Key to Making the Devil Flee

Hello, welcome to Self Talk with me, your host, Dr. Ray Self. Have you ever wondered why you pray, you rebuke the devil, you try to do spiritual warfare, but the same old problem keeps reoccurring and it's causing you frustration? In today's show, which is a very important show, I'm going to give you a key and a way to get results in your spiritual warfare and you know, we have a commandment to resist, the devil right? And he’ll flee from us. But sometimes he doesn't flee. Why is that? What can we do? This is a very critical show. Thank you so much for being part of Self Talk. Don't forget to go to my website for this podcast. You can see every single show on his website, icmcollege.org/selftalk. Again, thank you for being with me today. God bless you.

[Music]

Welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, Dr Ray Self. You know the scripture, submit to God, resist the devil he will flee from you. And so we resist the devil and expect him to flee from us however, the first part of that scripture has a very serious condition: Submit to God and then resist the devil. I want to talk about that a little bit because to me, that has to do with hearing his voice which is a prophetic ability. To hear and understand what God is saying. Throughout scripture you'll see God giving his people strategy for victory. You know, Jehoshaphat when they were being overwhelmed by multiple armies, the Lord told them to to go to the end of the valley of Ziz and there you will see the victory of the Lord. He told him where to go, where to stand, and when to go. David so many times before he fought a battle, would ask God for a strategy. He would, you know, “Lord, my enemies have surrounded me.” At one point, God told David how to set an ambush. 

The point I'm saying is yes, we need to do spiritual warfare and we need to resist the devil and it is our job, the bible said in Mark 16, the Lord said “these signs shall follow those that believe in my name, they will cast out demons,” um, part, spiritual warfare, deliverance, casting out demons is a part of the gospel. It is a part of the gospel. Jesus is our model. What did Jesus do? He taught, he preached, he told parables, he had compassion, he had mercy, he healed the sick, he raised the dead, and he cast out demons. Why are we so concerned and afraid of spiritual warfare? I do not know. I've often said this, that when you find out there's a demonic problem, in a way it's good news. And you might say well how could that be good news? Well, it's good news because you can resist the devil and have him flee from you. 

However, the first part of that scripture is submit to God so if you want the devil to flee from you and your family and your work and your finances and your body, you know maybe there's a particular ailment that the, an ailment that the doctors have no explanation for. Well, it could be, could be a demonic problem. So submit to God and then resist the devil, he will flee from you. Submit to God to me means to stand in the Lord's counsel. It means to pray, ask God, get God's instructions, go to the Lord and ask the Lord what it is you want to do. What, what will he have you do? In Corinthians, Paul said very clearly that we should covet to prophesy. He said that we should earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that we would prophesy, and prophecy is all about hearing God's voice and you'll look throughout scripture when there was a prophetic word, is- after God had spoken to someone and that someone relayed the message to God's people, he relayed the message that God had given them. So the thing about prophecy was the first thing the prophet or the messenger had to do was hear and recognize the voice of God. Jesus said “my sheep know my voice and they follow me.” Well, I've often said this: you cannot follow a shepherd if you don't recognize his voice. I believe God is talking to us much much more than we hear him.

So when the bible says submit to the Lord, that means to me if there is a demonic situation, a place where the devil really needs to flee, it could be from your, your home or your marriage, it could be from your children, it could be from your finances, your body. Whatever it is, we need to submit to God. That means praying, and it's not just praying, I mean, you see prayer so many times in our culture is going to God and asking him for asking him for things “oh Lord, would you please heal me? Lord, would you please bless my children? Lord, would you please help me with my job? Lord, please help me with my wife, Lord, please help me with my husband. Lord, I just ask you to, to bless our church, Lord, I ask you to, to heal our nation, Lord.” You know, we ask and we ask and we ask and we ask, which is nothing wrong with that but what we fail to do so many times is to listen, listen.

If I'm going to submit to God, I need to be able to listen to him, listen to him. So I pray. And I pray and, and I might start off my prayer with praise and an attitude of gratitude and, and, I can talk to God about the problem that's afflicting me because I need to resist the devil. I need the devil to flee. It's time for him to get out, it's time for him to run, it's time for him to get out of my home, get out of my marriage, get out of my life. But by submitting to God, I found out exactly, I'll find out exactly what God wants me to do and how he wants me to do it, so it's a two-part scripture. Yes, we need to resist the devil and yes, he will flee from us if we meet the condition of that scripture and that is submit to God. 

So what I'm saying is, submit to God to me, is talking to God, hearing God's instructions, and then submitting to them. Talking to God is not just telling God and asking God, telling God all your problems and asking God for all sorts of requests but not pausing to hear his voice. If I'm going to submit to him, I need to hear him and then submit to what he tells me to do. And when I hear God speaking to me because I'm not, I'm praying and I'm not just talking but sometimes I zip it and I get very still and hear God's response. And so, when I hear God speak, I submit to him by following his instructions, that's submission. Submission is Lord, this is what you want me to do. I submit to your voice, I submit to your desire, I submit to your instructions, I submit to your wisdom. And when I submit to the wisdom of God, then the devil will flee from me. In other words, we need to fight the devil but we need to fight the devil the way God wants us to fight. We need to use the strategy that God has for us. Sometimes the Lord, in prayer, may tell you what demon is operating. That's very helpful because when you know which demon is operating, then you can address that demon and tell him to go in the name of Jesus Christ. Sometimes he'll just tell you this is how I want you to do it. He may give you an instruction like I want you to anoint your, your house with oil, I want you to fast, I, I want you to speak with more authority, I want you to have more faith. Whatever it is he tells you to do, he may tell you exactly what the scheme of the enemy is.

Remember Paul said, and I've talked about this many times, “we're not to be ignorant of Satan's schemes.” So the point of all this is we do need to resist the devil in spiritual warfare, it’s part of being a Christian, and deliverance and casting out demons is part of being a Christian. But to do that, we submit to God and his instructions. And the way we do that is we pray and we listen. Pray and listen to the Lord, what is he saying to us? And we submit to his instructions. We submit to his voice, we submit to God's wisdom and then guaranteed, 100% guaranteed, the devil is going to flee from you.

So many times when it comes to demons, it gets controversial. Can a Christian have a demon? Blah, blah, blah. What I believe, what the bible shows us is demons attack. They attack Christians. Can they possess a Christian? I don't think so, you know? I think because we have the Holy Spirit in us, it would be impossible for a demon to possess us. Will they attack us? Will they harass us? My experience, and I believe the word of God backs it up, yes. Why would the Lord tell us to cast out demons, get rid of them? Because they do attack. They oppress us and they come after us and they, they, they harass us.

One of the main things that demons do is they magnify problems that are already there. When there is an illness, they can make it worse. When there is a, an emotional wound, a wound from the past, they make it worse. When there is a, a problem in the marriage, they magnify that. They cause stress, they cause fear, they cause anxiety which, just complicates most problems, and you know, what I'm talking about, you know the bible tells us we're not to fear, you know, perfect love cast out fear. Be anxious for nothing. And so what demons do, they come in and do the opposite. They make us anxious, they make us fearful, they just compound problems that are already there. So we have enough problems without having the problems to be made worse by demonic interference.

So therefore, spiritual warfare is part of being a Christian. Submitting to God, resisting the devil, according to the book of James and have them flee from you is critical. What I'm trying to get across to you in this podcast is if you want the devil to flee, the first thing you have to do is submit to God and you cannot submit to God if you don't know what God is saying, if you don't know what his instructions are, if you don't know what he's trying to tell you to do. Now, I'll say this also, submitting to God also means submitting to God and his word. Submitting to God and his counsel, his word, the word of God. The written word of God is, is our instruction book and we should be submitting to the written word of God and I believe that, that's maybe the most critical thing however, the author of the bible is still alive. He's still talking to us and he wants us to submit to him and what he's telling us today in the year 2023 what- he'll tell you what's going on and he'll tell you exactly how to, how to defeat it.

I think so many times we're so busy, we're so distracted, there's so many things in our mind, we don't get still and we don't listen. Prayer, and you've heard this so many times, prayer should be a conversation and not just a one-way conversation. Have you ever had those friends that call you and it's just kind of aggravating and they talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and never, they never even ask you how you're doing? They don't listen to anything you have to say, they just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. I have some family members that do that and I love them dearly and don't you, just say, you know, “I really wish they could hear me. I really have something to tell them that would help them but they're not listening to me.” I think God goes through the same thing with us. He has so much he wants to tell us but we're not listening. We're just not listening. Listening takes practice and we can develop an ear to hear God's voice. 

We can train ourselves to hear God's voice and sometimes, you know, we may think it's God's voice and it's our own imagination. We've all done that but you know what? That's, that's okay. I'm still learning. We're still in a learning process. You know it's God speaking when it's when it contains things that you would never think of because his thoughts are higher than your thoughts, his ways are higher than your ways. You know it's God speaking when there's more love than you could ever imagine, you know it's God speaking when it's bigger and better and wiser and smarter than anything you could ever think of. According to the book of Ephesians, exceedingly, abundantly more than you could ever think or ask for. You know when that's God, you know when it's God when it lines up perfectly with his word. You know, when it's, you know it's God when it, when it actually has some benefit to the kingdom. You know it's God but it also benefits other people and so you learn, you learn and then you know it's not God when it is something in your mind that is unscriptural. Our mind can think of a lot of things, we have a vivid imagination and we have a lot of thoughts that are based upon our past experiences and, and filters and triggers and all this kind of stuff. But if we learn to pray and get still and quiet our mind, we're going to hear God speak more than ever.

I've often said this uh, in kind of old school. In the old days there, we would have an FM radio and you had to turn the tuner and get the tuner to the exact right spot before the station would come in very clearly. With hearing God's voice, you have to get your mind right into the right place. You have to get your ears into the right mode to hear his voice and you will learn how to tune in to his voice, how to really focus and tune into his voice. You can train yourself on doing that and some, sometimes the way to do that, to know what God's speaking, it's just… You know, you, you think you hear him say something, you're not quite sure, you go and do what he tells you to do. Look at the results, and many times that'll tell you if you actually heard God or not by the results. In other words, sometimes learning to hear God is a process of trial and error.

Guys, the devil is roaring right now. He's making too much noise. He's making too much noise in our nation. The spirit of the Antichrist has risen and it's very, very, very sad. Satan is getting louder and louder and louder. More evident, more vocal. So many people are deceived; we need more than ever to be resisting him and having him flee, not just for our benefit, but for the benefit of our community, our city, and our nation. This is critical. We're in a spiritual war, we're trying to fight a battle with people who are demonically deceived in a natural way and it's not working. It's not a natural battle.

Remember Paul said we battle not against flesh and blood, and we're not in a flesh and blood battle here, we're in a spiritual battle. We're in a battle against demons and we're in a battle against the forces of darkness of this present age, and we have to fight the good fight. And that means submitting to God and resisting the devil so he will flee, and get out of our nation, our community, our family, our marriages, our finances, our bodies, you name it, get rid of him.

But first thing do, learn how to submit to the Lord. Pray, listen, hear his voice, follow his instructions. That, in my opinion, is how we submit to God. Thank you so much again for listening to me, this is Dr Ray Self. Please check out my website for this podcast, icmcollege.org/selftalk. I love you much it's always an honor and a privilege. This is about my 121st show, so thank you for following. Share this with your friends, let's, let's build our audience here because I'm trying to do this for the kingdom of God and for the benefit of people. Love you so much, thank you so much for listening. God bless you.

[Music]

This is Dr. Ray Self. Thanks again for listening, it means a lot to me to see the downloads and I'm hoping that I'm being a blessing to you, exposing the schemes of the enemy, helping you live free and stay free so I appreciate you being with us today. Please check out my resources on my podpage or podcast website at icmcollege.org/selftalk. You can get my books, you can purchase courses, I mean, college-level courses that will really help you in your life. Also, we have products. Also, you can subscribe to our email list, you can write a review which would really help us. Again, the main thing I just want to say is thank you for listening to Self Talk, and may God richly bless you. Amen.