you don't pull yourself together, there will always be demons that are trying to fill you. If you don't get over this one thing, if you don't break this cycle, then demons are going to fill you over and over and over again. And the answer is to break your sin. The answer is to break your cycle. Let's talk about the context of this verse. Okay. The context is that Jesus is teaching a crowd of how he casted out a demon. Just verses before, 10 verses before in verse 14. Let's go there. This is Jesus and bezel, but we're going to call him Beelzebub because I don't know how to say his name. I looked on, I looked on the Internet trying to pronounce the name and I don't know how to say it. So we're going to call him Beezlebub. That. But that's not his name. That's honestly like a mockery of a nickname that we saw Jackie o', Barry, like calling somebody a beasel bub. Not calling somebody a beezle bub, but like, it was funny. And I was like, wow, I'm adopting that. I love that. Beezle bub is hilarious to me. But Jesus and Beelzebub, okay, if you want to learn the name, learn the name. I tried to learn it and it was very hard for me. I'll get it one day. Let's read in verse 14. This is what Jesus was talking about and what was happening right before. We just read the verse. We just read. Okay? Now he was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out of the mute man, he spoke and the people marveled. But some of them said, he cast out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, while others to test him, kept seeking him for a sign from heaven. But he knowingly knew their thoughts and said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and a divided household falls. And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand for you? Say I cast out demons by Beelzebub. And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. This is the context. So Jesus had just casted out a demon. He shares about eight verses about it. And then that's when we get to the return of unclean spirit teaching. And majority of the times in churches that scripture is perverted to prompt a very fear based teaching that if we don't snap ourselves together, there's going to be a consequence. The dangers of this is that it's prompting a workspace gospel rooted in fear instead of a grace based Gospel that's rooted in the authority of Jesus, Right? So the crowd accused Jesus of doing, casting out a demon in the power, a beezle bum. And the thing with Beelzebub is Beelzebub was a term that the Jewish people use as will always said the prince of demons. So whenever the word Beelzebub was used or you're using this in power, the Beezlebub, whatever it may be, they were referring to, this is demonic or this is Satan himself. Like they were accusing Jesus of operating in demonic principalities to cast out a demon. And like Jesus was like, if I was operating from the power of Beelzebub, that makes no sense that the devil would cast out his own demons. That just makes no sense. Right? So Jewish writings often referred to Beelzebub as the prince of demons. It was a mocking title. And even to read over that last part, right? So Jesus knew their thoughts. Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined. Why would Satan cast out his own demons? Right. If Satan is casting out his own demons, then his kingdom is collapsing. Then Jesus contracts. Contrasts Beelzebub's power to the finger of God, saying that his authority is greater than demons. That is one of Jesus's core teachings in the beginning of Luke chapter 11 is that the authority that Jesus has to cast out these demons is greater than the demons that that was on the inside of this mute man. And he's not operating from the power of Beelzebub, he's operating from the power of God. And he says, if the. If this is the fear of God that his kingdom is near kingdom, referring to what the kingdom of God is revealing Jesus. Okay, verse 23, this is right before we get into verse 24 about the return of unclean spirit. It says, whoever is not with me is against me. And whoever does not gather with me scatters, pointing that whoever has the absence of God's presence, not being with Jesus, AKA it makes them vulnerable to spiritual ruin. So this is kind of like the flow of the teaching. Jesus casts out a demon out of the mute man. He speaks and he teaches the crowd. Jesus is accused of operating from the demonic powers of a. Of a demon, the prince of demons, Beelzebub, however you say his name. And Jesus responds to them by warning them. And the warning is what we read in the beginning of Luke chapter 11, verse 24, that if you cast out a demon and if it searches and it wonders and it thinks to itself, I'm going to go back to my home, and it sees that it's swept and kept in order, it will come back with seven more. That's what Jesus left with the crowd after this incident with a demon being casted out of the mute man. So just read over the verse one more time. When an impure pure spirit comes, it comes out of a person. It goes through a rid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, I will return to the house I left. When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. Deliverance by itself is not the goal Jesus warning in the scripture, is it to those who aren't matching their salvation next to their religious works and how well they could break their own cycles on their own Jesus warning is to those who cast out demons and love the word deliverance, but lack a feeling of God's presence. When Jesus says it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Jesus is warning the people who want to be clean so bad but don't want to be filled by his spirit. Temporary deliverance without permanent transformation leads to spiritual torment. And many of us think that a demon will leave because of how much we pray, the hours that we pray, the pace of which we pray, the verses that we pray. And again, I'm not saying that these things are important. What I am saying is that the gates of hell does not shake because of your prayers and your the gates of hell. Do let me say this again because I need to say this straight. The gates of hell do not shake because of your performance prayers. The gates of hell shake because of Jesus. So if you're trying to cast out a demon, and if you're trying to live a life of deliverance that lacks the indwelling of God's spirit, you will always live a life of Luke chapter 11. You're you love the idea of deliverance, but hate the idea of God filling your spirit. And many of you are like, well, I pray that God leaves this. Like, I know so many people who are just warring all day with a demon who does not have as much power as they think they do, but don't understand that they get free not just by deliverance itself, but by filling that empty place with God's spirit. Right. So key detail, we're going to jump to Matthew, chapter 12, verses 43 to 45. This is the same account. Same account, same story, different person. Right. Let me turn there. 23. I need to drink water, too. Sorry. 1214. I'm all sorts of off. 43, 45. My gosh. Matthew 12, 43, 45. You guys, that's where we're going. Okay, here's the account. We're going to read it again. Listen to how Matthew writes about this instance. When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but it finds none. Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. We're going to pause right there. Matthew wrote a description that Luke did not write. Luke wrote, swept clean and put in order. Right. Matthew writes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. This is a key detail, because a spirit could only fill a place that is empty. An evil spirit could only fill a vessel that lacks substance. And what Jesus is warning to this crowd is that you could love the idea of deliverance all day long, but if you lack living a life that's filled with my presence, it will always come back and torment you. And it will be worse than the first, each and every single time. The goal of this teaching is for Jesus to not tell these people that you need to get your lives together on your own. He's saying, look to me. Fill yourselves with me. I fill every broken space. And that is how you're free from demonic oppression. The spirit found the house unoccupied. The. There was nothing in there. So Jesus is saying that when the unclean spirit has gone out of a person. So here's the thing. Deliverance works. So when you say, I cast you out in the mighty name of Jesus, I cast you out, mute spirit. I cast you out, deaf and blind spirit. Right? Whatever you're casting out, I cast you out in the mighty name of Jesus. I cast you out by the blood of Jesus, whatever it may be, right? Many of us have received this looks like when we go to services, and the person on stage is like, if you need to be free from demonic oppression, begin to just do deliverance on yourself and declare life to all these things, right? And so you're in a position to where you're like, I rebuke this. I cast this out in the mighty name of Jesus. And we'll spend 20 minutes casting out something that left the first time and then not fill us with anything. That's why we live in a cycle of oppression, of sin, of demonic influence. It's not because of your own works. It's not because of your own prayers. It's because of a death that Jesus died for you and I and the moment we're filled with death, no demon could fill that place. No demon? No demon. That's crazy. It found the house on unoccupied. Meaning that what qualifies a person for a permanent deliverance isn't found in the command of what they speak alone. It's found in what they fill themselves in after they had casted something out. Right. You cast stuff out all day. What are you feeling yourself with? And what's the truth about demons? Spirits only have the power to fill and return to vessels that are empty and lack God's presence. That is how a spirit gains access. You're not filled again, which is what sin us not being filled by God's presence. Let's be honest, like, how many of us are want deliverance but not a filled life with intimacy in Jesus? I'm actually shocked by the amount of people I know who will go in a prayer closet and war against demons for two hours, but won't go into that same closet for two hours and have just straight adoration for the Father. I am surprised because you can love deliverance all day. We can love deliverance all day and cast out a demon and rebuke the spirit of this and rebuke the spirit of that. But the moment that we miss the intimacy of Jesus and we are not being filled by his spirit, those same spirits have authority to come back because we are empty vessels not filled by anything. So to those who think that your performance prayers is what grants you access to freedom and liberty, I want to mess up your theology very quickly. The only thing that grants us liberty, pure transformation and freedom is Jesus. Because who the sun sets free is free indeed. And when I have intimacy with him and when I allow him to fill me, that is what pushes out the demon. That's what keeps spiritual oppression away from my life. Oppression, Possession. And it doesn't mean that spiritual oppression isn't going to happen, but it means that it has no place, it doesn't have a home in here. It can't take up space. You could oppress me, you could pick on me all day, but you don't. You don't got a space up in here. Does that make sense? And Jesus. Yeah, yeah. It's so good. Jesus is addressing those who are outwardly sweats, clean and put together and they play the part and look it, but they aren't filled with the presence of God. Like there's so many people where people are like, wow, like they're just filled with God's presence because they could pray all these demon prayers. Get out, Satan. I rebuke you. And you're saying all these things to rebuke a demon. And yet these same people don't know how to fill themselves with the presence of God. I used to be one of these people. I relate to this and I promise you, my life started to become more free when I realized that the price was already paid. And even though these things could come and create a little opposition, there's no authority next to the blood of Jesus. Like what are we talking about? Like what are we talking about? So if you're dealing with the same demonic spirit, not centering humanity again, that indicates your neediness and lack of God's presence in your life, right? So that's a great indication if you're still being attacked by the same demonic oppression, by the same temptation, by the same spiritual warfare. My question to you for you to ask yourself is, has God really filled this space or am I casting out something and it's returning back to no substance and no filling, which is why it has a welcome home, candle lit and everything. Like spirits get comfortable when it knows it's an open house and it doesn't have an alarm system on the house. Like it's easy to break into a house when nobody's in it and there's not an alarm system. Create a spiritual alarm system for your life and fill it with the presence of God. Fill that house. So even when they try to knock, they better not enter it, because why? God has occupied your spirit in your home. Right? So again, the demonic cannot overpower the authority of God's spirit. And outer change and constant deliverance without the indwelling of God's spirit is what keeps you in and out of cycles of deliverance, but no divine transformation. So even though you may think you're rebuking demons because you're saying all the right prayers, demons actually take residence in your life rent free because your soul is unoccupied. So demons don't tremble out of your performance prayers. They tremble by the name of Jesus. So how do I get filled by God's spirit? I was reading an article. I love John Piper. Love, love, love John Piper. I think he's a great theologian. I think he has an amazing passion. My only hesitation that I say is be careful not to fall into Calvinism when you read some of the stuff. But aside from that, uh, a lot of what he has written about theology is incredibly biblical and really transformative. And he wrote an article in 1987 about being filled by God's presence. And it's a book that I've read by him that's called Desiring God. It's so awesome. Um, and it's how to Fight for Joy. And in the book, it's this constant echoing of a theme that being filled with the Spirit means basically having great joy in God and that the Spirit who fills us is the Spirit of joy that flows between God the Father and God the Son because of the delight they have in one another. Therefore, to be filled with the Spirit means to be caught in the joy that flows among the. The trope of the Holy Trinity and the love of God the Father and the God, of the God the Son, and the very love of which they love one another. And Romans 5, 5 says that God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, right? So the Holy Spirit's primary, primary job is to reveal to us Jesus. And when we accept the Holy Spirit and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, God pours out his heart into the Holy Spirit so that the Holy Spirit may come into us and give us peace and clarity and conviction and correction everywhere in our lives. So God actively pours that out. Us participating and receiving that pouring out is us being in great joy of his love and in his goodness, right? 1 Corinthians 12 says, just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of one body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body. Jews, Greeks, slaves were free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. So even being filled. Another question is, have you been baptized? That's another thing. Like when Jesus was baptized in Matthew, Chapter three said that he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus didn't start his ministry, and so he was filled with the Holy Spirit. So we're filled by the Holy Spirit when we're baptized by water. And this is another thing, too, also not to knock with your theology. Jesus was fully immersed underwater. There wasn't a sprinkle on his head. He was fully immersed underwater. And the Holy Spirit dwelt among Jesus and ascended over him like a dove when he came out of those waters. He fully immersed himself under those waters, right? So question, have you gotten baptized? If that's something you're like, man, I feel like I need a filling of God's Spirit and you haven't been baptized. I would encourage you to get baptized and let Me say this to the people. This might be a very niche thing I'm about to say. I've met plenty of people who don't want to get baptized because they want to get baptized in a very specific place. My question is, who promised you're going to get to that place and get that specific baptism? Like, there's people who aren't being baptized because they're like, I want to go to Israel and get baptized in the Jordan River. That is really sweet. And I love that. That's a great goal of yours. And I don't think that's a bad goal. And tomorrow's not promised. Like the Holy Spirit dwelling on the inside of me is too urgent for me to play with baptism like that. Like, you know, so I think we can have goals and be like, yeah, I want this person. Baptize me. I could get that ties now. But baptism is not aesthetic and it's not a tourist completion. Baptism is a sacrament that's essential to the Christian life and we can't keep making it touristy and aesthetic. So that might be a really niche thing that I said. But I've heard lots of people who are refusing baptism because they want to do it a certain way. Like just get baptized. If God has called you to be baptized, get baptized. Get filled with the Spirit. Like, life is too urgent. And the Christian walk is too, is very demanding for us to walk with Christ in a crucified life, for us to not be baptized. Amen. And we can't live a crucified life if we didn't live a life like Jesus. And Jesus wasn't pinned on that cross unbaptized, he was baptized, then was pinned on the cross, right? But anyways, in that scripture, Paul conceived a spirit baptism as the act by which the Spirit made us members of Christ's body, right? So if the Holy Spirit swept over us and brought us to life by uniting us to the living Christ and thus on onto his people in one body, that is a once for all event. So baptism, live a life where you fill your life with Jesus, where you live and fill your life with the presence of God. And if that's something you guys also want me to teach on, just strictly that, that would be great as well. But mostly it's just being filled by God's presence and pursuing a life, being filled by that. Before trying to cast out all these things, we're trying to remove everything. What do we need to bring in? Right? What do I need to be filled by? Right? Do we understand you guys? And he said, hmm, I hope this freed somebody. It had to. It had to. Because I'm not playing with, I'm not playing with any of this. We're not going to live a fa. Fear based doctrine, a fear based gospel. No, you guys, this is not what Jesus intended for us. Living a life of freedom doesn't mean living a life apart from holiness. Live a life of holiness. But also living a life of holiness doesn't mean being scared of everything. You have authority and power not on your own, but through Jesus and through his righteousness. And that righteousness was found on a cross. Like the gospel alone shakes hell. Like when the devil, when demons hear about what Jesus did, they're like, I don't want to hear about that. Like that makes them tremble. That makes them tremble. So one way you could also feel yourself speak the gospel over yourself. Become a Jesus freak. Become a Jesus freak. It concerns me how many people know so much about demons, but they know nothing about Jesus. If you want to be filled with God's spirit, I would encourage you to not fill yourself with only just hyper awareness of demonology, but fill yourself with who Jesus actually is. Fill yourself with terms like atonement and sanctification and righteousness and vindication. Learn about the. Learn about the incarnation, all these things that are essential to the Christian life. We are walking only 10% of the Christian life if it's only in demonology. And I would even argue that that's a Christian life. It concerns me that there's so many people who knew more about demons and do not know anything about Jesus. Jesus is the one that sets us free, not the absence of demons. It's Jesus. It's what he did on that cross. So if you want to live a life that's filled by Christ, learn Christ, know Christ. If you're tired of rebuking these ding. These dang demons and devils all day and nothing is happening, fill yourselves with Christ. You fill yourself with Christ by speaking the gospel over yourself. What is the gospel? Read the gospel. If you don't know what the gospel is, read the gospel. What is the gospel? The Gospel is that God sent his one and only Son through a virgin Mary who's conceived by the Holy Spirit to give birth to the Son of God. Fully God, fully man. To die a gruesome death that you and I deserved on a cross. And not only did he die for our sins, but he became sin for us. And from that he died on that cross. He was buried. He descended into the depths of hell and ascended to the right hand of the Father who and resurrected and came back to this world to attest his resurrection to the entirety of the world so we may be free in him, so that the debt of sin is paid. That is the gospel. And being filled with that is just receiving it. Amen, you guys. Well, I love you guys so much and I hope that blessed you. I really encourage you that if this tickle your spirit a certain way to get in your Bible, that's the biggest thing. Even if it's like, oh man, I'm thinking about some things, drop a comment down below. But I more importantly encourage you to take this to a mentor, take this to a leader that is biblically sound, not emotionally sound, over doctrinally sound. Because a lot of people who preach messages like demons have a lot of power. It's usually from a place that's out of emotions and an indoctrinal state. Go to somebody who knows their Bible, a trusted source. Right? So test every spirit, test every word you hear from other people by the word of God and many of you guys. So that's really it. Announcements, kind of the same ones. I'm just gonna say these things for the sake because I don't know if it's gonna be out yet. We should have merch that's either coming out where it's already out. The link to the same not soft shop store is down below. Also a link to tithe is down before. What does your tithes go to towards this ministry which no one is obligated to donate, but it goes towards things like filling teachers, classrooms with supplies for children, towards serving with homelessness and giving resources to domestic shelters and even helping out other ministries and missionaries. We have given so much thousands of thousands of thousands of of dollars to people all over the United States and even beyond that. And so whenever you tie to this ministry, you're actively giving on to other people and you're actively giving to keep this podcast alive. So that's what you're giving towards. And then the last thing, if you're looking for online discipleship and fellowship, run hands on with each and every single one of you, you could sign onto our Patreon Safe Society, which is a separate platform and extension of save not soft podcast, where it's online discipleship and fellowship where we get to spend time with one another. Weekly devotionals, monthly chats or monthly calls, daily chats. And we just get to spend time with one another if you really want a tight knit community. So that's also down below. And the last thing if you're in the central Florida area and you're looking for community, we have saved irl, saved in real life once a month. And we have, we're gathering. I haven't done it yet, but I'm pre recording this episode. So I'm guessing that we're either going to gather soon or we already have but once a month. So the resources to that is also down below. And yeah, that's really it, you guys, I love you guys so much. Read your Bible. God loves you and so do I. Love you guys. Bye.