Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Are you ready to be put to work for God's End-Time Army? It is NOW or NEVER! Angelia Ruth, “Angie”, has ministered in over 35 countries in some of the most dangerous places in the world. Author and co-author of over a dozen books, she has led mission teams and college groups over the past 30 years and is recognized for her prison ministry program by the State of Texas. She teaches God has a hilariously exciting life for every believer who will take Him at His Word and follow Him into R-I-S-K. If you have ears for truth and a sincere desire to sell out to God, this podcast is for you.
K. Tonight, we're gonna do it on the path of a thought. From the outside of your head to the inside of your head, and from the inside back out again. So this is the thought divide and we're gonna see if you've done this yet in your life. Okay.
Speaker 1:So not too long ago, I was praying for someone that we were gonna be working with later that morning, we'd be meeting with him. And I had spent a lot of time outside and I was praying for him and suddenly the Lord spoke to me. Because usually before we meet with someone I'm trying to see if the Lord will give me anything for him, and he told me these words. He said, the Lord gave me this, when this guy would get well would be when he would be able to divide his thoughts from the enemy's thoughts. He would begin to recover.
Speaker 1:At this point, he thinks they are all the same. So I had never thought of it in those terms that the thoughts from the enemy and the thoughts of the guy were completely intertwined. And so, he had to begin to have a break between the two sets of thoughts. So this is what is the thought divide, and the more that we've gone on the more that we've seen this is the key to someone really getting well. So outside your head is a set of thoughts, and the enemy he comes like a peddler, And he comes along and he's, like, shouting.
Speaker 1:Hey. Hey. Hey. And he's trying to get your attention because he wants to sell you some kind of thought off his wagon. He's gonna make you some kind of bargain.
Speaker 1:I don't know if he cares which thought you take, some are worse than others, but he's gonna sell you something and every thought on that wagon is evil. It's some form of evil, but everybody buys something different. Everybody gets something different from this peddler. And so he comes along and in your life you've got to discover what thoughts you've accepted. So one time I was doing a study on the origin of evil.
Speaker 1:Probably one of my most favorite lessons I've ever done is asking myself where did evil originate? Where did it come from? And like that's something that a lot of people and scholars have debated over the years and so I'm not gonna teach that lesson tonight, but thoughts are like if they're evil where are they originating from? And I went back to that teaching on the concept that I started out with, there's a good case to be made that evil comes from a vacuum, but I move the concept over until evil is actually an entity. Now, I'll tell you why I knew it, because it blinked.
Speaker 1:And so anyway, we can talk about that later. So your thoughts that come from the outside, if you'll keep an eye on them, they'll blink. And then there are human thoughts. I doubt you could say that brushing your teeth this morning was from the devil or god. It's probably from god.
Speaker 1:My gosh. Don't come to meet me with your teeth, not brush. But, anyway, there are thoughts that are human thoughts. Now, these can be evil too, but they come from within. Can you think of what within evil thoughts would be?
Speaker 1:Maybe selfishness, self will, pride. They're from within. So we're gonna do a head evaluation. And if you can lay on the couch, I'm gonna get you comfortable and then I'm gonna sit next to you and we're gonna evaluate your head. And we're gonna see what is in your head.
Speaker 1:Because for the most part, I don't see anyone really succeeding here. I mean, aren't you glad you're not on a date and someone can hear what you're thinking? My goodness. That was a big amen from Pat there. Pat number 2.
Speaker 1:I mean, can you imagine you would look over it and think, you just thought that that went through your head? I mean, imagine if our thoughts were just completely out in the open. They are with the Lord. So we're gonna look at this because I hope your thoughts are open to you. That's where I'm getting to, is I want you to think about what you're thinking about.
Speaker 1:That was profound. You're gonna think about what you are thinking about. We're gonna look into your head. We're gonna do an evaluation. But I had a pleasant surprise last night.
Speaker 1:I was with a teenage guy and he asked me, will you pray for me? I'm being distracted by my phone. And so the question was asked at that moment, are you normally distracted by your phone? Now what do you think his answer was? Yes.
Speaker 1:No. What else would a teenage guy tell you? He said, no. He's the only guy I'm gonna allow to come stand up here and help me teach He has an internal environment that is not distracted. And so when he started getting distracted, he knew something was wrong.
Speaker 1:Now, can every one of you adults say the same thing? Ain't that amazing? To have your environment where it is peaceful inside of you. So that's what you're asking yourself, do I have peace in my head? Because there is no way that you're gonna hear God warn you if your thoughts are crazy.
Speaker 1:You know, the one we described earlier on the date. If your thoughts are tormented, if you have fear thoughts and never have peace in your head, you need to tell yourself the truth on this. You need to look at the mirror and say my thoughts are not peaceful. Now, let me say something for this generation, numb is not peace. That is a counterfeit of peace, so don't think, well I'm just so numb, I don't have any thoughts that are are bad.
Speaker 1:They're all peaceful, that's because you're half dead. Take one more step and you're already in the hole. It's been dug. This generation numb is not peace and everything they attempt to do is to numb themselves. That is a counterfeit.
Speaker 1:So having peace in your mind, that has to become your norm like my teenage friend. It has to be where you are peaceful. And when you have chaos in your head, that has to be not your norm. So that you know that you've made contact with something. So I'm asking, what is your norm?
Speaker 1:Because that's a good way to start here. Then you know your thoughts are all merged together. We have a serious operation we're gonna have to perform before the night's over. So, if something goes wrong in your life, like something just goes wrong with your day, you just have one of those days and you just think, my gosh, my whole day came unraveled. Let me tell you what's really bad about this.
Speaker 1:You will go doubly crazy if your thoughts are not peaceful. Because then it's outside inside. That makes you crazy. Or let's add this to it, something goes wrong in your day and the world is already getting more and more chaotic. So you add the fact you have a bad personal day, the world's going chaotic but you go triply.
Speaker 1:You go completely non peaceful because you have no internal peace. You don't have peace in your life, you don't have peace in your thoughts, and then peace is pulled off the earth, which has happened. This is called a Mulligan stew. You are gonna be a basket case and you're gonna be very hard to deal with during the rough times that we have ahead of us. So this is very important for the time we're living in, also for the spiritual warfare that goes on in all of our lives.
Speaker 1:You must maintain peace in your mind. So I'm gonna give you a verse that I really like and I want you to look at it, I want us to melt it down. I want us to pull this piece out of John 104 and 5, because it talks about the voices in your head. The voices in your head are the thoughts, It's what speaks to you, and it talks about 2 voices. Now, if you tell anyone that you have more than one voice in your head, they put it on your permanent record.
Speaker 1:Your insurance starts to have to pay and it can hurt you getting certain jobs. Uh-huh. But right here in scripture, you would be lying if you told yourself you didn't have more than one voice. There are multiple voices that speak to us. So, it tells us that your shepherd will speak to you and it says you can distinguish the difference between your shepherd and this other voice which is a stranger's voice.
Speaker 1:So I'm gonna have you write it this way, you have recognized voice inside of you and a strange voice, and that's your dividing line. John 10:10 is a great scripture because it divides. This is your dividing scripture on voices. You should have a voice that you recognize. This is a secure voice, it's familiar, you know it, you trust it.
Speaker 1:And then you have other voices, and let me tell you, this is the goal. This is how it should work for you. They sound strange to you. It's a foreign language. It's a stranger's voice.
Speaker 1:If you've been in another country where they speak a different language, it's a foreign tongue. It makes no sense to you. It's not recognizable. It's not familiar to you. That is how you get free.
Speaker 1:This is your goal, that the voice of the Lord is very familiar to you. It's very peaceful. When you hear something else, you know that's a stranger speaking to me. So it's not bad if you have more than one voice. It's very bad if you can't recognize the difference.
Speaker 1:That is where you are in deep trouble. And people think, oh, it's very hard for me to hear God. It's dangerous because it says, my sheep hear my voice. One of the signs you're one of the sheep is that you can hear the voice of your shepherd. So don't let it scare you, but make a plan to get there.
Speaker 1:That you recognize the voices speaking to you. That you recognize this one is completely this one sounds like my dad's voice to me. It's very it's a very peaceful voice. But the other voice, I don't recognize it. I'm not gonna follow it.
Speaker 1:I won't do it. If you're getting into trouble a lot and temptation, you're listening to a strange voice and you're following it. So this is the thought divide. You gotta have a thought divide between fear and warnings. In other words, fears from the enemy and warnings are from God.
Speaker 1:But, if you can't distinguish these voices your fear will be like a warning to you. Oh, something bad is gonna happen to me. And you have these fear thoughts. This has always gone wrong in my life. Fear.
Speaker 1:Fear. Fear. And you can't tell the difference when god is telling you, you need to pray. Something's headed here. You've gotta turn it.
Speaker 1:Those are 2 totally different voices. You must make them divide. Just as clear as the Lord gives you life and life abundantly, 5 verses down. The same way here. He speaks to you in a peaceful way.
Speaker 1:So, we can have, this is good one, focused thoughts and distracted thoughts. Peace and numb. So, this is how you stay on top of your inner world. This is how you stay on top of your thoughts. You say this is a foreigner, so I know I'm in spiritual warfare.
Speaker 1:You should be able to tell immediately I'm in spiritual warfare. These are not my thoughts. These are coming from outside of me. Okay. Now I want you to think about something here.
Speaker 1:In the beginning, I want you to think about this concept, was evil in the man or outside the man? Where was evil in the garden? It was the tree, the snake, outside the man. The greatest thing that you can say to yourself right now is that it did not originate inside of us. So that helps you break loose to know this evil thought did not have its origin inside.
Speaker 1:It starts as an outside voice to you because some of you have had it so long you can't remember a time without it. But the voice starts outside, but what happens next is you receive the thought. And the thought received in this case was what God said couldn't be trusted. And that's what's happening to you all the time, it's a trust issue. And so when they received a different thought that god could not be trusted in their life, they ate the tree, it put the voice inside of them.
Speaker 1:The snake put the thought in there. That's what they purchased from the peddler. That's what they believed. It wasn't our thought, but it became our thought. You've had the same path with your thoughts, they've done the same thing, but a lot of times we're not aware of it.
Speaker 1:We're not aware of the pattern of how we got here. So you cannot distinguish between the difference between you and your outside thought now because they become 1. The outside thought got inside your head, and you can't tell the difference and they're mixed. So I would say your thoughts remind you of this. It's like grandmother making a cake.
Speaker 1:And you look at the cake, and the thoughts are completely stirred up together like grandma's baking a cake. And you look in the pan and there's sugar, and cocoa, and flour. And is it baking powder or baking soda? Oh. I'm just trusting you.
Speaker 1:Okay. Baking powder. And it's all mixed in together and that's what your thoughts look like. They're mixed up together. So this is a case of the entanglement of thoughts and I'm gonna go to one of the most classic stories in the Bible.
Speaker 1:And the reason I'm going to it is because out of the guy's mouth comes this very mixed up conversation. And I want you to hear, I'm so glad the biblical author caught this. Luke doesn't do such a good job. In Luke 8:30, Jesus asked him, what is your name? And he kind of was boring here.
Speaker 1:Luke just said, legion, because he had, listen to this, many demons that had gone into him. So this guy had many demons that had gone inside of him. And they begged Jesus. Alright. So what's inside of the man starts begging Jesus to let him go into the abyss.
Speaker 1:Now this is very interesting here because they begged Jesus repeatedly not to give an order to send him into the abyss. Okay, so they begged out of 1 man, but listen to Mark tell it. I mean, the way that Mark gives us a picture of this inward man, you know, I'm a little amazed that it gives us this big of a glimpse into what was going on inside the inner guy. If you're with me, you're gonna have to laugh a little bit because something's going on a little bit with the pronouns of this guy, and I want you to hear it. 2 years ago, no one would have seen why that was funny, but you look here and in Mark it starts speaking chapter 5 verse 6 and he uses the word he twice.
Speaker 1:He uses me twice. He's singular. Me is singular. But then, Jesus refers come out of this man you evil spirit. Singular.
Speaker 1:But what he says he says, what is your name? He didn't say, what are your names? He said, what is your name? And watch what the sentence does. My name is Legion for we are many.
Speaker 1:So, what you hear is me, me, my, from the beginning of the sentence and then you hear my to the end of the sentence we. So you see both speaking. Is it the guy speaking? Is it the demon speaking? One sentence has both singular and plural in it.
Speaker 1:So you see both tried to get a statement made. Let's read it. When he saw Jesus at a distance, he ran, he fell on his knees in front of him and he shouted at the top of his voice. I can tell you one thing about someone that's struggling with demons, they're a little bit out of control. There's a loss of emotional control many times.
Speaker 1:They're the town embarrassment. This guy was the worst. And he screams out with a very loud voice and he says, what do you wanna do with me Jesus? Son of the most high. Now no one else knew it was Jesus, but boy the demons did.
Speaker 1:No extra points for recognizing him. And then, out of the guy's mouth comes, swear to God you won't torture me. That's interesting. For Jesus had said to him, come out of this man you evil spirit. Then Jesus asked him, what is your name?
Speaker 1:My name is Legion, for we are many. So where you're seeing this is there are many voices in one guy. This man and the creatures with him. I'm gonna quote what my dad said. He said he had so many demons, his demons had demons.
Speaker 1:Inner voices, things we do, doors we open, get us an extra set of voices in our head. If you've got a lot going on in your head, you've got some open doors. First hand, and he begged Jesus again and again, please don't cast us out of this area. Now, is your prayers like begging? If they are, you're in good company.
Speaker 1:Demons also begged Jesus. They begged him earnestly. This shows you that you can know who Jesus is, and not be surrendered to him. You can't say because you know Jesus, that you've surrendered your life to him. So, the first thing that you need to notice here is the enemy will speak to you in first person.
Speaker 1:If you can learn this, it will solve half of your spiritual warfare problems and your discernment. You're hearing the thoughts that torment you in first person. They don't come and speak to you in a third party. So it gives us a picture of the inward man. This is your glimpse inside of someone that is a case study of possession.
Speaker 1:This guy is loaded and so, it's the demons in him that speak through his voice because he says, I and me as if these words were his own. So, as I read this next statement, I want you to tell me is it the man speaking or is it the spirit speaking? So you can answer. What do you want with me Jesus son of God? Who's speaking?
Speaker 1:What do you want with me Jesus, son of the most high God? Swear to God that you won't torture me. Who's speaking? The man, the demoniac said, I and me. And Christ meets him with, okay then, who's the I?
Speaker 1:Do you see what Jesus is doing to him? My name is legion for we are many. Christ makes him identify. He's speaking as it's I, it's me speaking, but Jesus says, who's the I? Because notice what Jesus picks up on here, the confusion.
Speaker 1:He begins with my, but he switches to we. And Jesus goes right to the heart of the matter, And it's that confusion inside, it's that thing that torment you, that makes you afraid. My name is legion for we are many. And you see Jesus address the crack. Again, the man voice speaks, You know, think about it.
Speaker 1:This guy, he's not in love with his dreadful tenants. As our girl famously said to us, I had renters. You could look in my eyes. She said, there were renters and we could attest to it. Listen to this, the power of these renters or these tenants coerces his lips.
Speaker 1:He asked for what would have left him forever trapped. So you see that this power grabs a hold of his mouth and makes him ask for something that would have ever left him captive. This is a state of what happens when your thoughts grab a hold of you so strongly. Your mouth will go the wrong direction. And that's what they were begging Jesus.
Speaker 1:They were begging for something that would forever get away. Don't torment me, go away. Notice that, it's a kind of climax of our horror That the man tries to get rid of his only hope. Get away from me, it's one of the ways you can know when someone's struggling with thoughts inside of them. And he begged Jesus again and again, do not torment me.
Speaker 1:It's verse 7. Now, let me ask you a question, what's Jesus doing to torment him? What is Jesus doing? He showed up. He's breathing.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you, when you're under these kind of thoughts, you can't trust who you like and who you don't like. You can't trust who you trust. Your trust is off. You're messed up. You're fearful, you're paranoid, and you're going berserk.
Speaker 1:Don't torment me. Did he choke him? What did he do to him? Did he threaten him? Did he say anything?
Speaker 1:You think those who are trying to help you are the ones tormenting you. You've got to understand what's going on in your emotional world because those thoughts have a hold on you, they've hijacked your emotions. You think those who love you the most are against you. You've got to trust those who love you. You've got to trust the person helping you.
Speaker 1:You're like the dog that's biting the person getting their foot out of the trap. You're trapped, and this is exactly the picture that you see staring at us, screaming at us in this picture that he is screaming don't torment me. People in very severe cases of this, this is what they're feeling. There's a lot more people feeling it than are actually saying it, but some people will actually go ahead and say it. What Jesus does for this guy is he gets rid of the voice, he gets rid of the craziness, and it's so beautiful.
Speaker 1:Mark 5, Jesus cries out, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And the man collapsed, he falls, he's at Jesus' feet and he worships. What a story. That in the heart of legion lives a worshiper. And a lot of times, this tug or this pull or this emotional chaos you're feeling, it's actually the sign of your deliverance.
Speaker 1:It's the tearing. It's the cracking away. Too many thoughts, Too many voices? Do they make you paranoid? Do you not know who to trust?
Speaker 1:Do you feel all out of kilter? Is it all going on? You're gonna have to divide these voices and let the master do it. Jesus brought the vision of the thoughts, and it'll let you know who you're submitted to. So follow the thought path around and around, they come out of your mouth.
Speaker 1:When you own those thoughts as an identity, you'll find yourself saying, I am this way, I am this way. And what you're not understanding of the gravity of scripture is, the strongest declaration of who God is. When he identified himself, he said, I am who I am. I mean, the I ams are screaming and then he'll identify, I am the Lord who? I am the Lord who?
Speaker 1:Watch what you're claiming as your identity with your I ams. I am sick. I am a alcoholic. I'm an angry man. I am Say it.
Speaker 1:It. That's your identity. I am. It's where the thoughts got inside of you and you so own them, it is now what you proclaim I am. Accepted the voice as my own.
Speaker 1:The danger is at this point, you don't know who your friends and your enemies are. So, looking for the split, what happens is the voices are so one that there's no split at the moment. They really are joined together. And that's what starts taking place when you start getting well. You'll feel it starts splitting apart.
Speaker 1:The person can't tell the difference. They think every thought they have is their thought. They own every thought in their head. The first time that I saw something of this nature when we started seeing how to get someone free was, we were doing interviews for the teen book, And a girl found a crack in the thought. Now, I'm gonna let Steph read you this interview that we did.
Speaker 1:The man between me and God. I became a believer at
Speaker 2:a young age and I never saw a time coming when I would compromise my convictions. I was too strong for that. Yet, when I look back on it now, I can see that it happened pretty quickly and I didn't put up a very big fight. I was 16 when I first met him. We were both in a camp and started out as just friends, as people say.
Speaker 2:But he was handsome, olive skin and light brown eyes. Attraction wasn't something I was being taught how to fight. He was very much wanted by other girls, and I was proud to be seen with him. But to him, I was a challenge. A strong woman with a strong fence around my heart.
Speaker 2:Before too long, we were spending every moment together. He had a very good voice and could sing until I melted. He wasn't a believer, but he let me talk to him about the Lord and even that seemed to pull us closer. Little by little, I became completely dependent on him to the point that nothing and no one else mattered. It was like an obsession, and it ran so deep that I felt I couldn't even breathe without him there.
Speaker 2:Within the span of a couple of years, I had sunk into an artificial world with this man at the center. God was long since forgotten. On some level, I knew it was wrong. I knew it was empty. I just didn't care.
Speaker 2:By the time I turned 18, I lived in my own secret world. I had reached a point where I simply put God's voice on mute. That alone. I no longer spent any personal time with God. We had been an incredibly close family, but now all they got from me was my anger.
Speaker 2:When I came in, it was money, keys, bye. My connection with my family was a wreck, but my parents kept praying over me and claiming scriptural promises over my life. Sometimes, on the occasion that my boyfriend and I would fight, I would go to a friend's house. It didn't matter if it was the middle of the night. I would burst in with my problems.
Speaker 2:Even though my friend was not a believer, she was the first one to notice a change in me. Even though I didn't see it when she first pointed it out. It wasn't until he and I had a conversation about his future and how I fit into it that fear formed a crack in my obsession. I was suddenly afraid of losing God, losing the truth, and losing myself forever. And then, I found myself praying.
Speaker 2:All I could ask was, God, if you're here, please help me find the way back to you. I knew God didn't owe me anything, and I didn't think it would do much good or change my course, but I felt that I had to try. After I finally turned back to God, I began to see the truth. I had developed a soul tie with this man and it ran so deep that it took a long time before I was able to break it. Every time I tried, he would be so sweet and so kind that I would let him back in.
Speaker 2:It wasn't until later that I realized God was trying to teach me not to choose pleasing people over Him. Eventually, I learned that lesson with this relationship. I've been on my renewed walk with God for almost 3 years now, and I've been amazed to see how he can turn all things I had messed up back to his will Even after I had sinned and walked away from him. Since I learned to put God first, I have formed healthy relationships and renewed old ones. And my life is the best it has ever been.
Speaker 1:So, this is John Stephan. I'm making a little bit of a comment on it.
Speaker 2:It is possible to think we love God, but this love will be tested. Our friend slowly replaced her love for God for the love of a man. But the scary thing is that she didn't notice she had lost her love for the Lord. It took a friend noticing a negative change and one of those uncomfortable relationship talks for her to see something wasn't right. He was an obsession she became dependent on and she lost herself.
Speaker 2:Then, God broke in through one small crack in a conversation.
Speaker 1:So, you're asking yourself, can I steward the relationships in my life? Everybody you're connected to is a relationship for you to steward. Can God give you a blessing of someone that loves you? And you keep God first. When you give yourself to another person, unless you've fully given yourself to God, you cannot retain your identity.
Speaker 1:It's only in finding out who you are between you and the Lord do you have the strength to bring your entire self to a relationship. That's when you can fully love. So, the interview, I got to think about later. Now, what was it that she said cracked the obsession because I sure do have a lot of college kids that have obsessions occasionally. You know, it's because they're obsessed.
Speaker 1:You know, I've had girls through the years and you're like, they're boy crazy. It's not even with just one guy. It's just this boy craze. Or you have obsessions, or you have a guy who just loses his center. He just loses who he is.
Speaker 1:I went back to the story and I thought, I wanna see what was it that really took place here? What made there be a crack in her hard shell? Because the way that she was beautiful and loved the Lord and just the shining person, I just could not imagine when she would walk into her house and tell her parents, give me my money or your money's really, you know, they call it mine. Keys and buy. And when she let that come flying out of her mouth, I could see her do it.
Speaker 1:And so she would just flip that out of her mouth and I thought, what happened that changed who she was? Because parents have had this happen in their kids. Like, something happens in their kid. Just thinks, I can't love 2 people at once. So bye, parents.
Speaker 1:And then it happens with you with the Lord. And there's some, I mean, I'm not I'm not stupid. When you fall in love, it's your priorities are all over the place. I mean, you're just like, okay, God, I know you're there, just help me. So I'm not talking about that where you're trying out for him, but I'm talking about where something separates you from God.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about that fun you have of falling. Falling in love is great, but this obsession, you lose who you are. Your love turns to hate for everyone in your life, and that's not a good thing when people can give you strong advice. It's so bad that she had to go to an unbeliever to help her work out of this. So, I realized it was when the reality hit her that it formed a crack in the obsession that she had abandoned God.
Speaker 1:Because he articulated the future And when he did, she found just a little bitty hairline crack had formed. And through this little bitty hairline crack, she crawled out. And so it made an impression on me. So, obsessive thoughts about a person, there's a crack that can happen between those obsessive thoughts and your own desires and your desire for God. So, all of a sudden it was just highlighted to me that word, that crack, that split.
Speaker 1:It's when there's deception with it. A spell, that when you go under a spell or a deception where you completely get to see it and you don't even like what you're doing or even like yourself. I thought it's so unique to think that there's a crack in it, that the rebellion was pierced. And that was the most interesting part of this story to me, since it was the crack through which God came through. The importance of the crack, well, that grew in my thinking, so Steph and I had a disagreement.
Speaker 1:I know that comes as a big surprise, But it was about this issue of whether people know it when they do wrong or making a mistake or when they're in danger, if they can discern it. Let me just tell you this, we were both not happy about this situation with a friend of ours over who he was marrying. And so, we're already on the road driving and we're getting madder and madder with each mall. And we were shocked that it had happened so suddenly. This man, this dear dear dear man to us, he doesn't tell us till the wedding day that he's marrying this woman.
Speaker 1:And you know what happened is behind the scenes, have you ever seen this happen? All his friends are uphold, they're conflicted, They don't know what to do. They can't stand her. They're telling stories. They're all saying, I've never seen such a controlling woman.
Speaker 1:I've never seen such a mess. And so, we would watch them meet him. And what did they say to him? Congratulations. We're so happy for you.
Speaker 1:We're so glad that you're happy. I mean, they had just been in my ear 5 minutes before and you know what their words were? Y'all do something. You are very genuine. Okay.
Speaker 1:So we're both mad and we're trying to work ourselves up to being madder. You know, because we're gonna come face to face with this. Because we're so mad, we're trying to, you know, just have some semblance of peace between us and let the steam out of the windows of the car. And so I try to have a friendly conversation with Steph. So I just start out, you know, good humored, you know, I like people, you know, all this.
Speaker 1:So and I just believe I believe somewhere in you is this great crack. It only means something to us because of, you know, the story. So I told Steph, opening sentence. I think he knows he's trapped, and he has married a Jesse. We're pulling in, it's late at night.
Speaker 1:I said, about right now, I said, he has this sick feeling he has made a mistake. I mean, I said, Steph, you could think about he's crawling into that bed and he knows he's trapped. What have I done? And there's no way to get out of this. And I was thinking about this poor man.
Speaker 1:I had all these thoughts. She looks at me in her cold calculated way, pragmatic self, and she says, he doesn't know it. And then she explains to me why a man wouldn't know it. You don't wanna hear that conversation. I counter.
Speaker 1:I said, Steph, men are not that dumb. He's been married several times. He knows. She says, they are right now in this hotel on their honeymoon. She goes, he does not know.
Speaker 1:I said, Steph, quit it. I said, quit it. Just quit messing with me, Steph. I said, there's no way he doesn't know. She's ugly.
Speaker 1:She had a terrible plastic surgeon. I mean, let's talk the way you're talking. There's no way he can't know this couldn't be God. Even though he was a mighty man of faith, he's done all these miraculous things. I mean, you have this, but let's just talk.
Speaker 1:Men. How could he not know it? He was a man who is used to things of the spirit. He has to have the small little crack in him where he knows he made a mistake. Still, he has instincts about women.
Speaker 1:Men aren't that age and not have instincts about women. He has discernment about the control. He perceives humans. He has a perception. He reads people well.
Speaker 1:He knows she's not genuine. Steph fires back, I guarantee he doesn't know it right now. I mean, just sometimes you just think, god is really this your idea of iron sharpening iron? Well, I was thinking, she is just very pleased with herself, she goes on about her happy little life and I was like, what is wrong with her? She likes this guy better than I do.
Speaker 1:Not me. I go into deep intercession, into the throes of it. I can't get any peace. I stay up all night praying. I stay up one night till 4:30 AM praying.
Speaker 1:I get up the next night and I'm up at 4:30 praying on in for 2 nights. It just hits me. She made me miserable. Yeah. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:She sees him as having no discernment. Lock behind this wall. And she explains to me this is a wall that has no cracks. She said, there is a slight possibility that years from now he will know it in hindsight. And I go, Steph, what good is that when the damage is done?
Speaker 1:Like, are you that much of a pessimist? So my prayers are I'm praying into that crack that God will let him seize made a huge mistake. I prayed for him. You know, I seem. It's worse.
Speaker 1:I know there's a crack. You can look in his eyes, they're dark. They're dead. He looks like death warmed over. I go, we don't even have to have discernment this is spirit of death on him.
Speaker 1:I mean, he's only known this woman 3 months and look at him. His vivacious personality was all shut off. And then this thing about man, I looked into his eyes and he looked broken, like broken. All I knew to do was lift him up to the Lord. Steph was going about the Lord's business, not me, I was praying.
Speaker 1:I write him. Now if you can believe this, I can't find any peace and Steph says, okay, I'm gonna get an agreement with you. Write him. So I write him on the morning of his wedding reception. I tell him about the dreams I had and I tell him just one little word, trapped, just one little small word, and he answered me immediately.
Speaker 1:And I'm not gonna tell you who was right. Men are that dumb. Men are that dumb. I was I can't believe it. I had used all that prayer time.
Speaker 1:I had gone into the courts of heaven. I had fought for this guy to have one slight little crack of sense. She was right. However, in the email, he did tell me the thought he purchased from the peddler that got him into the deception. He topped it out.
Speaker 1:He didn't know it. So, I stay up all night praying, I was working with the crack and that's what I was doing. I was gonna nourish this little crack until there was a big split to get him free. This break had to occur and let me tell you with this, this is how you get free. The break has to occur or you become a lunatic, and this guy lost all his sense.
Speaker 1:I don't even know how to explain to you from the position that he has fallen. She is that dangerous. Let's talk about this for a minute, because it is very dangerous if a crack doesn't form, and we can spend 2 days of our life arguing about it, and I can hope to see the best in you, but something has to happen so we don't later say, well, he'll figure it out years from now. Is that really how God has to deal with you? You learn when it's too late?
Speaker 1:You barely make it? Because this is what happens if your thoughts don't get entangled. Because deception is a spirit and it comes from these thoughts mixing in your head and everybody has a different shaker of deception where it's mixed together. So the pre crack time in your life, Are you still in the pre crack stage? Why are you trusting yourself?
Speaker 1:You don't know. Ask the person next to you. You don't know? I'll lose another argument with Steph. There's no way you can know if you're in a pre cracked stage, that's the point of it.
Speaker 1:You think your thoughts are your thoughts. Just like he wrote me this email back. I get to see him in a few weeks. Mhmm. Stronghold.
Speaker 1:What is a stronghold? It's where you're locked in, you're trapped, there's no crack, your thoughts are all mixed together. So you're going for that crack in the stronghold, people who can't distinguish the difference. You know, that was the goal with the guy that was coming to us for help. When his personality splits from his thoughts, his freedom begins.
Speaker 1:If you're established in all that set of thoughts, it's gonna wreck everything about you including your career, your relationships. It will run you. So, after many years, this is what happens and this is what causes a stronghold. You think your thoughts are you. Establishing those thoughts are not who you are.
Speaker 1:His identity is his thoughts, that's what happens. A huge amount of emotions make you think these are your thoughts, and you go from feeling a little sorry for yourself to feeling a lot sorry for yourself when your emotions get hijacked. So the discernment has to take place. Is this thought from god? You have to know, does it line up with god's word?
Speaker 1:Now, let's look at this in action. It's Jesus with Peter in Matthew 16. The first thing that happens is Jesus tells the origin of Peter's thought. Simon Peter answered Jesus, Jesus said, who am I? Simon Peter says, you are the messiah, the son of the living God.
Speaker 1:Now, this is unique what Jesus says, he identifies the origin here. Jesus said, blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my father who is in heaven. So, what you see here is when you have a thought that originates from God, that God reveals to you, it puts you in a state of blessing. And that is the answer to Watts question. How come most of the time we go to the wrong thoughts?
Speaker 1:But here you are with Peter, you have a thought that God reveals to you, blessed are you for this revelation to you was not by humans, not by flesh and blood, but it was revealed to you by my father in heaven. And then, Jesus just starts pumping things into him and he gives it to him. Upon this rock, this let's just say this rock of revelation that Jesus is lord, I'm gonna build my church on this. The gates of hell will not prevail against this revelation. Peter, you're the steward of it.
Speaker 1:You're the first one to ever admit it on earth, it's all been demons up till now. Peter has an identity thing of understanding who Jesus is and he says it. And I bet Peter was feeling pretty good about himself, even to the point that he changes his name. And he says, your name will now be that you're stable. It'll be that you're a rock.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful. Verse 17, this is how you distinguish it. This is how you discern it. You can say that's a God thought. It's okay to say that, and you can so renew your thoughts to God's word that you start having thoughts that aren't revealed to you by God.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you're like, that's true. How did I know that? Or you didn't know an answer and you just think that came out of my mouth. That just clears everything up. And so you'd see this state taking place in Peter.
Speaker 1:And at the same time, you've gotta ask yourself is this me or is it the enemy putting it here? Is it fleshly? You gotta cover your bases. So, the next thought, Jesus addresses the origin. And this goes from 16 where he says, he's the son of the living God.
Speaker 1:To verse 22, Jesus says, okay this is the plan and I have to become the sacrifice, I will become the sacrifice for all man's sin, my life's gonna be laid down, he's explaining it to his disciples. He began to rebuke him. He just gets started, and Peter says to him, and he goes, never lord, This shall never happen to you. Now, in 23, Jesus turns to Peter. So you look at 16 to 22, and he says, get behind me, Satan.
Speaker 1:Wow. Have you ever had god use your mouth and then the devil use your mouth 10 verses later? I mean, he has just been established. His name has been changed. He's been given the keys.
Speaker 1:The church is gonna be built on him. This, let's just say, this rock of revelation that Jesus is Lord, and the gates of hell won't prevail against him, it prevailed against his mouth. I mean, Jesus immediately is saying, get behind me, Satan. Now, how would you feel if your rebuke was that strong? Some of you are still licking some wounds of saying to you, those thoughts aren't God.
Speaker 1:But Jesus addressed it strong. And Jesus says these words to him, you are a stumbling block to me. In verse 23, Jesus says, thou art an offense, you are a stumbling block. Get behind me, Satan. You set your mind on man's interest, not God's.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm seeing something very interesting in scripture. You would think he would say, get behind me Satan, you set your mind on the devil's interest, not God's. But notice where he puts man's interest, Get behind me Satan, you set your mind on man's interest, not God's. So, you see three sources of thoughts, the origin, but you see one of them combined. That man's interest are not God's.
Speaker 1:And so at this point, Peter is like us. Our mouth is sometimes used for the glory of God and the angels sing and there's a chorus. And you better watch it because right after it, the enemy can come and it just come right out of your mouth. So, on to your thoughts, there is what you have to do. Rebuke.
Speaker 1:Get behind me, say strong rebuke. Set your mind on man's interest not God's. That's a renouncing where you're not putting your man's interest, human interest combined with something Satan plans, and it's opposed to what God's doing, and then you repent. So, you've got to recognize this, these thoughts are not my thoughts. These thoughts are not my thoughts.
Speaker 1:You've gotta be willing. That's why I said, let the person next to you tell you if there's any kind of a crack because you won't recognize it. They're the safest person to tell you someone that has discernment. So, how do you know when it's an emotion and when it's a demon? For instance, with anger.
Speaker 1:I would say that a demon is a thinking entity, and the thing you actually think are those evil thoughts that are within a man. I want you to just write this verse down, Matthew 15 17 through 20. Jesus says, these are the thoughts that are within a man. Some of us, all of us, at some time or the other, have built an identity based on the foreign outside thoughts that we've let enter in. We built our identity on it.
Speaker 1:Depression, fear, fear based. If you look in this particular verse, it says, they call wicked reasonings. Fear usually has reasoning go right with it. That Peter got into wicked reasonings, he was interested in what he wanted, not what the Lord wanted. And then it goes aggressive, evil thoughts offended, slander, and it says that's what defiles a man.
Speaker 1:Defiles. Wow. So, the reason I think the thoughts were mine is because they're first person. The reason you think the thoughts are yours because they speak to you in first person, when depression speaks to us in first person, you're saying to yourself, I feel so depressed this morning. I just feel like no one loves me.
Speaker 1:I just feel like that I'm just being rejected. I just feel like, do you see it? It starts speaking to you in first person. When anger speaks to us, I'm so angry. And then you go into, I'm an angry man.
Speaker 1:And anger, it's dangerous when it puts it on self interest. If it's your way of anger explosions every time things don't work the way you want them to, and you're turning to anger to fix it and not God to fix it. It's not that things aren't very frustrating, but if you turn to anger to fix it rather than God to fix it, you don't have any power in it. In fact, you get those demonic entities working in your life and if you're like me, it goes from anger to things going wrong, the frustration to more frustration. I've never been able to work out of it once I lose my cool and I get into deep frustration.
Speaker 1:It's a spiral all the way down, but am depressed. And you say, I am depressed. I am angry. You're putting the I am in you, rather than pointing up the I am into you, rather than putting God into you, you've got to separate those emotions, that is where the split and the crack has to happen. People who know you can't separate you from your thoughts, You have become that.
Speaker 1:In the dictionary, when you look by that emotion, your picture is there. People see that, you know, it's really bad when we have a certain behavior and we don't talk about the behavior, we just call their name. Oh, you just pulled a rob. That's I can't believe that. That is exactly a give me a girl's name that's safe.
Speaker 1:People can't separate it out, so what you've got to do is fight them like they aren't yours. That is the hairline. You've got to fight these thoughts like they aren't yours. You have become the owner of the devil's thoughts, whatever he's tempted you with. Evil Eve, I didn't realize her name was so close.
Speaker 1:Eve owned the devil's thoughts. The deception, you bought something off of that peddler's wagon, you've got to repent. You've got to fight it till they separate because authority walks in at this point and unscrambles eggs. What do you mean by that? It's the only way that can do it.
Speaker 1:There is no manual you can buy to do what I'm telling you to do. There is nothing, no coaching, there's no book, there's no self help guide, there's nothing that can help you take authority over your thoughts. They have you manage them, they have you control them where they don't pop out at the wrong time, but they cannot deliver you from them. When the authority walks in, the unscrambling of the eggs, this is the beauty of it, the beauty of it is it's actually an entity and they have to leave. When the authority walks in, and just like the guy in front of Jesus, with his authority, he unscrambled him and they left.
Speaker 1:You can't do it on your own. My mom spent 8 years trying to untormit her torment. You can try to un depress your depression. You can try to un anger your anger. You cannot undo that thought, and that's what everybody's trying to do apart from the Lord, when they try to do it apart from deliverance.
Speaker 1:When they try to do it apart from treating this as an entity, and not just a feeling, and not just a thought. You can't unscramble it, it's mixed like grandma's batter. You literally cannot get this stuff apart, only the power of the Lord can come in and it within an hours time, what had taken 8 years on my mom completely separated and left her life. We had a girl, came to her house, she was probably the most modest girl ever on the Howard Payne campus. I used to draw her at art class and they were begging her, please take off a little more for these artists to draw you.
Speaker 1:And, she was kind and sweet, the sweetest girl. I loved her spirit and with every stroke of my charcoal, I was praying for her. Lord, get a hold of her life. Get a hold of her, let her know there's more. She loved the Lord, but I wondered, go deeper with the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:About 5 or 6 years ago, I didn't know this, but in her hometown, she was walking around in her hometown, took off all of her clothes, and we just walked down the streets. The law enforcement tried to do everything to help the situation. I don't know what happened, but her mind became tortured with perverted thoughts. She became obsessed. This is the girl I had prayed for, I hadn't seen her.
Speaker 1:Her husband took her, they put her in mental hospitals. Do Do you know what happened to her? She got worse. They'd find her crawling under benches. I could name the city.
Speaker 1:It was constantly if everyone did not love her father who'd been in law enforcement and love her and love the ministry and love every aspect. But when we met her and I saw her again, she was not that person she had been. She was literally, her mind was possessed the horrible things she said. I couldn't believe was spewing out of her mouth. I'd never heard the vileness and it was pouring forth from this person that I had greatly loved.
Speaker 1:Her husband sat there, his face was ashamed. You know, when they're slandering and saying all manner of evil against him, he just couldn't even look up. But he said, I love her. I love her. How can you love someone in that shape?
Speaker 1:It's the sickest, most horrible thing. We were glad we had none of our kids in this room. It's a spell. Her thoughts were possessed, she thought she was levitating up into heaven and she was into a realm that I had never heard of before, this was never her. And, Steph and I looked at each other and we were like, she is not going home until the power of God hits her and a holy anger came over Steph because this is the beauty of your anger.
Speaker 1:When it is submitted to God and it becomes God's, you get angry at what the devil does and it is no longer for self reasons. And Steph took one look at this girl and said, this is not going down this way. We both stood up and we said, the power of God is coming. And when Steph rushed her and Steph commanded that spirit to leave her body and when we screamed it, stuff was right in her face. The power of God hit her, the spirit left and it snapped and she came back to herself.
Speaker 1:Tears, crying, it makes me wanna call her name, because it was her identity. She was that beautiful little girl again with those pretty blue eyes. Never seen anything like that, the spell coming off. We're seeing the power of God fall. And what psychiatrist and people who are trying to help people, people who are trying to put you in a place that'll get you better, they can't unscramble this because it's an entity, and only the power of the one who made you can make you whole again.
Speaker 1:Only the power of the lordship of Jesus Christ can restore sanity to you. This is not something that happened over months. It happened in an instant. I can't tell you what that husband did when he had had forced her into the truck, drag her into there. So possessed, she couldn't sit down, nothing.
Speaker 1:And then he took his wife home and he said she's back. Power of crying out, that thing that'll put the crack in the hole, that thing that'll crack your thoughts, and it'll begin the turnaround of people coming out. So this is your goal, you start getting well at this point and it's when your thoughts become the voice of the stranger to you, and she knows the voices now and says those are a stranger's voice, and I know, I recognize the voice of my shepherd. Amen.