Pam specializes in "Knowing the Enemy"
The enemy really designs his deception based upon his knowledge of us. The secret desires of our hearts and our assumptions provide religious demons with both the blueprint and the building blocks of the grand deception that fuels the enemy’s overall plan. The plan begins as a kind of conspiracy theory which answers the questions , “what makes him or her tick? And if I do THIS, then will he or she do THAT?” What the religious demon has to do is to find a way to “guide our steps.” There is no greater thrill than for a religious demon to manipulate and control a child of God and cause that person to become both his prey and his captive.
So I believe that we overcome by first knowing ourselves. When you know yourself better than the enemy knows YOU, then you are on your way to victory. For example, if you are an achiever, your desire to succeed CAN BE a key contact point on the blueprint and the religious demon will begin to “build the plan.”
Consider the movie “the Devil’s Advocate.” An advocate is a lawyer, and Keanu Reeves, “the advocate” was a lawyer in the movie, as was the devil, played by Al Pacino. The devil’s plan to guide the steps of his advocate began with setting Reeves up to win every case as a defense attorney. By doing so, Pacino
said to himself, if I cause Reeves to win every case, will he to literally do “anything” to win when it appears that he may lose his first case? Will he neglect a sick wife? Will he ignore his mother’s warnings? Will he even cheat to win? Will he hide evidence?
In the movie, the devil had been watching the advocate from the time he was born, and he wanted to see if he knew Reeves better than the advocate knew himself. Just in case the advocate had any surprises in his back pocket, the devil had a back up plan. His first plan was to cause Reeves to risk
everything in order NOT TO LOSE A CASE. And when that didn’t work, Pacino’s final plan was even better. What was the foundation of the entire devil’s conspiracy? It was the vanity of the advocate relative to his desire to always succeed and excell.
Vanity was the advocate’s Achilles heal. Where Reeves went wrong was in his assumptions. He assumed that he was winning each and every case because of his skill, when in reality, the devil was helping him to win.
So point number one in trying the spirits is this: When you go wrong in your assumptions, you have given place to the devil.
What is an assumption?
An assumption is taking for granted that a particular supposition, fact or circumstance is true. It is prematurely accepting as truth, what is merely an hypothesis or a guess. For example, when I reflect upon my very first assumption as a Christian, I “assumed” that because I had power in my hands to heal, that:
1. the healing power was from God;
2. that God was calling me to minister healing.
It took about 25 years for me to find out that “the healing power that I had was NOT from God.” So logically speaking, if the the power was not from God, and if it was not from ME, then it must have come from the enemy. If the power came from the enemy, then what was his agenda in giving me the power?
When I “tried the spirits” on this matter, I realized that I had first manifested healing power while I was a new age occultist. When I became a Christian and I saw in the bible that Jesus is a Healer, I just “assumed” that since I was now “born again,” I could simply transition occult healing into my
Christian work for God. WRONG!!! Along this same train of thought, we “assume” that because what we are doing is similar to what the early apostles did, that we are doing “the same thing.” It ain’t necessarily so.
With every Christian, the enemy assigned to you is going to “set you up” to be disappointed in God, so that eventually, you will be so frustrated with failure, that you will throw your spiritual hands up in the air and declare, “I’m done with this.” This was the intent of the healing power I operated in. The religious devil’s motive was to frustrate me when those I laid hands on did not “keep” their healing. This works also in the opposite direction. If the sick keeps the healing, then “the healer” will assume that he is operating off of divine power, when he is not.
Consequently, the devil remains in control and can exercise authority in the healer’s life whenever he sees fit.
Assumptions are constantly made by Christians who believe that “the 3 witnesses rule” is an indication
that a sign, wonder, message or circumstance is “a confirmation” from God.Confirmation! Its a twelve letter dirty word that covers a wide field of consideration! In fact, Satan and his crew get many chuckles out of this one.
There are so many varieties of “confirmations” that it is hard to present one representative example, so I’ll have to make one up. You had a dream that you should move to Georgia. Or perhaps someone from your church prophesied over you—“God has called you to minister in Georgia.” The same day, you heard Ray Charles sing, “Georgia on my mind.” Then someone called you on the telephone from Georgia, but it was a wrong number. In the afternoon, a friend stopped by and gave you some peaches. Georgia peaches.
“So there it is” you say to yourself. I got 3 signs or witnesses that provide “confirmation” to my dream or prophetic word. God wants me to move to Georgia.
I use such a ridiculous example to highlight what foolish believers do constantly.
The”confirmation” thing is nothing but an assumption, not based on fact, not based on truth. When God sends a message, He does not have to confirm it. He may, or He may not. Here is an instance in my life where God supernaturally “showed and proved.”
I had recently divorced my last husband because his drug addiction became unbearable. However, I still loved him very much so I was vulnerable to him if he attempted to reconcile. I thought, “since he had not cheated on me since we were married, perhaps I should not have divorced him.”
One morning, I dreamt I saw a mudslide. My husband jumped into it. When he got up, a woman was hidden underneath him—in the mud.
As I lay there, considering the meaning of the dream, the phone rang. It was my ex. He wanted to reconcile. I listened but I was quiet, remembering the dream I had just 5 minutes before the call.
I got up out of my bed, and walked into a room that had once been his den. Laying in the middle of the floor, in a room that I had cleaned several times was an application for credit, made out by my ex. What I noticed was that he used a different address and phone number on the application. So I dialed the number. A woman answered. I asked “Can I speak to Rich?” She replied, “He is not here right now. Who is this?” I said “his wife..”
The woman went berserk. She screamed “you are not his wife. You have divorced him. I have been his woman for the last 3 years. So you need to go about your business and leave him alone because Rich is MINE!!!”
So when I try the spirits, this was rather supernatural. It all occurred within the space of 20 minutes. Something appeared on my floor that was not there for two months!!!! I dreamed about the hidden woman, “under the mud” of my ex’s secret life 5 minutes before his call.
Was this the devil trying to get me to go over there and shoot somebody and end up in jail? For I also had her address.
Not THIS time! lol. Both God and the devil know that I am too wise and too much in control of my emotions to fall for THAT one. The Lord simply provided me with the hidden information that I needed to stop punishing myself for divorcing an adulterer and for NOT TAKING HIM BACK!!!! I had every
right to divorce him.
At times, God WILL confirm. When he does, it will not be an assumption. IT WILL BE FACT AND TRUTH THAT SETS YOU FREE.
Take it from one who knows. Most confirmation comes from the devil.
Here is another personal experience. I may have used this real life example before, but it bares repeating because it clarifies my point. In 1979, I had a dream that I saw a
minister standing on my church’s steps, with a robe across his arm. He looked at me and said, “Girl, I’m gonna marry You!” In the dream, he was wearing a navy blue suit purchased from Sears and a pair of navy blue swede shoes.
Two weeks later, on a Sunday morning, “a force” was trying to stop me from going to
church. I “assumed” it was the devil. So I persevered and went out of the door,
walking to church. Looking back today, I realize that it was God who tried to
stop me from going, or at least an angel sent from God.
When I arrived, the new visiting pastor was at the church, robed and wearing a navy blue suit and blue swede shoes. I was sitting in the congregation and he set his eyes on
me from the pulpit chair. Later that evening, my pastor called, claiming that the visiting pastor wanted to meet me. When we met he said “Girl, I’m gonna marry you cause you sooooo pretty!” I asked, where did you buy your suit? He said “Sears and Roebuck.”
Plenty of confirmation here!.
Without the dream and all of this “confirmation”, I would never have given this man a second glance. He was simply not my type. So because of all of this “confirmation,” I assumed “this must be God.” To make a long story short, it was not. This minister was one of the worst men to ever enter into my life. He was a Satanic setup for things that could have literally “taken me down and out!.”
So when you have circumstances occur that are similar, with all kinds of confirmation, a try the spirits tip is this—- ,
Run like a bat let out of hell. Its the devil.
The excuses that we make to explain why we find ourselves under demonic attack are another form of an assumption. My meaning is better explained by illustration. I founded a church with a name that I discovered more than a decade later, was given to me by a religious demon. My kind of vanity was that I “assumed” that because the Denomination I was ordained in was defiled, that my ministry was clean. You need to know that just because your opposition may be wrong, that doesn’t make you RIGHT!!! I was unaware of
this truth, so I “assumed” that the church that I founded was superior to any of the churches in the Denomination.
So when my church and I came under a persistent attach from all sides, I assumed, “we must be doing great things and the devil is angry.” So the attack caused someone with a personality type like mine to brace myself and hold on to my church and ministry with an even stronger grip. Little did I know that “this was the motive for the attack—that I would hold on to what God wanted me to let go of, as long as I assumed that I was doing God a service.
Usually when demons bombard you with frequent attacks, they are already in control. They simply want you to assume that you have a fighting chance. According to Jessie Penn Lewis, “They attack a person because they are in possession, but make him think and believe it to be an indirect attack, ie. through another person. The blame is placed on the man himself or someone else, or on anything but the true cause, so that the intruder may not be discovered and expelled. It is therefore important that all ‘excuses’ should be examined, i.e., the ‘reasons’ for such and such an unexplainable
manifestation.
The causes should always be gone into, for by believing a wrong interpretation of the manifestation, more ground is given to the lying spirits. The believer may be refusing ground on the one hand, and giving new ground on the other, unless he examines all the suggestions which come to his mind
concerning his condition.” (War on the Saints, pg. 176)
This is what the enemy is looking for when he takes advantage of the assumptions you make. He is looking for “new ground” to continue to deceive and control you. Those who are most vulnerable are those who love their ministry more than they love Jesus Himself. Anyone who has a ministry should not assume that it was God who gave it to you. So go back to what was going on in your life when you assumed that God called you into ministry.
Since I have “been there and done that,” it is easy for me to recognize those who are themselves possessed by a ministry that they assume God gave to them. I can recognize an obsessed worker, one who is consumed with either revival, deliverance, setting captives free, healing, even saving souls, which no one does but God.
Those who are obsessed by “their” ministries are blind to their condition. Certainly, helping others, giving of your time, teaching and preaching, and un-deceiving the deceived are all rightful things. Nevertheless, very often, the enemy uses ministry as a distraction to the worker’s own need of deliverance from the enemy’s deception.
If you put yourself into the hands of workers like these, you will be subject to both their confusion and their contraditions. Such workers will seem strong, yet they are weak, loving but they are really stoical and distant. Why? Because they are un-trusting and afraid of every dark shadow. Remember. The
Lord’s yoke is easy and His burden is light.
Anytime you assume that God can’t do His work without YOU, you are in the devil’s hands.
To better “know your enemy,” SEW deliverance training may be for YOU!
www.pamsheppard.com/sign_up_now
pamsheppardpublishing 