Entry Points

Number four, soulish domination. See, there’s a difference between the spirit and the soul. I can’t go into that. But there are many people who control and manipulate other people by what I call “soul thoughts,” soulish domination. The most common example in contemporary American culture is a mother dominating her children, especially her sons. There used to be a best selling book in the Jewish community entitled How to be a Good Jewish Mother. And one of the lessons was “How to Get Your Son to Play His Violin in Public Using no Other Motivation but Guilt.” Well, when you know the Yiddish amomo, they call them in Hebrew Yiddish amomos, I mean, they are the perfect example of what I am talking about. You know about the lady in the big theater who shouted out “Is there a doctor in the house?” and a man stood up and said, “Yes,” and she said, “Boy, do I have a daughter for you!” All right.

But it goes a lot beyond that. I have met successful businessmen, bank presidents and people like that, who never developed emotional maturity because they still were tied to their mother’s umbilicus. The spiritual umbilical cord had never been cut. Their methods of manipulation are endless. I think of a mother who dominated her family because every time things went wrong she got migraines. And all the family had to tiptoe around, don’t talk, don’t make a noise, mother’s got another of her headaches. She didn’t realize it, but she kept them from doing anything she didn’t want them to do by having migraines.

There are two dirty words in this context. Dominate and manipulate. And wherever you meet them, you’ve met the devil.

All right, number five. I’ve had to say to some people, listen, if you want me to help you I’ve got to be honest. The fact is your mother is a witch. You still have got to honor her but she’s a witch. I’ve had to tell people who got delivered you’re just not free to go back to your parents’ home. You’ll have to stay away, because you don’t have the spiritual strength to stay free from that dominating, manipulating influence.

Number five, pressures in early childhood. I have discovered that a child’s spiritual and emotional defenses are not strong enough to keep out persistent demon pressure. Now it says in James 3:16 something that’s worth bearing in mind. James 3:16:

“For where envy and selfseeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.” (NKJ)

So where there is an atmosphere of strife and disharmony between the parents, it generates a condition in which the children will be automatically exposed to demon influence. And I would say more than ninety percent of children are incapable of keeping them out. My observation is that eighty percent of demon problems have started in a person’s life before the age of five. And the parents are responsible for that situation, you understand?

Number six, moment or place of weakness. It can be emotional weakness, it can be physical weakness. A woman is standing on a street corner and a horrible automobile accident takes place in front of her eyes. She’s exposed to the spirit of fear. Or a woman has only one child—this is a case I actually dealt with. A boy at the age of five, he died. She goes into depression and stays in it for years. She has opened up to the spirit of grief which is a very powerful spirit. Or a woman is expecting to get married and at the last moment the engagement is canceled and she yields to the spirit of disappointment and goes through life an incomplete person.

I remember I was teaching once, years ago, in a certain place, and there was a lady who was Pentecostal and very spiritual, sitting on the front row. And I happened to name the spirit of disappointment. And I watched her face. It convulsed. She changed totally, her whole personality changed until she was delivered from that spirit of disappointment. You see, if you build your hopes on something and it doesn’t work out, you’re probably exposed to an evil force.

Now another kind of weakness is physical weakness. Let me give you this example. I’ve talked about epilepsy as being produced at times by an evil spirit. Some years ago my first wife and I had a girl of about eighteen who came to us, she’d heard my tapes, she was a confirmed diagnosed epileptic, on medication, but she believed that it was an evil spirit. She came to us for deliverance. So Lydia and I prayed for her and we felt that the spirit had left. But then the Lord seemed to say to me your job isn’t finished. So I said to the girl, “Now tell me, how did this start? Did it start with a physical injury?”

And she said, “Yes, I was struck on the head by a baseball and after that the seizures started.”

“Well,” I said, “the physical injury was purely physical, but it opened the door to a spirit of epilepsy.” You understand? The place of weakness was the injury to her brain. “Now,” I said to her, “I believe the spirit has gone out, we need to close the door.” So Lydia and I put hands on her and prayed for the healing of her brain. I was in contact with her for about three years after that, she took no more medication, never had another seizure. But I give that simply as an example of a moment or a place of weakness.

And the last one is sinful acts or habits. If you persist in a certain sinful habit, you can be sure that sooner or later it will become demonic. To give an example of a sinful act, I had to pray for a young woman once who had gone to see the film The Exorcist. She knew she shouldn’t go. She went and something entered her. She had to come, confess as a sin she had gone on territory that was forbidden and then she was delivered. Or a person may go to a pornographic movie and some kind of sex demon will enter, a demon of lust. But you won’t get delivered until you confess the sin that opened the way for the demon, you understand?

All right. Now we come to what is the center of the whole thing. How to be delivered. This is what all of us need to know. And I’m going to give you a list of simple, basic steps. I don’t say you have to follow all these steps, but I’ve observed that these are the things that are relevant.

Number one, be humble. Okay? Now you’ll see why I say that when I write out number two.

Be honest. You understand, it takes humility to be honest. I tell people, “Don’t call your problem by some fancy psychiatric name, call it what it really is. Call a spade a spade and not ‘an agricultural implement.’” All right. If it’s lust, call it lust. If it’s hatred, call it hatred. I say to women, call it by the same name you’d call it in your husband and you’ve got the right name. But that takes humility. All right? You won’t face the truth unless you first humble yourself. And remember, the Bible always puts on us the responsibility for humility. It always says “humble yourself.” Don’t pray to God to make you humble because He’ll humiliate you. Then you’ll have to be humble. But it’s your decision.