Speaker: Mike Connell
So the question is: how close to the edge can you get
before you fall off? I think that’s something you have to ask the Holy Spirit
about.
What I would suggest, is that you do these sorts of
things: that you walk, because walking is good for you; or you swim, because
swimming is good for your body. I would encourage you to take time to pray in
tongues, and begin to develop the energy and life within the spirit. The Bible
says: the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is within us. It just
needs releasing, and the path of releasing is by opening our heart, and our
inner man, to allow God to move in us.
What I do, that really is helpful, is that I walk
everyday; I pray in tongues; and I pray intentionally to rouse my spirit man.
While I’m praying in tongues, I meditate that God is near me; that I am joined
to Him; and I spend that time praying and worshipping Him, intentionally
allowing His life to flow up and through me.
When I’m here, I do it around the hotel and my floor -
I tend to do it really early, so I avoid meeting people. Otherwise, I’m the
foreigner who’s crazy. I kind of sing it too, and they think “Oh, he’s the
happy, crazy foreigner” I have found that my energy and flow of life has improved
through physical exercise; through praying in tongues, and worshipping; and
through meditating on God’s presence with me.
As I made it a habit, I have become greatly energised
because of this. So, blocks in energy flow through you, tend to be in the soul
area, or in the heart area. If we consciously yield those parts of our life to
the Lord, and allow His life to flow in us - I would expect significant
increase in energy. So, I have a lot of energy - it’s surprising when you
consider my age. I can minister for hours, and pray for lots of people - but I
need to have my time with God.
I need to be meditating in His presence, filling me up
on the inside. I need to constantly be returning to the source, and the basics
of building your life with God. In Isaiah 40, it says: “Those who wait on the
Lord will exchange their strength.” I believe that the life we live is an
exchanged life. It’s not me trying to make something happen - it’s actually
letting go of that, and beginning to realise and become aware that: Christ is
in me; that the power is already in me! Meditation helps train your heart to
believe that, and that’s what begins to energise you. I felt strong praying in
tongues, exercising, and meditating have been powerful keys to shift my energy
level.
I think you also need to eat properly and rest
properly. Sometimes, low energy levels can be: imbalance in your body; or
something going on in your soul. For example, anxiety will greatly strip away
your energy. Fear will greatly strip away your energy. The systems of our body
are so designed to work with the heart that’s in harmony with God. So when our
heart is flowing with God, other parts of the body come into alignment as well.
I hope that helps.
This person had an encounter with a Malaysian girl,
who studies overseas here in Taiwan. The girl was with them late at night, and
all of a sudden she started to manifest. She changed her actions, and
everything - girl to a boy. Later on, she shared with them she had very severe
depression, but she stopped the medicine by herself without consulting the
doctor. The person wants to ask: how can we distinguish whether it’s a medical
situation. or spiritual situation?
Very good question - I think you always need to be
open to the possibility that people’s problems are physical and not spiritual;
or it’s a mixture of these things because everything’s interconnected. Now, we
give advice on spiritual matters - we’re not doctors, we’re not trained in
medicine, so we should not make decision about these things where we have no
expertise. So I think that if there is an issue where it’s possibly an issue of
medication needed, or even in many situations - encourage the person to get a
medical check. Sometimes a medical check will pick up physical problems in the
body, and they need to get the balance back, they need to change their diet, or
something to set them right.
It concerns me when people are on medication and they
go off it, and they don’t tell the doctor. I find usually, a little while
later, they have massive problems; because there’s usually a process of
withdrawal from the drug, and their body and everything reacts. So any issues
relating to medication or health issues, the doctor should be involved, and you
work with them, not as someone who’s more knowledgeable than them.
For example, we had one lady, and it appeared that the
more she got prayed for, the crazier she got. In the end, we said: “No more
prayer”. I said, “There’re two things I want you to do. 1) No one will pray for
you. There’s just this one person you can go to talk to, and they’ll pray for
you. 2) Go to the doctor and get a medical check, because something’s not
right. 3) Do practical things - stop being spiritual - get practical and just
flow in your gift of kindness to people. Initially, she really reacted to all
of that.
Eventually, we boundaried her, and kept her with one
person, and it was so difficult getting her to the doctor. But once we got her
to the doctor, and got her family involved, and got her accountable for what
she was doing - the last I saw her, she’d totally settled down, and she was
totally calm. It wasn’t a deliverance issue - it was just an emotional, and
physical, and chemical instability in her life. Everything is linked to one
another; so, emotional, spiritual problems can trigger physical problems.
People have the tendency to want to blame demons for
their problem, and take no ownership for their life. So, it’s a normal thing to
go to a doctor and get them to check you – take a blood test and so on. If you
suspect that it could be a mental problem - don’t go beyond what you’re
competent to do; and do refer them to go on to a doctor – there’s nothing to be
lost, and everything to be gained.
Many times, she would hear sounds in the house. The
rattling of the house - in the bricks or the structure, just some sounds that
she can’t really explain, but she can hear it. It’s quite noisy, causing her to
be unable to fall asleep, so how can she handle a situation like this? The
second question - just now you mentioned that some spirits may harass or
sexually invade someone’s body - when you are in that position, what would you
suggest people to do?
The two may be connected. If a person is being
molested by a sexual spirit at night, there are strong occultic links; there is
a door open for that spirit to invade. It is claiming a right into the person’s
life, that it has no right at all. Spirits like that are always from the
occultic realm, and they can come from spirits of perversion in the family
line. Secondly, if there are spirits like that, it would be not unusual for
this to be accompanied by noises or other disturbing kinds of things happening.
I think, in all of these things, bringing it to the
light is the first step. Then it needs the Holy Spirit to show: what is the
root of this; when did it start; what caused it to start? Is it generational,
is it something the person has done - and then it requires deliverance. You can
deliver yourself over most things, through just following the steps - and rise
in your spirit and tongues and command it to go. However, sometimes people just
need ministry - it may help go deeper, or touch things they couldn’t get hold
of themselves.
So I suspect the two are connected, and that noises in
the building are part of an overall oppression created from the spirit world,
over this person. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to show you potential doors of
entry; then, either: renounce them, close them, and stand against the demons;
or get ministry to help.
She has this problem for kids. There’s a kid about 7
or 8 years old, and this kid will scream and wail in the middle of the night.
During daytime, she tried to pray for the kid, and the kid manifested very
violently. So how can we help and deliver a kid like that?
So, with children, there is a way of ministering to
them; and, there are two possible approaches you can use to this. One would be
to pray for the child while they’re asleep, with a parent there, so if the
child woke up during the ministry, that they don’t get frightened. I have
prayed for usually younger children like that.
It would help before doing this, to look into the
family background, and find if there are sources for where the spirit has come
from. Are there any generational doors; are there any kind of spirits likely to
have come through the family line? Talking with the mother and father could
help establish that. You could minister to them first, so that you remove the
legal grounds for demons in the family line.
If you’re going to pray for the child while they were
asleep, you want probably the mother there; or someone there with you. Don’t
touch the child, just pray quietly, pray in the spirit quietly; invite the Holy
Spirit to come. Keep listening to what He has to say, and then based on what
you already should know, you begin to break the curses in the family line, the
holds and the agreements with spirits, and command the spirits to go. That does
not involve the child participating strongly.
An alternative approach would be to sit with the child
and talk with them. When you talk with them, ask them about the dreams they
have at night. Get talking, and let the child talk about what they feel about
this stuff. Engage the child in their language, at their level. So, you’ve got
to talk, and present truth, at a child’s level. You could say something like
this – after the child’s talked to you - you say: “Do you know what’s causing
these dreams?” “I don’t know why I have these dreams.” “I think it’s a bad
spirit. You know there are bad spirits, and they come and trouble us. It’s not
your fault, you haven’t done anything wrong, it’s just that’s what bad spirits
do. Jesus dealt with bad spirits. Jesus had a good spirit with Him.”
You notice I’m putting the language at a level a child
could understand. “...and sometimes bad spirits get into people, trouble them
and make life very sad - or very frightening. But Jesus came to release us from
these bad spirits. You know, in the Bible, wherever He found them, He got rid
of them. Did you know that the bad spirits are afraid of Jesus? In fact,
they’re so afraid of Him - they want to get away as quick as they can. So, we
could ask Jesus to come; and He’s stronger than the bad spirits - and He could
help you get rid of these bad spirits. Would you like that to happen?”
You see, it’s kind of like talking at their level.
Then they say now: “Yeah yeah ok.” “Alright then. This is what we’re going to
do. In a moment, what I’m going to do is I’m going to pray for you, and I’ll
speak to the bad spirits. I won’t be speaking to you - you’ll know I’ve changed
- I’m speaking to the bad spirit. We’re going to command the bad spirit to go.
You may feel something inside your body. The bad spirit might become frightened.
It’s not you that’s being frightened - it’s the bad spirit being frightened.
All you need to do is breathe out – make him go, push him out.” A child can
understand all that sort of language. “...or you could cough. So when I speak
to it - you cough. Let’s work together, make the bad spirit go. Jesus would be
very happy.” See, we’re using a language a child could easily get a hold of.
Now, you could sit down beside the child, or you could
sit the child on your knee. The problem is that about 8 years old, if they got
manifesting, they could be a real difficulty – quite strong. So we would hope
that the spirit would go quite easily, now you’ve engaged cooperation.
You want a parent there when you’re doing it, so that
this is kept totally transparent. You say and do nothing that will frighten the
child. You should constantly build confidence – “This is going to be
straightforward. This is going to be good. If you feel something happening
inside you, you just cough that thing out. We’re going to get rid of this
thing.” Then, go through that process. If a child manifests, you can hold on to
them to restrain them, but it can be difficult. It would be better to engage
the child’s cooperation, because in doing that, they work with you to resist
the spirit.
A lady’s been helping this person. This person has
family inherited problems – sickness - insomnia, can’t sleep well for a long
period of time, and it caused all kinds of sickness in the body. Many of them
in the family, in the end, they even committed suicide. This person came to
church and also attended many deliverance conferences or meetings, but every
time, they didn’t really react much - no response at all. So, after yesterday
and today’s teachings, because the person has started to hear things, causing
them more suicidal thinking; and because it seems to be both generation and
occult related, she’s wondering: how we can identify it, recognise it, and how
can we help this person.
“Was the person involved in the occult themselves?”
“He never mentioned it.” “Was it asked?” “Before this teaching, they never had
the idea to ask.”
“Generational?” “Idolatry is all the way in the
family.”
There are a number of reasons for insomnia - some of
them may be medical, related just to the body - some people just don’t sleep
well. Some of them may be related to anxiety, or spiritual issues. So,
sometimes you have to apply both medical and spiritual remedies.
You can see the way I have approached this, is to be
systematically asking questions. Try and discover the root system. If you don’t
deal with the root system, you can never get the person free. The person needs
to take ownership of their things. Sometimes people just want you to fix them
up, but they don’t want to actually recognise: “It’s my problem, and my
responsibility to apply, and reach out in faith to Christ.”
There’re various ways to look at it. See, immediately
you tell me that there’re suicides – plural – there’s something in the family
line - spirits of suicide; oppressing spirits; occult powers; idolatry. So we
have to identify what the feeding causes are. The person takes a stand to
resist those things, and bring them to the cross. Sometimes I find that people
don’t have faith for their freedom. Deliverance isn’t some passive thing - we
have to arise in faith, to take hold of what Jesus said. Sometimes, instruction
is needed prior to ministry.
In looking at an alter call for example, you’ll notice
different responses of people coming up. Now, they’ve all come up – so that means
they all want something, but what happens is completely different; ranging from
the dramatic, to: “Did anything happen at all?” We can’t always tell, but it
seems that the person’s attitude of heart, and preparation of heart, is quite a
factor in what they receive from God. Someone might come: “I’ve really got this
problem, I want to be free, I’m believing God, I’ve come, I fasted - and they
get a massive deliverance.”
Or another one will be just thinking “Oh, I’ll just go
up to see what happens.” - or someone says: “You need to go up.” - nothing
happens. In other words, there was a passivity, and no preparation of heart for
an encounter with God. So the preparation for encounters with God is very
important.
I would think 1) Look at the roots. There’re things
that need to be asked. You have to find out what are the roots feeding this.
Then work through the steps and the process. See if you can get some response
that way. 2) Perhaps encourage the person to fast. Get them scriptures to
meditate on – the promises of God. Don’t just let them turn up, passive,
waiting for you to do something, because they put all the responsibility on you
– “Fix me up” rather than - “this is my pursuit of wholeness.”
Where the responsibility lies is a big issue in these
cases. So often we don’t recognise a person who’s nowhere near desperate enough
for freedom. It’s a good idea, but alignment with Jesus - no I don’t want that.
So, when we’re talking about an issue like insomnia, and the suicidal things,
you’ve got to bring some instruction.
I’ll give you a scripture related to that. 2 Timothy
2:24-26 – “A servant of the Lord must not strive, but in gentleness,
instructing those who oppose themselves, and perhaps God will give them
repentance to acknowledge truth. Then they come to their senses, and they
escape out of the snare of the devil, who holds them captive whenever he
wants.”
You notice the process is one of instruction that
leads the person to understanding, and then holding on to the truth. I don’t
have all the answers for insomnia. For some, it’s a demonic spirit, some it has
to do with body chemistry. A friend and pastor of mine - he doesn’t’ sleep much
at all. He just studies, and reads the word of God, and uses the time to be
productive. But there is a promise – he gives his beloved sleep. So the remedy
may be partly spiritual, and partly physical. Taking some kinds of things that
help rest the body and prepare it for sleep; not taking other things like
coffee and things that would keep the body awake; leaning how to relax before
going to sleep. The solution’s not obvious – there can be several aspects to it
- at least you’ve got some places to look.
“The person is taking more and more sleeping pills,
more and more dosage, and still they can’t sleep”
“Yeah, something’s not right.” I’d start looking at
some of these roots that are in them, see if there’s anything in that.
Father we just thank You for this time together. We
pray Lord that we’ll be able to apply what we’ve learnt. Pray for release of
increased anointing, and increased fruit people’s lives, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
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