SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.
SPEAKER_01: I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_01: Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Born for War podcast.
SPEAKER_01: I want to just go back to the passage that I used last week, Deuteronomy 29, 29.
SPEAKER_01: It's up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to talk about one of those secret things, and I'm entitling it Haunted Houses.
SPEAKER_01: And so haunted houses are something that everybody's familiar with, especially at Halloween.
SPEAKER_01: I guess I did a haunted house search and found out that these haunted houses are really big at Halloween.
SPEAKER_01: I've never been to one.
SPEAKER_01: I have, believe it or not, I made a haunted house as a kid at church.
SPEAKER_01: So I don't can't believe my parents, my parents let me do stuff that like no parents should have ever allowed their kids to do.
SPEAKER_01: But we had a haunted house down at the bottom of the church, and we had spaghetti, which were brains and you know, things like that.
SPEAKER_01: It was pretty dumb.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, we like it.
SPEAKER_01: In Colorado Springs, you have the fear complex haunted house.
SPEAKER_01: Has anybody ever been to that?
SPEAKER_01: Um good.
SPEAKER_01: No hands went up.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, how about a hell scream haunted house?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody done that one?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, the the the the honest ones in the room are raising their hands.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So can a house be haunted?
SPEAKER_01: I never even thought about it.
SPEAKER_01: Never even considered it until I was in Okinawa, Japan.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, because of some situations that had occurred in Japan, in Okinawa, where we had cast out demons out of some folks that were actually leaders in the church.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the Baptist church in Okinawa has about, at least back then, had about 25 churches, but they're not like Baptist churches in America.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, these were some pretty fired up churches, and I'm not saying Baptist churches can't be fired up, but I am saying that they were very much available to the Holy Spirit and things of power and stuff that probably most American churches aren't.
SPEAKER_01: That's not just Baptist, that's any denomination for that matter.
SPEAKER_01: But because of Okinawa and because of the native religions there and situations that were that they were aware of, they were much more powerful in how they dealt with darkness and the demonic.
SPEAKER_01: So I began to uh get involved in some people getting their demons cast out and stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And so word kind of got around the island.
SPEAKER_01: If you need your demons cast out, call Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: So I was called into a situation where this woman was the director of all the women of the Baptist Church for Okinawa.
SPEAKER_01: So this is the most influential Christian woman on the island and the islands in the South China Sea in Okinawa.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody knew her name.
SPEAKER_01: And I was called in because she had heard through her son and daughter, who were college students working with me, about some of the stuff that had happened.
SPEAKER_01: So what happened was this house that they lived in, the history behind it was a house that had been built, probably it was about a hundred years old.
SPEAKER_01: It's one of those houses that did not get destroyed in the Battle of Okinawa at the end of World War II.
SPEAKER_01: So you had you had a had a new section and you had an old section to Okinawa.
SPEAKER_01: Same thing in Tokyo.
SPEAKER_01: So Tokyo is all new.
SPEAKER_01: Tokyo is all new, built after 1945, the buildings and stuff, because of our bombings that we did during World War II.
SPEAKER_01: So we just leveled that city, and Kyoto was one of the only cities because of all the ancient temples that Douglas MacArthur uh committed as the Allied commander over the South Pacific, don't bomb Kyoto because he wanted to keep those historical spots.
SPEAKER_01: But other major cities like Nagasaki, obviously Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but even other major cities were just leveled by our bombing.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Okinawa wasn't bombed like that.
SPEAKER_01: The Battle of Okinawa, um, if you've seen any movies about it, they got the suicide cliffs on the south.
SPEAKER_01: They came up, the the Allied troops came up over those cliffs and then moved from the south as well as came in at the waistline and destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: So, well, this was a part of the island that still had the old ancient houses.
SPEAKER_01: And so this house was built on the actual location where the king of Okinawa, 300 years before, had had his residence.
SPEAKER_01: So this family was having hallucinations, they were having nightmares, they were constantly in fear in this house.
SPEAKER_01: And it's funny because the first few years, no problem, but then something began to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody was experiencing it.
SPEAKER_01: So they asked if I had any experience in coming and casting demons out of a location or a house, and I said, I have not ever done that, so I don't know anything about it.
SPEAKER_01: But um I came across this passage we're gonna look at here, and it became instructive to me.
SPEAKER_01: We went in there, we started praying through every room in this house, and when we came to the last room, this woman had a vision of a lady kneeling down at an altar with an idol, uh, and then smoke began to appear in the room, and there was no smell of smoke, there was nothing on fire, but there was smoke forming in the room, and as we gathered in a circle, we all grabbed hands because half the group was freaking out.
SPEAKER_01: But um, and I was too, but I faked it.
SPEAKER_01: Um But then we just we just kind of came in and we cast the spirits out, and uh, and the smoke, as it were, you literally could see, uh dissipated into the ceiling, was gone.
SPEAKER_01: The house was set free.
SPEAKER_01: They never had any more nightmares, they never had any more frightening dreams, and that lady just got fired up.
SPEAKER_01: All her kids got fired up for the Lord because they had seen such a manifestation of his power.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's what I want to talk about today is haunted houses.
SPEAKER_01: Are they real?
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and just want to start by saying, yes, they are.
SPEAKER_01: And when I say haunted houses, I'm speaking malevolent, demonic spirit beings inhabiting a place, a location.
SPEAKER_01: So turn in your Bibles to Leviticus 14.
SPEAKER_01: And Leviticus 14 is one of those passages you read, you just skip past if you're reading Leviticus.
SPEAKER_01: But it's really important, and it's and it's talking about physical infection, but also with spiritual implications.
SPEAKER_01: So a spiritual, uh physical infection with a spiritual implication.
SPEAKER_01: So let's realize that when Leviticus was written and what they were dealing with there as it related to Canaanite idols and gods, this is where probably this is dealing with the Amorites.
SPEAKER_01: We believe historically we're dealing with the Amorites here.
SPEAKER_01: These would be when Israel came in, people left those houses intact.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So the houses that the Amorites or Canaanites had had their idols and had their families, that house the Israelites were coming in and inhabiting.
SPEAKER_01: And so, and so Moses is giving instruction about a leprous house.
SPEAKER_01: And let me also give an explanation of a leprous house.
SPEAKER_01: So leprosy in the Old and New Testament covered a lot of things.
SPEAKER_01: So if we would have said, if we were back in times and you had the COVID scare that we had three years ago, um or three and a half years ago now, they that was a, they would have called that leprosy.
SPEAKER_01: They would have said there was this virus, a lepros, a leprosy, is what they would have called it in that time.
SPEAKER_01: So leprosy covered a lot of infectious diseases and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01: And it also was always in Hebraic times associated with the demonic or darkness.
SPEAKER_01: So there was a there was both a physical manifestation, but then there was also a spiritual manifestation related to leprosy.
SPEAKER_01: One writer on this passage says the purification ritual involves both a physical and spiritual application, allowing that houses even then could be polluted at both levels, a physical level of infectious filth and a level of spiritual infestation, too.
SPEAKER_01: This is not a matter of superstition.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at six practical truths for cleansing a house of the demonics.
SPEAKER_01: So look at verse 33.
SPEAKER_01: So in Leviticus 14, I want you to look at 33.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, verse 34, when you have come into the land of Canaan, which I give you as a possession, and I put the leprous plague in a house, in the land of your possession.
SPEAKER_01: So first point here.
SPEAKER_01: God can allow a demonic spirit or plague over a house to expose evil.
SPEAKER_01: So it's interesting that you see this with people, and I guess you can see it even with a house.
SPEAKER_01: It certainly was true in the one that I was a part of, and then I think some of you might have been a part of what I would consider like haunted houses, demonic, infest, infested houses, where it's it's like there's a period of time where nothing, don't you recognize anything, you don't see it, and then it comes out.
SPEAKER_01: And it's like it's God's timing to expose evil or to expose demonic presence.
SPEAKER_01: I've known many, many young people, leaders that we've raised up over the years that as they are walking with the Lord, stuff starts to come up then.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, well, why now?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why.
SPEAKER_01: It's just that it's like it's like you're growing in maturity enough where maybe it's time for the Holy Spirit to expose to you, you need to quit doing that.
SPEAKER_01: And it didn't bother you before.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember as a new believer that was true.
SPEAKER_01: They're like, I'm I'm hanging with the guys, you know, and then I do something or something is said.
SPEAKER_01: It didn't bother me last week, but this week it does.
SPEAKER_01: And it's like I started to change.
SPEAKER_01: So that's called sanctification.
SPEAKER_01: So that sanctification process of growing in holiness, and it almost seems like God doesn't expose evil until you're ready to handle it.
SPEAKER_01: And when you're ready to handle it, he expects you to handle it.
SPEAKER_01: He expects you to deal with it.
SPEAKER_01: And so in this case, pretty interesting, he says that you're when you go into these Canaanite religion people, their homes where idols and stuff were, that you're to cleanse that house.
SPEAKER_01: And I know that that family in Okinawa had been at that house for 20 years, but it's like I come into the picture.
SPEAKER_01: I actually had an experience of setting free the son and the daughter.
SPEAKER_01: They came home, started talking to their mom about what God had done in their life.
SPEAKER_01: They've been believers for years, but they that kind of opened up the mom to, well, wait, I've been having these, I've been having these dreams, I've been having these nightmares for years, and just thought it was, you know, a bad movie that I watched or something.
SPEAKER_01: Could it be?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was like a question about could it be demonic?
SPEAKER_01: And so it certainly was, but they weren't ready for it, and then they they were.
SPEAKER_01: Now this building's interesting.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody here part of the original church here at this facility before we came?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Jay, you were part of this church?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody else?
SPEAKER_01: So when we came in, okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So when we when we came into this building, it was, I think it was over 20, 25 years old, something like that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how long it had been built.
SPEAKER_01: I think built in the this part was built in the 90s, I think 98 or 99.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I thought I was downstairs and I was in a particular room, and I could sense this heaviness over that room.
SPEAKER_01: And in my spirit, I felt like something, something's happened in this room.
SPEAKER_01: There's something demonic here.
SPEAKER_01: But it didn't tell anybody.
SPEAKER_01: But I mentioned one day at a staff meeting, I said, you guys, why don't we go through the whole building?
SPEAKER_01: We don't know the history of this place, and let's just pray cleansing over every room in the building.
SPEAKER_01: So we all started doing that, and we all felt different stuff in different parts of the building.
SPEAKER_01: Again, I hadn't said anything about this one room.
SPEAKER_01: So we go into this one room, and it's like 10 of us are in there, and everybody, I think nine out of ten or everybody said, Man, I sense a heaviness over this room, and it's really weird, and yeah, me too.
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like, I feel like something's here.
SPEAKER_01: You know, and I said, Yes, bingo.
SPEAKER_01: I felt the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: You know, and I said, so so I felt I had some, I don't know, confidence that was built in me because of them.
SPEAKER_01: So we just began to pray.
SPEAKER_01: We anointed that room with oil, and it, man, we drove it out, man.
SPEAKER_01: We drove it out.
SPEAKER_01: It's the room right below us called Main Street.
SPEAKER_01: And I think you can hear some of their music going on right now.
SPEAKER_01: Down there.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: This is this is one you should write down.
SPEAKER_01: The function of worship without fire and worship prevents the release of the fragrance and worship.
SPEAKER_01: The function of worship without fire and worship prevents the release of fragrance and worship.
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like there was something missing.
SPEAKER_01: And after that, there was fire in the worship down there for the kids.
SPEAKER_01: And it's continued.
SPEAKER_01: Peter and his team are doing a great job, as you can hear, a little bit coming up through the floor right now.
SPEAKER_01: That's because we cleansed that room.
SPEAKER_01: We went in there, and there was some activity that I found out later that had happened in this church that was really, really bad.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know if it happened in the church, but I know it was involved in some aspect of the leadership of this church that had to be cleansed out.
SPEAKER_01: And so, same thing with your house.
SPEAKER_01: Is there anything going on in your house?
SPEAKER_01: Is there anything going on in your temple, in you, that needs to be cleansed by the Spirit of God?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 35.
SPEAKER_01: And he who owns the house comes and tells the priest, saying, It seems to me that there's some plague in this house.
SPEAKER_01: Then the priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest goes into it to examine the plague, that all that is in the house may not be made unclean, and afterward the priest shall go in to examine the house.
SPEAKER_01: So, number two, spirits of evil can cause sickness within a house.
SPEAKER_01: The renowned theologians and scholars Keel and Dielitch wrote, write about this passage.
SPEAKER_01: The only thing that can be gathered from the signs mentioned in that house, leprosy was an evil.
SPEAKER_01: For although it is primarily in the human body that sin manifests itself, it speaks from man to the things which he touches, uses, inhabits, though without our being able to represent this spread as a physical contagion.
SPEAKER_01: So what C.F.
SPEAKER_01: Keel is saying is that there can be, it seems to be a transference, but it's not always physical, it's also spiritual.
SPEAKER_01: So you can be involved.
SPEAKER_01: I know for some of you in this room, maybe many of us in this room, quite frankly, because of the way America and sexuality is, is that you, by having sex before marriage or being involved in sex when you're married with someone who's not your husband or your wife, you can bond, you can bond to that person, even spiritually and mentally, that you sometimes need to be set free from because you're still there, because of stuff that you did.
SPEAKER_01: And so some of you are hanging on sometimes to stuff that's something you did 25 years ago, but it lingers and memories come back to you, that's possibly demonic.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying it is, but it could be.
SPEAKER_01: And you need to cast that sucker out.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you need to say, uh, I'm forgiven, I'm a blood-wise saint, and by the blood and by the name of Jesus, I command any spirits from that relationship to be gone in the name of the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Same with betrayal.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a biggie.
SPEAKER_01: I think, especially with men in business, if you've been fired, you feel betrayed, you know, you got to deal with that.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm saying that everything everything I'm gonna talk about with the prayers and stuff that you do, it totally is the same, you it should be used in the same way in those areas because you're a temple of the Holy.
SPEAKER_01: You can be a haunted house.
SPEAKER_01: And you gotta set yourself free.
SPEAKER_01: So everything I'm saying here is related to us.
SPEAKER_01: So there are physical houses, and there's also a physical house, a temple, which I'm gonna talk about next week.
SPEAKER_01: Next week, even though it's not part of the series on cosmic war, I'm gonna talk about the temple and how we cleanse our temple mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: So, demons, listen, demons always manifest themselves.
SPEAKER_01: Demons always manifest themselves.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know if I, I don't know if I'm that the house is demonized.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if there's nothing happening, then it's not demonized, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But if you sense it, and things like doors opening, dark specters, ghosts, strange noises, etc., frightening dreams, pervasive fear when you're in certain rooms of the house.
SPEAKER_01: Or more obvious, and this is probably where 99% of it comes from, is sins being committed in that house inviting dark spirits.
SPEAKER_01: So be careful who you let rent your house.
SPEAKER_01: If you got people renting, I'm talking about your house, I'm not talking about a rental house, you can't control all that, can't say, are you demonized?
SPEAKER_01: That's the last question we want to ask you.
SPEAKER_01: No, but I mean, like, if you're inviting people into a bedroom or a basement to, you know, know who they are, know what's going on down there.
SPEAKER_01: Because you could be inviting, that person could be inviting spirits into your home with some of the activities that they're involved in.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 38.
SPEAKER_01: Then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house and shut up the house seven days.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 39.
SPEAKER_01: And the priest shall come again on the seventh day and look, and indeed, if the plague has spread on the walls of the house, then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague and they shall cast them into an unclean place outside the city.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is really important.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, demons can inhabit physical objects, and the objects must be thrown out.
SPEAKER_01: So when we went through this house in Okinawa, there were several things that we as a team felt they needed to dispose of.
SPEAKER_01: They were related to Buddhism and Shintoism, even though they were Christian.
SPEAKER_01: And they did that.
SPEAKER_01: They cast them out and they destroyed them.
SPEAKER_01: Um we gave our son a samurai sword that came from a temple in Japan, not even aware of this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: This is really before we were aware of the things that we became aware of later.
SPEAKER_01: We sent something demonic about the samurai sword and we got it out of the house.
SPEAKER_01: So there could be, if you if you've traveled a lot and you've gone to different lands, you need to be careful about what you collect.
SPEAKER_01: I've gone into people's houses at the road and at Mountain Springs before.
SPEAKER_01: I'd go into their houses, I've seen stuff, they've got collections from all these places, they've been all over the world, and I'm thinking, man, that's not good.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's not good.
SPEAKER_01: And um, and I don't think I've ever even said anything because if they don't notice it, whatever, I don't say anything.
SPEAKER_01: But some things need to be thrown out.
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever if you've messed around with Ouija boards, get those, get them out, man.
SPEAKER_01: If you've messed with tarot cards, get it out.
SPEAKER_01: If you've got really, really fear-inducing horror movies, get it out.
SPEAKER_01: If you watch horror movies, if you watch really sexual-driven movies, get them out, man.
SPEAKER_01: Stop doing that.
SPEAKER_01: It's not good.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody go like this, go like this, go.
SPEAKER_01: That's not good.
SPEAKER_01: That's very bad, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So turn to 1 Corinthians 10.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody look at 1 Corinthians 10.
SPEAKER_01: And came across 1 Corinthians 10 years ago as a missionary, and really got me in some hot water in Japan because I started teaching it wherever I was asked to speak.
SPEAKER_01: And the Japanese Christians did not want to hear me speak on this.
SPEAKER_01: So I would tell them, this is the passage I'm gonna speak from, and if you don't want me to speak on it, then don't invite me.
SPEAKER_01: But if you do, I'm gonna speak on it.
SPEAKER_01: Because in Japan, among the Christian community, there was this attitude that it was okay to have idols in the home.
SPEAKER_01: So it was okay to both love Jesus and keep your idols, because these idols were very expensive.
SPEAKER_01: And they came from their grandparents and families, really important in Japan, way more important than here.
SPEAKER_01: They have tight families.
SPEAKER_01: And even though sometimes when you become a Christian, you'd get cast out, it was sort of like cast out, and then, oh, come on back, and we, you know, you're the oldest son.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the idols.
SPEAKER_01: And so it was really touchy about what to do with the idols that came from 300, might be 300 years old.
SPEAKER_01: That's like, these are like very, very expensive idols.
SPEAKER_01: So I don't think it's any different today than it was when Paul writes these words.
SPEAKER_01: So look at verse 14 of chapter 10, 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry and speak as to wise men.
SPEAKER_01: Judge for yourselves what I say.
SPEAKER_01: The cup of blessing.
SPEAKER_01: Which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: So now he's talking about the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_01: The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: For we, though many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: Observe Israel after the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
SPEAKER_01: What am I saying then?
SPEAKER_01: That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything?
SPEAKER_01: Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, not to God.
SPEAKER_01: And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons.
SPEAKER_01: Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?
SPEAKER_01: Are we stronger than He?
SPEAKER_01: So men and women, it's not that the idols anything, it's the demons that are attached to the idol.
SPEAKER_01: So when when Christians, Japanese Christians, Chinese Christians, Korean Christians, whoever, when they come and they've got the old idols, and maybe they just put a tangerine or they put an apple or something on that, they're saying, Well, I'm not worshiping, I'm not bound, I'm not worshiping my ancestors or anything.
SPEAKER_01: You've invited demons in.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's kind of the bottom line on this.
SPEAKER_01: And so, church, don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: So if you've got stuff in your life that is related to the spirit world and you've got it in your house, get it out.
SPEAKER_01: It's not worth it.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you say, well, man, this thing's worth like a thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_01: Well, so is like your first three visits to the doctor because you're getting cancer, because you've invited cancer into your house, because that's the leprosy of our time, as it were, that sometimes, not all the time, don't hear me saying that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying every sickness is demonic.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying cancer is demonic.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying it could be, though.
SPEAKER_01: It could be, though.
SPEAKER_01: And so why not cleanse your house?
SPEAKER_01: So here's uh a few questions to ask.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, are there any unclean activities happening in your house?
SPEAKER_01: Are there any unclean activities happening in your house?
SPEAKER_01: If so, you're inviting demons.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, are there any unclean objects in your house?
SPEAKER_01: If so, you're inviting demons in.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying, I'm not saying everything that's unclean invites demons.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying it could invite demons.
SPEAKER_01: Could there be, number three, could there be unclean activities in the history of your house?
SPEAKER_01: That's why I've always said, if you're buying a new home, cleanse that house.
SPEAKER_01: First thing, gather some believers.
SPEAKER_01: You guys go in there room by room and cast out demons.
SPEAKER_01: Just cast them out.
SPEAKER_01: If there's any demons here, cast them out.
SPEAKER_01: And it was a prayer that I'll give you.
SPEAKER_01: So when you leave today, you got two act, you got two challenges for me.
SPEAKER_01: One is sign the petitions that I already announced back there.
SPEAKER_01: So we've got that in the back, but then go to the welcome center and I've and I've put out a prayer for you for your for the cleansing of a house.
SPEAKER_01: So that is available to you, and you can just read that over each room.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, number four.
SPEAKER_01: As a priest and king over your house, as a priest and king over your house, you can cleanse your house.
SPEAKER_01: Church.
SPEAKER_01: If there's anything I wanted to communicate over these 12 weeks on the cosmic war, is you are a priest and you are a king over your life.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody can do it for you.
SPEAKER_01: That's why don't call me to come and cleanse your house.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm not gonna come.
SPEAKER_01: Because you need to cleanse your house, and it has way more power, way more impact, and way more authority if you take authority and power over your own house.
SPEAKER_01: So Revelation 1 says to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and has made us, made us kings and priests.
SPEAKER_01: Underline that in your Bibles, made us kings and priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: Take dominion, take dominion over your life.
SPEAKER_01: You're responsible.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody can do it for you.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta do it.
SPEAKER_01: Men, men, take dominion over your families.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let your wife do everything.
SPEAKER_01: You need to be the spiritual leader.
SPEAKER_01: You need to be the physical and spiritual leader over your home.
SPEAKER_01: Just as some of you have loaded guns in places in your room, if a thief came in, load your gun spiritually and get the thief out of your flipping house.
SPEAKER_01: That's up to you to do.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and I want to challenge you, you have authority.
SPEAKER_01: You're the sheriff, man.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody else is a sheriff.
SPEAKER_01: You're the sheriff over your house, take charge of it.
SPEAKER_01: If you're dating someone, you guys are in a relationship, a loving relationship, you're headed toward marriage and stuff, don't be sleeping with each other.
SPEAKER_01: Take authority, be a king and a priest, walk in holiness.
SPEAKER_01: What you do in the dark now, you'll be doing in the dark later.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it might be good for a year, but then if you haven't disciplined your life, let's say, in the sexual area before marriage, you're not going to discipline your life after you get married.
SPEAKER_01: And if he, and and ladies, if he's convinced you of that, then you just tell him, Pastor Steve said you're a liar.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you can't, if you can't honor your vessel before marriage, you won't honor your vessel after marriage.
SPEAKER_01: So be a man.
SPEAKER_01: Be a good man, be a godly man, and then you'll be a happy man.
SPEAKER_01: I like being happy.
SPEAKER_01: Happy's good.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: All right, verse 52.
SPEAKER_01: And he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird and the running water and the living bird, with the cedar wood, the hyssop and the scarlet.
SPEAKER_01: Number five.
SPEAKER_01: Under the new covenant, we can pray the blood of Jesus over a house.
SPEAKER_01: So this is under the old covenant.
SPEAKER_01: This is an old testament passage.
SPEAKER_01: So in the Old Testament covenant, they're talking about sacrifices given to God.
SPEAKER_01: In the New Testament covenant that we have today, the sacrifice has been done.
SPEAKER_01: It has been given through the cross of Jesus Christ and through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But you have to retroactively pray it.
SPEAKER_01: It may be true in your life, but you have to be retroactive and you have to be intentional and you have to be proactive and you have to be bold.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity is the only religion in the world where men and women have to be bold in their authority based on the death of someone who sacrificed all for you.
SPEAKER_01: Islam doesn't have that.
SPEAKER_01: Hinduism doesn't have that.
SPEAKER_01: Buddhism doesn't have that.
SPEAKER_01: Taoism doesn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Only in the faith of Jesus' followers do we have our leader who gave his life for us and then proved that he was God by rising again from the grave and then says, You're a priest now.
SPEAKER_01: You're a king.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why all over the world, wherever Christianity begins to flourish and wherever the churches get planted, men and women become entrepreneurial.
SPEAKER_01: They become responsible to their families, and families start to flourish, and we start to see democracy start to rise up.
SPEAKER_01: It rises up because we start to know who we are.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let the enemy lie to you.
SPEAKER_01: You're a winner, you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you can walk with authority, you got God's word, and when you speak it, darkness gets pushed back.
SPEAKER_01: Darkness gets pushed back in your temple, and darkness can get pushed back in your house.
SPEAKER_01: There is no demon that can control your house.
SPEAKER_01: And there's no demon that can control your temple unless you let them.
SPEAKER_01: And if you let them, then that's fine.
SPEAKER_01: Seriously, if you want to pack growlers, then fine, do it.
SPEAKER_01: Don't call me in if you can't take responsibility for your lives.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So the challenge before us is you have everything it takes.
SPEAKER_01: You have everything if you're a believer.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're not a Christian yet, if you're not a believer, you don't have anything that it takes.
SPEAKER_01: You just have you, and that's a bummer because just you isn't very good against demons.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: But if you come to Christ today, come to Jesus and say, I want to surrender to Christ, he fills you with the Spirit, and man, you can be, it's a new day.
SPEAKER_01: You can conquer stuff you could never conquer before because it's a new day.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 53.
SPEAKER_01: Then he shall let the living bird loose outside the city in the open field and make atonement for the house, and it shall be clean.
SPEAKER_01: Circle that.
SPEAKER_01: That's really important because number six is when we take authority over our house, it is cleansed of all demonic activity.
SPEAKER_01: So let me give you four steps, four quick steps on taking authority over your house.
SPEAKER_01: We've done this dozens of times at the road with different people.
SPEAKER_01: Step one, remove any unclean, sinful items that have been brought in.
SPEAKER_01: Pornography, horror movies, filthy movies, false religious items.
SPEAKER_01: This could include any secret thing that's being done by someone else in your house.
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you might be, you might have your family, you guys are godly, you're trying to follow the Lord, and you've got a, you know, somebody rooming in a room downstairs or upstairs.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, man.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you need to include them in this thing because it can affect the whole house.
SPEAKER_01: Step two, stop the sins being committed in the home.
SPEAKER_01: So it could be gossip, it could be lying, it could be cheating, it could be Ouija boards, it could be tarot cards, it could be poor, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But if you've got something that you're involved in, you're speaking out, and you're doing, you're inviting, and again, I'm not saying demons come in all the time.
SPEAKER_01: I say they can come in through those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01: Stop it.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody just say stop it.
SPEAKER_01: All right, just stop doing it.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't hard to say.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, step three.
SPEAKER_01: Gather a group of believers in Christ, whole-hearted disciples who believe in the power of God and the blood of Jesus, gather together at your home and go room by room, anointing with oil and praying out the prayer I'm gonna give you.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a prayer back there.
SPEAKER_01: We have a bunch of them.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, 500.
SPEAKER_01: One per couple, please.
SPEAKER_01: Um, because we I think we only did like 600 or something.
SPEAKER_01: But um, they're available there at pray room by room.
SPEAKER_01: And then step four, and this is the intentionality after that or during that, fill your house with worship, with praise, with prayer, with small groups, with great conversations that are full of forgiveness and love and generosity.
SPEAKER_01: Open up your house to people, make it a place people love to come to, make it a house of peace, fill it, fill it, fill it with praise and worship and joy and righteousness, peace and joy, which is the fruit of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're like, well, I don't know, I'm just kind of I'm depressed a lot.
SPEAKER_01: And I say, well, the reason you're depressed a lot is because you're depressed a lot.
SPEAKER_01: Get over your depression, man.
SPEAKER_01: Start inviting people in, start serving others, quit serving yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Quit thinking about how bad your life is and how crummy it is, and how everybody doesn't like you and all that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, make people like you by helping them, loving them.
SPEAKER_01: Fill your house with the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: And the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard work, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: You know what thing inviting people over is well, we don't we barely can feed ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We'll get some spaghettios.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: People don't care what you serve them, they care that you served them.
SPEAKER_01: They don't care what they ate at your house, they care that you invited them into your house.
SPEAKER_01: Have lots of friends, have lots of community, laugh a lot, laugh more.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that good?
SPEAKER_01: That's good stuff, man.
SPEAKER_01: And make your house a house that the Lord, where Jesus would want to come and show up, because all these Jesus people are hanging out there.
SPEAKER_01: And then invite your neighbors, invite people over who don't know, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Invite them over, fill it with laughter and joy with them too.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's the most attractive thing about our faith is when we exhibit something that they're longing for, and everybody's longing for joy, everybody's longing for happiness, everybody's longing for peace.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, Well, I don't have very much, I'm kind of not good at that, I don't have the gift of hospitality and all that.
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I love I love being alone, I do.
SPEAKER_01: But but I love more being filled with the Holy Spirit and serving others because I know it's just good for me.
SPEAKER_01: It's just healthy.
SPEAKER_01: It's really healthy for you to serve others.
SPEAKER_01: Make sure feel good about yourself, and also you start having friends, and you're not as selfish, and it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Foreign for War podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.