How to Take Authority Over Demons

Dr. Ray: Welcome to Self Talk. Episode 140, can you believe that? Thank you so much for listening today. On today's very interesting show, I'm getting into deliverance and spiritual warfare and how critical it is for you to exercise it. I want you to listen to this show and pay attention because it's going to give you some answers; it’s going to help you and your family. It’ll give you peace and give you hope and give you a future, all for the glory of God. I thank you for listening. God bless you and I hope this show means a lot to you. Thank you again.

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Dr. Ray: Hey, and welcome to Self  Talk. I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. Thanks for being with me here today. This show is sponsored by, brought to you by, and made possible by the International College of Ministry, now enrolling. A Spirit-filled seminary now enrolling at icmcollege.org. Thank you, everyone, for being with me today. You know, Jesus gave us some power, He gave us authority. He, He didn't leave us defenseless. Let's look at this scripture, let's read the scripture together. Luke 10:19. Now, Jesus is talking to His disciples. I'm a disciple of Christ, are you? “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.” Then we go again and uh, Mark, very famous verse, chapter 16. And what does He say? He said, “...these signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues;” So a sign of a believer is that they cast out demons. And then He tells us “I've given you authority over them.” He tells us– the scripture tells us, the book of James, “...submit to God. Resist the devil he will flee from you.” Uh, Paul tells us, put on the full armor of God to stand firm against the schemes of the enemy. 

Throughout scripture, throughout the gospels; and you also see it in the letters of Paul, you'll see an issue with demons. But every time you see an issue with demons, you see Jesus taking care of that situation, the Apostle Paul taking care of that situation. Guys, I don't like to talk about demons, they are vile they are evil. They are something… they're ugly, they hurt, they steal, they destroy, they cause havoc. But the good news is we have authority. If you're a Christian, you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you have authority over them. The problem I see honestly is Christians are allowing themselves to get beat to a pulp and they're just living a natural life and don't understand why these things keep happening to them and “why I keep going through the same situation over and over again.” We're in two realms simultaneously. We live in the natural realm. This is the realm that we can see, feel, and touch; but at the same time, we live, live in a spiritual realm that is unseen. However, it may be unseen with our eyes but we're experiencing the effects of it. 

In the spirit realm, there are two types of spirits. There's the Holy Spirit who glorifies Jesus Christ, the spirit of God the Holy Spirit - if you're Pentecostal, the Holy Ghost - I like to say Holy Spirit. And there's these other guys and these other guys are not good. It's very simple. If the spirit is not the Holy Spirit, it's a bad spirit. 

Some of the New Age people think there's other spirits out there that are good and they can do all these good things for us and cause blessings to come to us. I'm going to tell you something. There's two classifications of spirits. There's the Holy Spirit and there's the bad guys. This is why God hates so much when people get involved with spiritual, supernatural things that are not of Him. What am I– what are you talking about? I'm talking about occultic things: Transcendental meditation, yoga - yes I did say yoga -

um, you know, the, the meditate– meditating, um, Eastern Mysticism, any– the occultic thing, New Age, Wicca, you name it. It uh– astrology, psychics, tarot cards, all this stuff has a supernatural aspect to it and if it is spiritual or supernatural and it's not the Holy Spirit, it offends God. It upsets God- and I want you to hear me- it upsets Him.

When you look at scripture, you'll see the only time that God was angry with Israel - and He got angry you know, a number of times but it was always the same relative issue. It was Israel turning to other gods. The first case was the golden calf. Remember that they created a golden calf to worship, God was ready to smoke them, and then Moses interceded. If it's spiritual and has a supernatural aspect to it, it is offensive to God. And I'm not doing a podcast about yoga but why– but why is yoga so bad? Well, it's a great exercise - really good for your balance and you know, strength and coordination, that kind of stuff. However, yoga… it comes from Hinduism. The word yoga means union with God. So yoga comes out of Hinduism. It is an exercise that is composed of various postures or poses and these postures that you take or these poses that you take are actually worship poses to various Hindu gods. And the purpose of it is to reach this stage of enlightenment by releasing a spirit I believe called Kundali which will come up into your mind and give you this peace and, and give you this enlightened being. And you do this through yoga. However, yoga is a counterfeit spirit. It works with demonic spirits because I'm telling you, there's two classifications of spirits. If it's not the Holy Spirit, they're bad guys. And these yoga spirits, this Kundali spirit, is a bad spirit. It's an evil spirit. It is an evil spirit. If it's mystical, if it's spiritual, if it's supernatural and it's not the Holy Spirit, it's offensive to God and opens up a door for all kinds of problems in your life.

If you've done it, there's a simple solution: repent. Say “Lord, I did it.” Repent. Years ago, I did yoga, I did practice some, some astrology, got involved with some psychic kind of stuff and I repented of all that because I found out it's all offensive to God. But see, we're in a battle and you don't want to give the enemy ammunition. And this kind of stuff– if you've been involved in this kind of stuff, if you have not repented and asked forgiveness, it's an open doorway and it's ammunition for the enemy to come into your life. The solution is really simple. You ask, you recognize it, you say “Lord, I turn from it. I repent of this. I ask you to forgive me of this.” And the Bible says if we confess our sins He's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanses of all unrighteousness. So if we repent and ask forgiveness, it's taken care of. That's the beauty, that's the beautiful part of being a Christian. So repent. We are in a spiritual battle. The sign of a believer is that we will cast out demons so we don't need to be inviting them into our house by practicing demonic activities, supernatural spiritual things that give demons an open door. There are no good spirits other than the Holy Spirit, okay? Now there's a human spirit, that's a different thing, but the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, these other spirits are counterfeit. They're counterfeit and they are offensive to God and they are demonic doorways.

Folks, I want you to understand Jesus has given you power, but if you have authority and you don't use it, then authority is useless. Authority is no good unless it's exercised. It's almost like if you were a policeman but never wore your uniform, never wore a badge and never let anybody know, and never arrested anybody or did any police work. You might have the, you know, the papers to say you're a policeman but you're powerless. The point is, authority unless it's exercised will not do you any good. How do we exercise this authority? It's a good question. I'm asking it to myself, “Good question, Ray. Thank you, Ray.” That's called self-talk, get it? Okay, I'm sorry. Um, I've been through a lot in my life. I've seen demons manifest in people. Can Christians have a demon? Absolutely. Are Christian– have I ever seen a Christian possessed? Never, never. Have I ever seen a Christian oppressed by demons? Absolutely.

So oppression maybe is a good way to look at it. But when you know who you are in Christ and you know that you are a child of God and you understand that, okay? And you have confidence that you're a child of God, you're filled with the Holy Spirit, and you believe. You see, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. We're justified by our faith. Everything with God is about faith. So God gives us these promises and He gives us this authority but in order for the authority to manifest in you and the power to work in you, you have to have faith and confidence that you have the authority. And it's interesting... when a demon knows that you know who you are, they will respond to you and demons will submit to your authority in the name of Jesus Christ. Now, it's the power of Christ flowing through you that scares the demons, that makes the demons flee. You can cast demons out of your home, you can cast them out of your job, you can cast them away from your family. And I encourage you to do it. Just do it. Well, well how do you do it? Well, it's not, it's not really hard. You know, you pray. It's not– let me be careful. You pray. You should always pray and seek God and commune with God, that's all good. But after prayer, you need to take authority. See, God in general does not do things for you that he's told you to do. It's just like us with our children. If I give my kids something to do and I'll tell them to do something, I'm not going to do it for them because I told them to do it. Well, God told us to cast out demons. Jesus said in John 14:12 “...those that believe in Me will do the same works that I did.” What did Jesus do? He cast out demons. “...these signs will follow those that believe…” what will they do? “...they will cast out demons…” Luke: “...I give you authority over snakes and scorpions, all the power of the enemy…” James “...submit to God. Resist the devil…” Corinthians, Corinthians “...do not be ignorant of Satan's schemes…” amen. Ephesians, “Put on the full armor of God, stand firm against the schemes of the enemy.” 

So spiritual warfare is a commandment but also it's, it's important for your life. It's important for your peace, it's important for your well-being, it's important for your marriage, your job, your health, your children, your safety. What do you do? And you say, “Well I–” Maybe you asked the question, “I'm not sure what to do.” Well, I'll give you a really– some simple recommendations. Go through your house. Just walk through your house and say words like this: “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command any spirit not of the Lord Jesus Christ to get out of this house. My home belongs to Jesus Christ. This land belongs to Jesus Christ. This land is under the blood covenant of Jesus Christ. My home is under the blood covenant of Jesus Christ. Anything not of Jesus, get out of my home. Leave my home now. Get away from my family, away from my possessions, away from my children. I command you to go now. Any unclean spirit, any vile spirit, any spirit that's not of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.” The only Spirit of Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the Holy Spirit. And sometimes you may pick up– the Lord may show you the name of a spirit. It may be the spirit of Jezebel, the spirit, spirit of witchcraft, okay? The spirit of occult. It could be, it could be a lot of– a spirit of fear, spirit of rejection, spirit of condemnation. Um, spirit of poverty, spirit of shame. Rebuke them and say, “Go! Get out now, in the name of Jesus Christ!” And mean what you say. Mean what you say. Know what you say. You'll be surprised how the atmosphere of your home will change. It'll change. 

I will tell you this: years ago, a true story, I was working a retail job and I would do a little spiritual warfare before I walked into the store– I was working for a major department store… and I was very successful, I was on commission sales and I was number one salesman in the store many times, and many times number one salesman in the city. But what I would do was before I walked into the store, I would claim the name of Jesus Christ over this store, over my day, and of course, you know, the department store, you worked in a department. I would claim the name of Jesus Christ over my department and it's amazing how many good things would happen to me. I pray over my car, I pray over um, my home, my bedroom, my office. I pray when I leave. And so and again, excuse my cough, it's not just praying and asking for something. See, most prayer that we do is asking God for something but see, spiritual warfare is not asking God for something, spiritual warfare is taking a commandment of God and doing it. Spiritual warfare is using the power and authority that God has given you. You see, so many Christians have this power. They have this authority but they do not use it. You use it by speaking out speak against the demons that are attacking your marriage. Speak against the demons that are hurting your children or your finances or your health and command them to stop. Command them to go and command them never ever, ever to return. 

If you've done something that you think may have been an open door and you know, the Holy Spirit will convict you. If there's something in your life that is an open door to the enemy, you'll get convicted by the Holy Spirit. Say, “Lord, forgive me. I'm sorry. I ask You to forgive me. I renounce this. I repent. I turn from this.” And the Lord will shut that door. It'll shut the door. It's kind of like you know, you don't want to be shoeing flies out of your house and leaving the screen door open. [Laughs]. Amen. You'll shut that door. I'm an old Southern guy, it comes out sometimes. I hope this makes sense to you. I'm not going to be before you long for this particular podcast, I just want to tell you that spiritual warfare is real. Iif you're not practicing spiritual warfare and taking authority over the demonic influence in your life, you're missing out on a great opportunity to be free. Especially if you're a husband, you're the spiritual head of your house and you need to take that authority. If you're not married, you're– maybe you're a single mom or single woman, you're the spiritual authority over that house. Maybe your husband– maybe you’re a wife, your husband is just not where he needs to be, you can still take authority. The name of Jesus Christ, everything will bow. The name of Jesus Christ is power. And you have the power of that name through the Holy Spirit living in your body. Exercise it, use it. It glorifies God, it pleases God, and it gives you a better life, amen? Amen.

So Heavenly Father, I pray for each person listening to this show today. Father, help us to take authority over the works of the enemy and do it, Father, for Your glory and for Your kingdom. And, and Father, we just, we love You. Thank You for giving us this authority. Thank You for giving us this power. Thank You, Lord. Just show us what we need to do, Father. Help us to fight for You, to fight for Your kingdom, to fight for what is right, to fight against the powers, these dark forces that are moving across our land. But we know, Father, according to Your word that greater is He Who is in us than he is in the world. And I give You praise and honor. And I thank you, Jesus. I praise You, Father. Thank You, Lord. Everyone listening to me. I thank You, Father, for a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit. A fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit to take authority over all the works of the enemy and bring the glory of God back into your home and into your life where it belongs always. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this show has been a blessing to you. This is Dr. Ray Self and you've been listening to Self Talk. God bless you.

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Okay, that was kind of a heavy show, wasn't it? Thank you again for listening. Hey, don't forget to follow and subscribe at our website for the podcast. That's the easiest way to do it. icmcollege.org/selftalk. If you could partner with me and help me continue the show, please consider a donation. It would help. The show is expensive and I go in the hole every month with this show but I really need to continue this show. It's icmcollege.org/donate. Don't forget, International College of Ministry is our sponsor. It's a Holy Spirit-filled online seminary. We have Associate’s Bachelor’s, Master’s, Doctorate degrees in ministry, theology, Christian counseling - very popular degree, Christian counseling - and even prophetic ministry. We're enrolling now. We are credited by ACI, we're Holy Spirit-filled, you work your own schedule because the courses are waiting for you. It's affordable, there are scholarships available if you have a financial struggle. Do that at icmcollege.org/enroll. Now, all these links I'm talking to you about are in the show notes. Don't forget there's some free courses that you can take. Just click the link called Free Courses or go to the website. You can even study now and enroll later. You– in other words, you can try it before you buy it. All this stuff is really good, I think you'll enjoy it. I appreciate you very much. We've got a store at icmcollege.org/merch, m-e-r-c-h, all these links are in the show notes. Again, thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you. Again, this is Dr. Ray Self and I pray God's authority, God's blessing, and a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit come upon you now, as you listen to my voice. In Jesus’ name, amen.