Curses - Cure - Part 2

The primary cause of curses, we dealt with three particular categories. Persons with relational authority, self-imposed curses, satanic influence. I don’t suppose I’ve given you any concept of how much satanic influence there is and how much we are actually a target more than we realize.

Bill was saying this morning you get publicly aligned with Israel and you have no idea what invisible artillery is going to be trained on you from that moment onward—whether it’s as a church or as an individual.

I’ve been impressed by the words about Moses. He considered the reproach of the Messiah greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. That’s a literal translation, the reproach for Christ. But I prefer to say the Messiah because it was fifteen centuries before Jesus had come. And what I want to tell you is you get associated with the people of the Messiah and you’re going to bear the reproach. There is no way that you can be identified with the Jewish people in any serious sense without being involved in something of their reproach.

I say to people if you’ve not prepared for trouble, stay away from the Jews. Because, when you get involved with them, that’s trouble. I mean, I know from personal experience, I’ve brought up six Jewish daughters. I care enough to be prepared to take the trouble that goes with it. But if you just want a trouble free life, stay away from any involvement with Israel or Jerusalem or the Jewish people because you are touching the very center of everything in the spiritual world. That’s where the battle rages. And believe me, there are forces that will be turned against you. Some may be deliberate.

However, we’re going on now and this is important. The basic root cause of curses is occult involvement. Let’s look at Deuteronomy 27:15 once more. I do believe that if you were to trace everything back to its source somewhere the occult would be there. See, notice I’ve talked about Rachel stealing her father’s household images. That’s the occult. See? It cost her her life. You cannot trifle with the occult and be safe.

All right, Deuteronomy 27:15:

Cursed is the man who makes an idol or a molten image an abomination to the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman and sets it up...

In other words, any other god. That’s still the first commandment, we sung it. Let’s believe it. The most important commandment is “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.” That takes precedence over every other commandment. It really determines our destiny.

Deuteronomy 5:6–10, the first part of the Ten Commandments:

“I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the third and forth generation to those who hate me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

Now, it’s a much discussed subject, how far the parents’ sin will produce evil consequences in the lives of their descendants. And it’s something that I don’t believe any of us can exactly specify. But one thing I’m sure is when you break the first or the second commandment, the consequences will affect your descendants to the third and fourth generation. And that again is the occult. The occult is breaking the first commandment, it’s having some other god than the true living God. The Bible says, and I’m convinced on the basis of experience, I’ve dealt with scores of people, there was no way to ascertain the real source of their problem until you went back sometimes three generations and found out what their parents, their grandparents or their great grandparents had been involved in. Because, there are those things which bring a curse on the subsequent three generations at least.

Why I’m saying that is because tonight if you are here with some kind of a problem, some kind of dark shadow over your life or your family, in that list of problems you’ve picked out some, it may be that your problems started three generations back. Some member of your family was in some way involved in the occult. I’ve discovered in Europe the sixth and seventh books of Moses, which I’ve never opened, which are spurious, the number of dramatic evil consequences that have come upon people who have those books in their house. Or, there was in your background a Christian Science practitioner. I’m not attacking Christian Science, I’m just saying that in actual fact that could be the source of your problem. I mean, I’m talking out of experience.

I remember dealing with a woman years ago, she suffered from continuing confusion, she never could get straight and yet she was a highly educated woman. I was really just moving into this area but I said, “I believe someone somewhere in your family has been involved in a cult.” Not the occult but a cult, but it’s ultimately the same thing. I felt it was Christian Science but I didn’t ask her. Well, I led her to confess and renounce this on behalf of herself and her whole household. She changed instantly, I mean, right then and there her mind cleared, her face changed, it was a total difference. I said, “It was Christian Science, wasn’t it?” after she was delivered. She said yes. I really had not yet begun to see these things, it was a kind of shock to me that it worked.

Now, I’m going to go a little further afield and I’m going to read just a few quotations that I’ve picked up out of magazines or that people supplied me with. We’re going to go a little beyond the background of ourselves and our family, we’re going to look for a moment at this nation, the United States of America. I think some of the things I’m going to say are familiar to many of you. I am not American born, my knowledge of American history is pretty shadowy. Many of you know much more than I do. But, I will just read these, there are three statements. The first is about the Lincoln family, Abraham Lincoln’s family. You need to know what is not stated here is that while Abraham Lincoln was president he permitted his wife to conduct or have conducted a spiritist seance in the White House, which I think was one of the most significant events in American history, really. Now, his wife Mary later spent a long while in mental institutions although she came out before she died. Her son had the agonizing obligation to place her in a mental institution. I’m sure that’s cause and effect. It’s just one of the things that I’ve mentioned. I believe it brought a curse on Lincoln, on the White House and on the presidency. Here is just a little part of it.

Abraham Lincoln’s son Robert was in the army during his father’s presidency. One day Robert received orders to report to Washington. On his arrival he was told that his parents were at Ford’s theater. As he entered the building he met a group of men carrying out his father, the fatally wounded President Abraham Lincoln. Years later as Secretary of War under President James Garfield he was requested by the president to accompany him to his college reunion. At the last moment, finding that business would necessitate his remaining in Washington, Robert Lincoln hastened to the Union Railroad Station to inform the president of that fact. But as he entered the building he met a group of men carrying out the fatally wounded President James Garfield. Twenty years later President McKinley invited Robert Lincoln to be his guest at the Pan American Exposition. Lincoln accepted and as he entered the main building he met a group of men carrying out the fatally wounded President William McKinley.

So he saw three fatally wounded presidents carried out before his eyes, the first being his father. Now, is that mere coincidence? I mean, you’re entitled to make your own answer.

Here’s just a little bit about the relationship of the death of every president up till the present time that was elected in a year ending with twenty, you’re familiar with that. This is from some secular paper. It just mentions the well known suggestion that it was an Indian curse placed on the president. I’m not authenticating this, I’m simply stating it. It’s headed “Curse or Coincidence.”

Every U.S. president elected in a year divisible by twenty has died in office. William Henry Harrison who was elected in 1840; Abraham Lincoln, 1860; James Garfield, 1880; William McKinley, 1900; Warren Harding, 1920; Franklin Roosevelt, 1940; and John Kennedy, 1960.

That is seven—without fail, there’s not one exception.

Is this merely a coincidence or as many American Indians believe the fulfillment of a curse laid upon William Henry Harrison and all subsequent U.S. presidents elected in a year ending in a zero. Harrison, the first incumbent to die within a month after taking office is the U.S. president many educated American Indians have learned to hate and probably with good reason. In 1801 President John Adams appointed Harrison governor of Indiana territory and publicly charged him with protecting the rights of the Indians but privately with taking their lands to expedite white settlements. The Indians resisted and eventually joined forces with the British. In the War of 1812 Harrison promoted to major general recaptured Detroit from the British and in October 1813 defeated them and their Indian allies led by the Shawnee chief Tecumseh and his brother the prophet in the Battle of the Tens in Canada. Tecumseh was killed in this battle. Legend has it that the prophet who was the Shawnee shaman or medicine man thereupon evoked a curse upon Harrison and his government. The curse was that all future U.S. presidents starting with Harrison who were elected in the year whose last digit was a zero would die in office. The curse, occasionally known as the Indian’s Revenge, has developed into a myth.

The essence of that is is it a myth or is it a curse?

And here is something else which is also interesting. This is supplied by a student friend of mine.

The following is the concluding remarks made by Tecumseh, a powerful Indian leader from the Shawnee tribe at Greenville in April of 1807. The president of the United States had sent an Indian agent, Captain Wells, to ask the Indians to move further from where they had settled. Tecumseh’s speech was reportedly delivered with great vehemence and deep indignation.

This is what he’s reported to have said:

These lands are ours. No one has a right to remove us because we were the first owners. The great spirit above has appointed this place for us on which to light our fires and here we will remain. As to boundaries, the great spirit above knows no boundaries nor will his red people acknowledge any.

It was his brother that pronounced the curse on the White House, who was the medicine man, the witch doctor.

Now, as I say, I’m very little informed about American history. I wish I were better informed. But the little I know leads me to believe that historically over the generations the way the white people have treated the Indians makes them legally liable to a curse. Friends of mine who are well informed say that all that the whites have done to the blacks is absolutely insignificant by comparison with what they’ve done to the American Indian.

There’s one curse that we read this morning that I want to read again. It’s in Deuteronomy 27:17:

Cursed is he who moves his neighbor’s boundary mark.

I would say that probably that’s been done by the whites to the Indians more times than most of us could count. Treaties have been made and broken again and again. They’ve been given boundaries and the boundaries have been taken from them.

Now, I said that the whole of this thing ultimately is a legal issue. I believe that where a person has given legal occasion to the enemy to bring him under a curse, one essential requirement is that that person repent and turn from whatever evil conduct exposed him to the curse. I’m inclined to believe that this is true of the American people by and large. As I read the Bible I read that God requires blood that has been shed. Sometimes it’s frightening. You read in the book of Revelation about Babylon, in her was found all the blood of martyrs. God says that blood calls to him from the ground. It’s my personal opinion, I think that’s the right word, that the great, ultimate, spiritual problem of this nation relates to its Indian inheritance. It’s awfully difficult for me to say this because there will be people who will accuse me of being racist or prejudiced. I know that isn’t true. Nevertheless, facts are facts. I believe that worship is the thing that opens the way for spiritual authority to rule. If we worship the true God we come under His authority. There is no way to get more of God than to worship Him. But, conversely, if we worship any other god we expose ourselves to that evil power and we give it legal authority over us. I’ve come to the conclusion over the years that behind all other major spiritual problems in this nation there is the fact that the original inhabitants of these territories, not excluding South Florida, worshiped false gods. When Tecumseh speaks of the great spirit he is not speaking of God the Father because God the Father is not worshiped the way the Indians worshiped.

It’s very interesting when John Wesley was in Georgia as a missionary at the beginning of his long life, he was talking to an American Indian about the good book, the Bible. This American chief said to him, “We have not followed the good book.” He said, “That’s one of the sources of our problems. Also we kill our children.” It was something of a shock to me to realize that the problem of abortion in actual fact goes back in American history a long way. I believe that we’re dealing with a power that has never been broken that affects much of what takes place in this nation. I don’t believe that any of us can automatically conclude we are not affected.

I’ve learned, for instance, in dealing with some people to ask them where they were born in the United States. If a person was born in an area that had a very strong Indian influence, I begin to search for that as one source of their spiritual problem. I have in various cases been able to help people when I’ve analyzed it to that point.

So, this is the thing that I’ve always found it hard to come to. You can see, in a way, I’m kind of struggling now. I’m personally convinced that if we are to accomplish what God wants for the church of Jesus Christ in America we’re going to have to deal with those satanic gods that were enthroned for centuries by the worship of the American Indian and have never been dethroned. Believe me, not far from here they are still being worshiped precisely the same way they were four hundred years ago. It’s not a theory, it’s a fact.

To me, the history of the American Indian is one of the tragedies of history because in all the blessings, spiritual and material, that have come to this nation and all the different peoples from so many different backgrounds, myself included, that have come to this nation, the American Indians have really shared very, very little either in the spiritual blessings or in the material blessings. My personal belief is the reason is that evil, dominating principality of Satan has never been broken. I believe that it will take people with enough love and commitment to take that battle on and win it on behalf of the Indians. I don’t know whether I may be speaking to some who are concerned. I don’t believe it’s my personal point.

I’ve dealt with people from many, many different races and I’ve learned that in the long run their racial background carries with it spiritual implications. I have an African daughter, she’s known to many of you. She’s grown up among white people since she was six months old. All the other members of her family are from other races—Jewish, Arab, English and so on. She’s the only African. But when all comes to all, she’s still very much an African. The way she sleeps, she’ll always sleep with her head wrapped right in the blanket. No one else in the family has ever slept like that. She’s never seen anyone, but you go into any place where Africans are sleeping, that’s how they sleep. The food she likes, essentially she eats like an African. I know the tribe that she’s from. Many of my students in Africa were from that tribe. When I went to Africa to take over the headship of this college, the lady who’d been there before me said about this tribe, “You will find that there are some days when you can’t do anything with them. Something comes over them, they’ll just sit there, you can’t scold them, you can’t make them work. You just wait.” I’m not the kind of person that’s happy just waiting but I really began to see that she had a hold of something that was real. Even today, more than twenty years later, when I have to find out what’s going on inside my daughter’s mind I cannot discount that power because it’s there; thousands of miles away from her birthplace in a totally different culture and environment, but there’s something that has a large effect on the person she is.

I take that as an example, I’m treading on eggs because I could give six examples for every one I did. But, they’re involving people whom I don’t want to expose. I think I’ve probably said enough. I think the Holy Spirit will have to take over.

Well, the question is whether I’m going to offend you or help you. For instance, let’s be honest. Dear Lord! You come from Hungary, from Italy, from France, there is a strong background of witchcraft in all those countries. Believe me, much of the family life in those countries was permeated with what I call the Yiddish yamama, only she isn’t Yiddish.

Let me say one more thing. I don’t know, I’m not choosing to say this because of the particular composition of people, but I am personally convinced that there are problems for American blacks, spiritual problems, that have never really been fully faced and dealt with. And maybe it’s the white people that need to do it because they’re responsible. You see, if you look in Romans 8, Paul says you have not received the spirit of slavery again. We put bondage there if we’re old fashioned and it doesn’t mean a thing, but slavery means a lot.

I personally believe that there’s something over the whole American black culture that is connected with the background of slavery. Now, probably somebody will want to shoot me for saying that but I still believe it. I don’t have racial problems, believe me. I’ve been through a lot through having a black daughter. I love her, she’s a sweet and beautiful person. But, she’s not an American black, incidentally. She is pulled. She doesn’t have a history of slavery in her background. She has other things, but not that.

Now, what way does slavery express itself spiritually? What is the nature of bondage? I have to use the word bondage because I think in terms of the King James.

Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

What was Paul talking about in one simple word? The law, legalism. What is the problem of black Christianity? Legalism. You have to look a long way to find one who isn’t in some way entrapped in legalism. They’ve all got different sets of rules. It really doesn’t matter what set of rules you have if you’re living by a set of rules you’re in bondage to legalism.

All right. Now I’ve left you out. There are a lot of you I’ve left out but I trust the Holy Spirit won’t. I have to trust that the Holy Spirit will fill in the gap. I’m going to say something else. If you knew what it was like to preach this message tonight you’d be on my side. See, my background is English. I don’t have to tell you that, that’s pretty obvious, I imagine. The English have their own problems, believe me. You have no idea what problems the English have. I’m saying English, notice I’m not saying British. Don’t ever go to those islands and talk as if British is the same as English. I have just recently been involved in helping a dear brother in the Lord who’s English who came in desperate need of help. I believe I was able to help him. He needed deliverance. As I prayed for him I began to see into Britain, into England. I saw something very, very dark, gloomy, sinister, proud, incestuous. It was like a revelation of a tunnel. And as I looked down it I knew I was looking down my own background. I don’t believe that’s ever really been dealt with in England. I have a feeling there’s going to come some kind of avalanche of the Holy Spirit on England that’s going to throw up all the debris. Religion covers things over, the Holy Spirit blows them to the surface. I have an uneasy feeling that God has started to show me this because I’m going to be in some way involved. Believe me, I have not volunteered!

What I’m trying to say is your background is part of you. Take another example, and now I think I can take this without being accused of being prejudiced. Take the Jewish people. One of the biggest personal problems that we found we have to deal with in people is rejection: rejection by a parent, rejection by a husband, rejection by a wife. We find that that’s the deepest wound in many people’s hearts. Have you ever stopped to think what it’s like to have been rejected everywhere for nineteen centuries? The Bible says that the light of the sun will be like seven days in the day when the Lord binds up the wound of His people. I don’t think that the human mind can comprehend the depth of healing that’s going to be needed to heal that. I am confident the only one who can do it is God Himself.

But again, I have six adopted Jewish daughters. Many of you know that. Believe me, the longer they live the more Jewish they are. None of them were brought up in Judea. You can’t understand them until you know how Jewish people think.

One of the things that really draws me is getting inside people. Do you understand what I’m saying. And it’s really by revelation of the Holy Spirit. At times the Holy Spirit shows me where a person’s at, where they’re coming from, what wounds they carry, what makes them tick. God doesn’t look as man looks. Man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart. Charles Finney said, “I suppose if God were to reveal to the sinner the true condition of his heart he would not be able to survive the sight.” Aren’t you glad that God doesn’t show you all of you in one look? He deals with you, opens up one area and says, “Let’s take care of that,” and you think, “Now I’m all right.” The Lord says, “Wait a minute, there’s just a few more things that I want to tell you about yourself.”

All right, how to get out of it. I just have to say I hope I’ve had the mind of the Lord, I really do. Because, I haven’t had any liberty to start on how to get out of it until this moment. I think there ought to be a graph made of my preaching when the Holy Spirit and I are not in complete in one mind about which way I ought to go. It would be something like that (indicating), but usually the Holy Spirit ends up on top.

All right, now, how to deal with your problem. I want to suggest four verbs which in the English language all begin with the letters RE: recognize, repent, renounce, resist. I’ll say them again. Recognize, repent, renounce, resist.

See, what I’ve been trying to do tonight is to enable you to recognize. I think when you’ve recognized you’re about eighty percent of the way to what you need. Recognize.

Repent. Repent of your own involvement, repent of your family’s involvement, repent of your nation’s involvement, repent of the church’s involvement. There have been a number of countries where I have, I believe, been used of God to release the church in that country from its dark shadow of guilt for the way it’s treated the Jewish people. I don’t believe the church can ever become what God said in the Bible it should be until we have dealt with the fact of the way we’ve treated the Jews. That’s not my purpose to deal with that tonight.

James 4:7 says:

Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

That’s good news. But don’t forget you cannot resist the devil until you’ve submitted to God. If you don’t have God on your side you’re not strong enough to resist the devil. And you only get God on your side when you submit.

All right. Now, establish a clear scriptural basis. I’m going to give you, would you believe it, seven steps. How did that happen. I want to give you a clear scriptural basis for your release. Galatians 3:13–14, we’ve already looked at that.

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.

Okay? That’s the ultimate basis.

Ephesians 1:7:

In Him [Jesus Christ] we have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace.

Redemption means what? Means being bought back. You were in the hand of Satan, you were in the devil’s slave market, exposed for sale. The news of the gospel is Jesus walked in, paid your price and redeemed you, set you free with His blood.

Colossians 12:1–14, it’s worth reading that.

Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in life, our inheritance is in the light and in the light there is no darkness. [Darkness and light don’t mix.] For, He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son...

Bear that in mind. We were in the domain of darkness. Through the cross God transferred us out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of His Son.

... in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin.

Redemption means you’ve been delivered from the domain of darkness, transferred into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. Okay?

1John 3:8b:

For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil.

Why did Jesus come? Various reasons. But in relation to the works of the devil, that He might destroy them, do away with them, annihilate them, terminate them, finish with them.

And Luke 10:19:

Behold, I give unto you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. And nothing shall by any means hurt you.

When I get people delivered from arthritis, one of the things I get them to do in their lower limbs is they must stomp on the devil. And usually if they’ve had pain they give very gingerly. I say, “That’s not hard enough, do it with all your might.”

Okay, let’s go through those scriptures again very rapidly. Galatians 3:13:

Christ has redeemed us from the curse, being made a curse for us.

Ephesians 1:7:

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His Grace.

Colossians 1:12, let’s do the central part only:

God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

We were in that kingdom, now we’re in this kingdom. What’s in between? The cross. The cross is God’s great stop sign. When the devil sees the cross he has to stop, there’s no way he can get past the cross. He can’t get over it, he can’t get under it, he can’t get round it. It’s a barrier that he cannot surmount.

1John 3:8, the second part:

For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil.

And Luke 10:19. If you can say it with me you’re welcome to do so. I’ll say it in the King James Version but it’s the same basically in all:

Behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpion, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

One thing you can be sure. If Jesus promised that nothing would hurt us we can be sure that something would try to. God never gives empty promises. When God says three times in one message “Thou shalt not be afraid,” believe me, friend, there’s going to be something ahead that would make you afraid. So when the Lord says nothing shall hurt you it tells us a lot of things would like to hurt us.

Okay, that’s step one. Step two, confess your faith in Christ. He’s the high priest of our confession. No confession, no high priest. You keep quiet, you tie His hands, you stop His mouth. You’ve got to say it out loud. Out loud is my addition but anyhow, do it.

Number three, commit yourself to obedience. You remember what’s the great basic requirement for blessing? Hearing and doing.

Number four, confess any known sins of yourself or the people with whom you’re involved, whether it’s your family, your racial group, your nation. Don’t dig around for sins, believe me, if you dig you’ll never stop digging. But, let the Holy Spirit show you what’s relevant.

Forgive all other persons. That’s required. Jesus said, “After this manner, pray ye, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” You are not entitled to claim more forgiveness from God than you offer to other people—proportionately.

Renounce all contact with the occult. And, maybe contact that you’ve made but people that in some way you’re involved with. Your parents, whoever it may be.

It just comes to my mind, and I really don’t know why this comes to my mind but I have to trust it may be from God, Lydia and I years back in Atlanta, Georgia got involved with the Croft family: Jim Croft’s parents, himself, his sister. All of them got delivered in various ways. But when Jim’s sister who is now married to Mike Ford in Tuscaloosa, when Jim’s sister came—and Lydia didn’t know anything, she didn’t know anything about American college life or culture. She just looked at Candy, Jim’s sister, and said, “What’s that ring on your finger?” “Oh,” she said, “that’s nothing, just my sorority ring.” Well Lydia said, “You better take that off.” There was a real struggle. She took it off and all hell broke loose. It was a contract, you see what I’m saying?

You might be amazed but I was in a sorority once, I was invited to go for a meal, I think it was lunch or dinner, I forget what, and bless the food. I listened to what they said, they were making vows. I don’t know who they were vowing to but I’m sure some of them weren’t vowing to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The amazing thing was Lydia’s insight. She didn’t know anything about sororities. If you handed her one on a plate she wouldn’t have known it. She said, “What’s that ring?” Candy’s father went and threw it as far as he could throw it away. It was a really expensive ring. But it changed her life.

So, who knows, do you see what I’m saying? The Holy Spirit knows.

Release yourself in the name of Jesus.

Okay. Now I’m going to say those once more and then I don’t know what I’m going to do next. Number one, establish a clear, scriptural basis.

Number two, confess your faith in Christ.

Number three, commit yourself to obedience—by the grace of God. God knows you may make a few mistakes, that’s all right as long as your heart is set to obey.

Number four, confess any known sins by yourself or the group that you’re part of.

Number five, forgive all other persons. I think if you belong to a race that has been persecuted...the Jews, the blacks, the American Indian—you may have to forgive all the people that persecuted your race.

I probably told you the story about a dear brother who’s a veterinarian, known to many of us, seeking deliverance from Don Basham. He could not get delivered until he forgave the entire IRS. How many of you can understand that?

All right, forgive all other persons.

Number six, renounce all contact with the occult. Any books that are questionable, don’t keep them. Take them out and burn them or get rid of them in such a way that nobody else gets hold of them.

I make it a principle unless there is a strong reason. Some books contain information that I need like I have one or two books that tell me some aspects of the faith of Islam. But, as a general rule, I make it a principle not to keep anything in my house that dishonors Jesus Christ. There’s a lot books that you wouldn’t call wicked but they don’t belong. I wouldn’t want somebody to come into my house and get hooked on those books so why should I keep them?

Release yourself in the name of Jesus.

I think I better go through them again and this time I will not pause and comment on any of them.

Number one, establish a clear scriptural basis.

Number two, confess your faith in Christ.

Number three, commit yourself to obedience.

Number four, confess and renounce sin.

Number five, forgive all other persons.

Number six, renounce all contact with the occult.

Number seven, release yourself in the name of Jesus.

Now, it’s obvious we’re going to have to do something about this. I have to just trust that the Holy Spirit in spite of my weaknesses has somehow got through to you and that in some way or other you are now aware if you have a problem of how to approach it. I’m going to lead you in a very general confession of primarily faith in Jesus Christ and a renunciation of any forces in your life which are from the realm of darkness...physical, emotional, marital, whatever it be. And then I’m going to just pray for those forces to be broken and for you to be released. And at that point we never know what will happen next. Some people sometimes get a dramatic response, other people get just as much help without any obvious, dramatic physical experience. Don’t look for an experience, keep your eye on the Lord.

Now, address this only to Jesus, not to me. I think it’s good if you say it out loud because it gives more punch to it. And when you get to the end, don’t bother about your neighbor, please. Just focus your mind on the Lord and whatever it is you need from Him. Would you say these words:

“Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that you are the Son of God and the only way to God, that you died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead. On the basis of what you did for me I believe Satan’s claims against me are canceled. And so now, Lord Jesus, I submit myself to you, I commit myself to serve and obey you. And, on that basis I take my stand against every dark, evil force that in any way has come into my life, whether it be through my own acts or acts of my family or of my ancestors or of something larger that I’m a part of. Wherever there’s any darkness in my life, any evil force, Lord, I renounce it now. I refuse any longer to submit and in the Almighty name of Jesus, the Son of God, I take authority over all these evil forces. I loose myself from them and I release myself entirely from their power. I drive them from me now in the name of Jesus. I invite and invoke the Holy Spirit of God to move right in and make my deliverance and my liberation fully effectual as only the Spirit of God can do. In Jesus’ name, amen.”