The Christian Response to the Spirit of Witchcraft Part 2

Hello and welcome to Self Talk, I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. In the show coming up, I'm going to continue my discussion about witchcraft, or the spirit of witchcraft, and you know, it's all over the place. It's a very common demonic attack against Christians, the body of Christ. Families, our workplace, it's all over the place and unfortunately, I'm going to discuss how we can invite this spirit into our lives inadvertently. In other words, not meaning to do it, especially when you're dealing with controlling people. So stay tuned, this is going to be an exciting show. Don't forget to go to my website for the podcast. It's icmcollege.org/selftalk. icmcollege.org/selftalk. You can subscribe, you can rate, you can see all my shows, you can see my blogs, you can email me, we can talk all kinds of cool stuff, so thank you again for listening to Self Talk.

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Welcome again to Self Talk, very glad you're with me. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the media, for the technology that we can use to spread your message of healing, father. And Father, this show, I pray, will glorify you and be a blessing to each person listening to the sound of my voice. Holy Spirit, you are welcome here in Jesus name. Amen.

So I've been talking about the spirit of witchcraft. It's not a real fun topic but it's an important topic because that common, it's a common demonic attack against Christians and it comes from controlling people. That's probably the number one source, when we, when we go against the will of God and try to enforce our will be done, not God's will be done, our will be done. Especially on another person. That can open up a door to a demon or a spirit of witchcraft. In the last show, I talked to you about some of the fruits, how it causes confusion and resentment and the things that it causes. Well, this spirit is very common so if you've been around a controller and maybe you have been a controller- now what do I mean about a controller? A controller to me is a type of person that lives externally and in their external existence, they believe that they have the right answer for everyone around them. Not only do they believe they have the right answer, but their thought procs- process is “well, since I am right and I have the right answer, I have a right to enforce my answer and do whatever it takes to get this person to follow my will.” And you see that is a huge problem right there.

Many years ago, and I've mentioned this on some other shows, the Lord spoke to me because I had some control issues and I felt that being right gave me the right- in other words, being right gave me the right and the Lord spoke to me very clearly, he said “Ray, just because you're right, that does not give you the right.” He didn't say anything else but knew what he meant because I was living with the thought that if I knew what was best for another person and if I knew that I was right, that I needed to do whatever it took to get that other person to follow my right idea, my right suggestion, my right way of living, my right thoughts. And what you can see here, there is a whole lot of self-righteousness, excuse the pun, Ray Self was self-righteous. And the problem is we have a righteousness that is a gift that is given to us through Jesus Christ by God. It's the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. But when we become self-righteous, we, we interfere with their righteousness that is from God.

So what, what about the spirit of witchcraft? What, what happened? How do we open up a door for it? Well, so many times we do things that welcome demons into our life and that is sad. You know, examples are: if we willfully sin, if we willfully get involved in something spiritual that's not of God such as tarot cards, ouija boards, psychics, New Age mysticism, transcendental meditation, yoga- and I did say yoga, yes I did- and we get involved in this stuff, we can open up a window, open up a door. And, and there's a message we're giving to demons that ”you are welcome here.” “We are doing things that welcome you in”, and this is not a show about yoga, but I know I touched on that, a lot of Christians do yoga, it's a very healthy form of exercise and I get that but yoga means union with god. It is a Hindu religion, research it. You say “well I'm a Christian, I'm just exercising,” you're doing poses and postures in yoga. The poses in yoga are actually worship positions to Hindu gods. Now you can say “well, I don't mean anything by it,” well, maybe you don't but you're opening up a door and you're- also, the Hindus believe that you become enlightened through yoga by the spirit that resides in the base of your spine, I believe he's called kundalini. Anyway, long story short, anything spiritual that's not of God can open up a demonic door.

But the spirit of witchcraft especially, is involved with control. Now God has made it clear he wants to be in control. Our job is to trust and to surrender to him, our job is to have faith, our job is to submit to him and to obey him. That doesn't mean we're a bunch of robots with no thought or mind of our own, that's not what it means. It does mean that we allow the Holy Spirit to lead and be- have the final say. But where does the spirit of witchcraft come in? Witchcraft typically tries to control. The spirit wants to control a person against their will. The demon of witchcraft is going “my will be done, the demonic will be done,” and what happens, I talked about in the previous show, is it causes a lot of confusion because when the spirit of witchcraft is around, trying to manipulate you or trying to- and by way, manipulation, shame and guilt are the primary weapons of the spirit of witchcraft. When that spirit is around, trying to manipulate you against your will and here you, you have your will, and then you have this demonic spirit trying to enforce its will, then you have the Holy Spirit with his holy will, and now you've just got a big conflict going on inside and it causes confusion.

So one of the primary fruits of witchcraft is confusion. Here's what I wanted to get at when we're dealing with a controlling person, that person who believes they know best. You remember the old show, I'm showing my age here, Father Knows Best? There was an old show back in the late 50s, early 60s called Father Knows Best, and the controller lives the life of “I know best, I know what's best, therefore, you need to do what I say,” so therefore, they believe that because they are right, they have a right to enforce their rightness by using all kinds of weapons. It's interesting, in our society and culture today, even in America today, there is a lot of this self-righteousness going on where if you do not follow our agenda and believe what we believe and have the same political view as we do, you're going to be ostracized and blackballed and labeled with all kinds of phobic names and racist names and bigot names simply because you have a different point of view. But a controller, even in their well-meaningness, believes that they really do know what's best, therefore, they need to enforce what is best.

The problem is when you enforce your will, if you happen to be one of those people- I hope you're not- when you begin to enforce your rightness on another person, you can literally get in the way of what God is trying to do in that person's life, or you become the god of that person's life because you've decided that you know what's best, you know what they should do, and you know what they ought to do. It's interesting, those words should, ought, need to. Um, years ago, I was in a counseling group, you know, a therapy group and, and this lady spoke up and she said I've been praying that God would take those words out of the dictionaries and I said what words? Should, ought, need to, and she said those are controlling words. And so that's what I'm hearing all the time, this is what I should do, this is what I ought to do, this is what I need to do, and usually those are words that the controller likes to use. 

The controller says “look, I know what you need to do, so you need to do this, you ought to do this, you should do this,” and they will, they will use things such as “if you don't do this, you're a bad person. If you don't do this, I'll never speak to you. If you don't do this, I won't be your friend, if you don't do this, you can't call yourself a Christian.” I've had that one used against me multiple times, “if you don't do this, how can you say you're saved? If you don't do this, how can you…God's going to take His Spirit from you.” There's always these threats and the controller is getting in the way of God. 90% of the time, what God wants to do with this other person, maybe the other person that the controller is trying to control is going a bad direction, but trying to force them with your rightness to make a turn against their will, it's just opening up a door for the spirit of witchcraft. It's an invitation going “Mr. demon of witchcraft, you're welcome here. I'm trying to manipulate this other person with my rightness.” The demon sees that and goes “wow, I can agree with that, so I'll come in and I'll help you manipulate that person.” Now, not only do you have your issues of control, you've got a demon assisting you and you have a formula. You've disturbed the pot and you've come up with witchcraft and that's, that's what it is.

We don't have a right to control another person. Now, I'm talking about a reasonable, an adult, a sane adult, you know. Our children, we should control them, okay? Somebody who cannot control themselves, you know, I get all that. When we try to enforce our wishes on another person, we can get in the way of what God's trying to do with that person or we literally start playing the role of God in their life, and we don't have the right to do that. Now how do you do that? I mean, so what if you know what's right and you know they're going the wrong direction? Well, instead of manipulating them, you can tell them the truth. What did Jesus do? He spoke the truth in love. Speak the truth. Say “hey, I see what you're doing, I do not recommend that, I would not if I were you, I would not go that direction, I, I would go this direction, if I were in your shoes this is what I would do.” Now, that's not controlling words, that's simply sound advice. But when you start saying “this is what you must do, you have to do this, you ought to do this, you should do this,” and then you start trying to enforce this with “now, if you don't do this, I'm just, I just can't have anything to do with you anymore. If you don't do this, you can't call yourself a Christian, if you don't do this, you're not a good wife, if you don't do this, you're not a good husband, if you don't do this, you can't say that you belong to God.” That's manipulation. And that is manipulation and using weapons of manipulation, and demons look for things, doors. See, when you do something that a demon can agree with, then he'll come right along beside you. When you do things that the word of God agrees with, then the Holy Spirit comes along beside you. 

Now listen, this is not a sin that we intentionally do, it's a sin that we, we do, and I've done it, and it's a common sin. It's not something you wake up in the morning and go “hey, I'm gonna put some witchcraft on somebody today, let me see if i can put a little witchcraft on this person, that's what they need,” no. It is human nature to want to be in control. It's also human nature to want to try to control other people. One of the reasons we want to control other people is we don't like the way their behavior is affecting us so we want to control them because we don't like the way they're acting toward us and the way it's making us feel so we're trying to control them to make us feel better. It has- and it doesn't benefit the other person at all, it's all for our own personal benefit.

You see, you may be, if you have some control issues, I promise you I would say there's a 98% chance, if you have struggled with control issues, you're avoiding something inside. You are avoiding something within your heart. I've done this in my life when I am, and it's really easy to do in ministry, when I am focused on other people and I'm focused on what other people need, ought or should be doing and I'm focused on them, I am totally avoiding myself. Now, there's times I do need to focus on other people but Jesus made it very clear I should not look for that spec in my brother's eye when I have a log in my own eye.

Control is a great drug. It keeps you away from your own pain, it medicates you. You literally are completely copping out, you are not feeling anything that's going on with you, you're not dealing with your hurt, your issues, your reality. Your focus is on other people and I've said this many times and I'll say it again on this show, whatever you focus on will control you. Whatever you focus on will control you, you know, and sometimes we don't want to focus on ourself, we don't want to deal with what's going on with ourself. We don't want to get honest and say Lord, I've got issues, I have hurts, I have pain. Lord, I confess. Lord, help me. You see, there's an old expression that says if we reveal it, or no, let me rephrase that. The Lord will reveal it to heal it. You know, I don't know why, especially men struggle with really getting honest about what's going on within themselves and one of the ways to avoid with what's going on inside of you is to keep your focus on other people, trying to control and manipulate them. And again, here comes that spirit of witchcraft, which is the topic of this show.

Guys, it's a, it's a heavy topic, but the number one thing we need to do is say Holy Spirit, search my heart. Help me, Lord, transform me. Remember that old uh, praise and worship song, it's an old Vineyard song is uh, change my heart oh God, change my heart oh God. It takes a little courage to go there, to look at your own heart and surrender your heart and your hurts and your pains and your trauma and your frustration and your fear to the Lord and to admit it. The Bible says confess your faults one to another and pray that you may be healed. It didn't say confess your blessing, it didn't say avoid your faults, it said confess your faults one to another, pray that you'd be healed and in doing that, we can avoid accidentally triggering and using and opening up the doorway for the spirit of witchcraft, do you get it? I know this is a hard topic, but if you're in a situation, maybe it's you, maybe you're the perpetrator, maybe you're the victim. If you're the victim of a controller who has opened up a door for the spirit of witchcraft, as I said before, you're probably feeling resentment, you're feeling uh, frustration, and you're feeling confusion when you're around the other person; and then you'll probably get into guilty compliance, “I'll just do what they want, I will just appease them, I don't want to lose their friendship, I don't want them to be angry with me, I don't want to face the consequences they're trying to enforce upon me therefore, I will just do what they want.” And then underneath it all, you're doing what they want. But you really don't want to do it and you're not being honest with yourself but maybe you're complying with their wishes just to appease them and underneath it all, you don't like what you just did, you're unhappy with yourself.

We need to be Christ-like and if I see a brother in error, instead of trying to control him or manipulate him, I need to do what Jesus did. He spoke the truth but he loved us. He spoke tru- spoke hard truth but he had so much love and so much compassion and so much mercy, he was willing to give his life on the cross for the people he was rebuking, for the people he was teaching, for the people he was giving the tough message to. He was willing to die for them. You see, when there's that much love, people will hear you.

My pastor used to say love before correction, and if you want to make a change in somebody's life, first thing you have to do is love them. Love them, and I would use the, what I call the hamburger method. If you really want to make a correction in someone's life, smother them with love, speak the truth to them and then smother them with love again. Love is the top bun and love is the bottom bun and the truth is the meat of the matter. But put two healthy buns which is love that- on either side of that truth. Love, truth, love. Don't force it, just and speak use the I word.

Now, whenever, listen to me, listen to me, if you're listening right now listen to me. Let's say your name is Mike, “Mike, you need to stop drinking, Mike, you need to stop cussing.” Now, just those words that I just spoke to Mike, and if there's a Mike listening to me it was not directed directly at you, those words right there that I that I just spoke using the word you, you. Whenever you speak the word you, you're gonna put someone on the defensive immediately. “Mike, you might, you need to, Mike, you ought to, Mike, Mike, you should,” those are controlling words and those are offensive words and it's gonna put Mike on the defensive. What you can do is you can say “Mike, I love you man, I'm concerned about you. I really hope that you will stop drinking. I wouldn't drink like that much, Mike, I, I wouldn't swear like that. I'm concerned for you, I love you Mike, I wouldn't do that. I used to do the same thing and this is what happened to me and, and you,” it's much more powerful and you get it across and you're not controlling, you're not manipulating, you're just telling that your concerned, your love and what you would do in his situation. It’s very, very, very powerful.

So we don't want to open up the door for witchcraft. The bottom line is when I do things in agreement with the Holy Spirit, with God in his word, then the Holy Spirit comes along and helps me when I do things in agreement, in agreement with the devil, then the devil sends his demons to help me. So I want to be in agreement with the Lord and not in agreement with the devil and do things that invite the Holy Spirit instead of things that may invite demonic spirits even though I didn't mean it. And you didn't mean it, and your friends don't mean it, your mother didn't mean it, your coach didn't mean it, but he did it. But now that you know, you see, you know what, I'm not going to try to control someone or force my will on someone. I'm not going to enforce my will, I'm not going to force my will, I'm just going to love people, speak the truth tell them what I would do, and get an agreement with God's word and watch what the Lord will do and just watch what he will do, amen?

So in dealing with the spirit of witchcraft, don't open up a door for that spirit. Open up an avenue for the Holy Spirit to come and have his way, amen. I want to thank you for listening today, let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your truth, I thank you for your word, I thank you, Father, for giving us truth that maybe will help us, set us free from these evil spirits. Father, help us to speak and act in agreement with you and, Father, if we have spoken and acted in ways that have invited a demon to come alongside and cause harm, we, we ask forgiveness. Lord, please forgive us, Father, we repent of that, Lord. And Lord, we purpose right now in our heart to be in agreement with you, in agreement with your word, because we know how much you love us and how much you care for us and we thank you, Jesus. Thank you for each person that listened to this podcast. In Jesus name, amen.

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Thanks again for listening to Self Talk. It's been my honor and privilege to be able to be with you today through the wonderful world of the internet. Be sure and check out my resources. There's many resources that can help you out at my website, icmcollege.org. That's the College- International College of Ministry. They're free lessons, you can get a free evaluation, there's a lot of things you can do on that website. Also, check out our podcast website which is icmcollege.org/selftalk. Be sure- and maybe consider purchasing one of my books, Hear His Voice be His Voice, or Redeeming Your Past Finding Your Promised Land on amazon.org. Thanks again for listening, we appreciate you.