Spiritual warfare. Freedom in Christ. Is it possible for a Christian to be under spiritual bondage? Now, there are those who say it is absolutely impossible for a blood-bought, redeemed, born-again, name-written-of-lambs book of life Christian to be demon possessed or demon oppressed or demonized whatever the term may be and many say it's impossible because to be a new creature in Christ the old has passed and the new has come and yet we read in the scripture for though we walk in the flesh we do not walk according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. So 2 Corinthians 10 verse 3 to 5 is telling us of a spiritual battle that is even engaging our thoughts and strongholds and bringing down things that are raised against the knowledge of God. Is it possible for Christians to be under spiritual bondage? Well, let's ask another question. Can a Christian sin? Many Christians who say it's not possible that one in whom the Holy Spirit is can be bound by an evil spirit. Well, is it possible for a Christian to sin, to break God's laws? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. We know it's true. Christians do sin. We know about that in our personal experience. Of course, this grieves the Holy Spirit. This quenches the Holy Spirit. This resists the Holy Spirit. But the fact is, sin can be present in a Holy Spirit-indwelled Christian. Sin is worse than Satan. It was sin that turned Lucifer, the archangel, into Satan, the fallen angel, the enemy of God and the enemy of God's people. Some very well-known Christian leaders have taught that Christians may suffer from demonic bondage, including such a reformed Bible expositor extraordinary like Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, Dr. Kurt Koch, the demonologist and specialist on revivals who specialized in going around the world and exposing fake revivals, for example, the Like a Mighty Wind, Indonesian revival and other things like this, great books, sold millions, bestsellers. He went to actual places, investigated and found it. The testimonies were lies, exaggerations, distortions, mountain out of molehill. It wasn't anything like what they were talking about and so on. And he in fact came to KwaZulu in order to expose the revival at KwaSibuntu because most revivals of the 20th century have been frauds or fakes or exaggerations. And when he came, we discovered, wow, this is the real thing. And in fact, his wife moved there, his grandchildren are living there to this day, and he wrote the book God Amongst the Zulus, and he is the author of the Occult ABC the devil's alphabet between Christ and Satan and many other key books. So he certainly believed Christians could be demon-possessed. Watchman Nee, a very famous Christian who suffered persecution in China, a great devotional Christian writer, and A. W. Tozer, some called him a prophet to the 20th century church. The author, for example, the modern smooth cross contrasting the old rugged cross that symbolized death with a modern smooth cross which is more like an ornament. The book of Ephesians is addressed to the saints, the faithful in Christ Jesus. And these Christians are taught not to give place to the devil. Well, if it's not possible to give place to the devil, why would the scripture even ask the saints and command the saints and teach the saints to not give ground to Satan? In fact, believers are commanded in the passage that Aubrey just gave us as devotions at the beginning of this workshop, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts or armies of wickedness in the heavenly places. We are involved in a spiritual conflict, a spiritual world war. Plainly, the we, spoken of here in Ephesians 6, are the believers in Christ. Every Christian should be involved in a personal struggle and wrestle against evil forces. Christians are also warned, 1 Peter 5 verse 8-9, Be sober, be vigilant, because the adversary the devil walks around like a roaring lion. He's not a lion. Jesus is the lion, but he's like a lion, he's a fake, he's a fraud. Seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith. In the Gospel of Luke we read of a woman who had a spirit of infirmity. 18 years! And Jesus called her to him and said, Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity. He laid his hands on her and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. Read this in Luke 13. Now because the Lord healed this woman on the Sabbath, He came under severe criticism. In response, the Lord declared, Hypocrite, does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead it away to water? So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound, think of it, for eighteen years, should she not be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath? Now, by describing her as a daughter of Abraham, Abraham, the father of the faithful. She's a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound. Our Lord reveals to us in Luke 13 that a believer can be bound by an evil spirit, even while continuing to attend worship services. Here she was in a worship service and the Lord calls her out and frees her from this bondage that has had her hunchbacked, scooped over, and restores full health to her. The Bible is full of warnings against being deceived. Isaiah 44 verse 20 speaks of the one who feeds on ashes, a deceived heart has turned him aside. He doesn't even feed on popcorn or sawdust, it's ashes. He deceives himself. But be doers of the word, James says, and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. Now this is addressed to believers. that we can deceive ourselves. Believers can be deceived and believers can deceive ourselves. 1 John 1 verse 8 which is written to Christians says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Jeremiah 17 verse 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? As our Lord warned his disciples to take heed that they be not deceived, this means that it is possible for a Christian to be deceived. Deception brings bondage. Since it is possible for a Christian to be deceived, it implies that it is possible for a Christian to be in bondage. In the Christian Incomplete Armour, Puritan writer William Gurnall, in the 17th century, writes that we are all involved in a war between the saint and Satan. And it is such a bloody war that the cruellest war ever fought by man will be seen as but sport and child's play compared to this. Alas, what is the killing of bodies compared to the destroying of souls? It is a spiritual war that you shall read of, not a history of what was fought in many ages past and is now over, but of a war now going on. The tragedy is present within us. The stage in which this war is fought is every man's own soul. There are no neutrals in this war. The whole world is engaged in a quarrel either for God against Satan or for Satan against God. The author of Pilgrim's Progress, one of the greatest best-selling books in English in all of history, John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress, wrote the most... Sorry to interrupt. I'm just going to ask you... Yes. Is the war also between God and Satan? It would seem so. God and all of his angels and his people... And the earth and us are involved... In the book of Job, we get some of the curtain lifted and we can see that the battles on earth that God's people are going through is in the light of a cosmic battle that's going on in the universe. So, yes, what happens on earth is directly linked to the war in heaven or in the heavenlies. So Pilgrim's Progress, we hear the most delicate Christian must become a stern warrior. Whether we believe it or not, whether we like it or not. This is a war that's raging in our souls and the heavenlies every moment of every day and night. It is a life and death struggle to the finish against the devil and all his demons. Satan and his cohorts come to steal and to kill and to destroy. C.S. Lewis wrote, there are two equal and opposite errors into which we can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in existence. Typical secular humanist, there's no such thing as miracles in the supernatural. The other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves, the demons, are equally pleased by both errors. Either those who don't believe in existence or those who obsess over them. They hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. In any war, a soldier needs to know his enemies, their weapons and their tactics, and the terrain in which he fights. The nature and the activities of Satan are revealed through his different names. So, this is very revealing when you look at what the scriptures call our enemy. In the scriptures he is called Satan. the adversary or the enemy, the devil, which means the slanderer or the accuser, Beelzebub, the lord of the flies, the serpent, Lucifer, the light bearer. Interesting how you had the Illuminati and the Enlightenment, and in Salafi we even had, especially in the Afrikaans church, the Verluchten. I mean, isn't it the same sort of thing? People who disagree with them are Verklomten. The left are the enlightened ones. And so you can see, even today, some of the worst satanic groups are identifying themselves as Illuminati. A murderer from the beginning, Jesus called him. He's like a roaring lion, said Peter. He's a liar, Jesus said. He's the tempter. He's the dragon. The accuser of the brethren. The prince of the power of the air. The evil one. the deceiver of the world. Abaddon or Apollyon, the destroyer. Martin Luther, in his commentaries, attributes Abaddon to Muhammad. He said, Muhammad is the false prophet who came from the desert, who is the destroyer. And in fact, Abaddon or Apollyon, Abaddon is the Hebrew and Apollyon is the Greek word, meaning destroyer. So Martin Luther attributed that directly to Muhammad, who tore away half of all the church. destroyed more than 50% of all the Christians in the world, in the Middle East and North Africa. Satan is called the god of this world, the beast, Belial. Belial means the worthless one. I like that name, the worthless one. And he's called an angel of light. That's Satan. Demons are created spirit beings. They are fallen angels who have rebelled against Almighty God. We read about a third of the angels of heaven joined Lucifer's rebellion and were cast down. So, the Bible is speaking about the hundreds of millions of angels, therefore we know that there must be at least a hundred million or so demons, at least. Demons are evil spirits. They can think and they can act without a body. They have a character, they have a mind of their own and a will. And you get different demons with different types of characteristics. They're not human spirits. They're not impersonal forces. They're actual spiritual persons. The demons are, and here's a whole lot of C's, crooked, cruel, contaminating, clever in a wicked sense, cunning, cowardly, craving, ceaseless, crouching, crippling, counterfeiting, clandestine, continuous criminals. But at the same time they are created beings, confined in time and space. This is important to realize. The amount of people who say, you know, Satan appeared to me and Satan did this and that. Look, Satan can't be in more than one place at a time. It's highly unlikely that Satan is giving any of us personal attention ever in our whole lives. Some of us demons might have, and surely have, but Satan himself, he probably only visited Sadaf Gilead for Mandela's inauguration, a few key highlights. Most of the time he's probably busy in the United Nations and Hollywood devising more things to contaminate the world. He's probably in the EU and AU sometimes. They said, In Rwanda, during the Holocaust in 1994, that hell must be empty of all its demons because all the devils are here. Well, sadly, they've got more demons than that. They had more to spare, even while they were seriously busy in Rwanda. They are confined in space. Satan probably was giving personal attention to Martin Luther. I mean he was really strategic. And you can go to Wartburg Castle and they show you the wall where he threw the ink pot against the wall against Satan who appeared to tempt him while he was translating the Bible. It's quite possible Martin Luther got personal attention. He was that strategic. But you know, with the millions of Christians in the world today, it's highly unlikely that we would need to worry at all about personal attention of Satan. He is curtailed in his activities and his power. The demons are conquered by Christ on the cross. They are cursed and they are condemned. They are like scavengers. And like scavengers, demons attack the tired, and the weak, and the wounded, and the sick. You can see that of criminals too. The criminals look for the stragglers, the weak, the distracted, those who look vulnerable. And so demons particularly target the tired, the weak, the wounded, and the sick. They track down, attack, and mutilate their prey. They take a savage delight in harming and mutilating their prey. like flies that gather around any form of filth. And you could think, for example, if you want to go to any place where there's vice, and we've done outreaches downtown in some of the horrible places, you know, where they've got the escort agencies, the bars, the brothels, and what do you find around the shabins in these places? You don't just find lots of flies and lots of filth, but you find all kinds of other vices around it. There's the drug dealers, and there's the prostitutes, and there's the pimps, and there's the gangsters, and there's the people who want to steal. Well, in the same way demons are like those flies and filth that gather around where there is any kind of carcass to feed off, you find the demons will be in great numbers outside. At the tube parlor, or a casino, or any place of vice. This is where they live, and breed, and hang around, and find more victims. Like serpents, they can hide and slide secretly, they can strike suddenly, and they can inject their venom. Ephesians 6 reveals that there are principalities and powers. There are rulers and hosts. There is an entire hierarchy of darkness and of deception. The scriptures speak of lying and seducing spirits. in 1 Timothy 4.1, of idolatrous spirits. There's a lot of pastors that refer to idolatrous spirits. And idols attract demons. If you can think of India where they have got hundreds of millions of demons, of idols, actual physical idols. And ministries that specialize in evangelizing Hindus, like Jivanadi Mission under Reverend Greg Donation. Greg Donation says he has never dealt with any Hindu who was not demon possessed. That deliverance is always part of the evangelistic interception counselling process because idolatry invites demon possession. When you are worshipping an idol, any kind of idol, and of course this isn't just speaking about the idols of Krishna and Shiva and Brahman. It's not just Kali and so on, but sex idols, sports idols, Hollywood idols, political idols. I mean, idolatry invites possession because you're opening yourself up. It's breaking, in particular, the first three commandments that opens you up to demonic activity. There are unclean spirits. Jesus spoke about a lot of unclean spirits. There are seducing spirits, like the spirit of Jezebel. There are spirits of infirmity we read about in the Gospels. Spirits that manifest themselves in people being actually diseased and handicapped. And there are spirits of divination. Remember there was this young girl in Acts 16, where she was able to give divination and make the people who were owning or controlling her very rich. And when Paul cast out the demon, they lost their source of wealth. So there are spirits of divination. Some people have it. You know, it's amazing. I don't know how I get this, but I can foretell it. Anything supernatural has one of two sources. It's either from God and His Holy Spirit, which brings glory to Christ, or it's from the devil and his demons and it does not bring glory to Christ. Possession is a legal term. You know, when we speak about demonic possession, a lot of people get quite upset about this. Well, if I've got the Holy Spirit in me, how can the demons be in me too? Well, think of it more as a legal term. It does not necessarily mean that you've got an evil spirit living within you, but rather that the evil spirit possesses something in or of that person, like a legal document. Like, you may say, I own my house, but actually, The bank owns the house and you're paying it off and they can take the house anytime they want if you fail to make the payments. And there's all sorts of examples where that happens. So you may say, I own my car. But in fact, you're buying it on high purchase and at any point if you fail on the repayment, they can repossess the car. or anything else. So for example, I may say that's my car and that car might be driving out the gate, someone else is in the car driving it out, hopefully with my permission, and I can say it's my car, I'm not in the car, but I've got some ownership, some paper, some right to that car. And similarly, I may point out that somebody has an evil spirit in them, or an evil spirit has a hold over them, in that person. So it's like, if you gave the devil some rights, you signed over some agreement, you know when you go for almost anything, anywhere, they're required to sign some kind of waiver that, who knows what you're signing away. I mean, who of us ever take the time to read all these unbelievably complicated small prints of the different conditions of this, that and the other? you've got insurance but with the exclusion of this, this, this and this and you know on this occasion and basically the house always wins it's like if you got a grand theft and at Grand West they've endlessly got some kind of way that the house always wins and no matter how you do it you may win a little bit but at the end you walk away with less money than you came in the scriptures urge us do not give the devil a foothold Ephesians 4.27 in fact the word in Greek, can be denoted, don't give the devil a chance, don't give the devil an opportunity, don't give him a foothold. Now, it may be a toehold, it may be a foothold, it may be a stronghold, it may even be a stranglehold. So when you speak about demonic possession, it's not all equal. It's like you can say a person's sick. Well, there's a big difference between a stomach bug, an ulcer, a cancer, migraine, fever, there's varieties of sickness and degrees of it, similarly with demonic possession. Some people have more immunity than others, other people are more susceptible and vulnerable than others. We must personally and practically proclaim the gospel of Christ's glorious victory on the cross, not only over sin and self, but also over Satan and all his hosts of evil spirits. Our eyes need to be opened And our hearts need to be cleansed. We need to be set free to serve Christ. And that's why deliverance is so important. 1 John 3 verse 8. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the very beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. The Lord did not come to enable us to sin and get away with it, to make it easy and safe for us to sin. He came to destroy the works of the devil. He came to destroy those chains that are binding us and set us free to serve Christ. So, God has given each person a natural physical immunity. There's a mental immunity, there's a spiritual immunity. Bacteria cannot enter our bodies unchallenged. We now know that we come across not hundreds, not thousands, millions of bacteria in any given week, all over the place. In fact, you would not want to know the bacteria count of door handles, bathrooms, railings, escalators in public places. You wouldn't put your hand on those escalator railings and those moving things if you knew what they found there, the bacteria count. The amount of bacteria on some floors and so on, you wouldn't pick up and eat something that's dropped on the floor if you had seen on a microscope how much bacteria there is there. But you don't always get sick from that. Why? There's a natural, there's a whole series of bacteria, there's good bacteria and there's bad bacteria, and God's got a whole lot of it. You could say within our bloodstreams and throughout our body, we've got millions of, not just foot soldiers, but tens of thousands of tanks and armored vehicles, so to speak, protecting your body against all kinds of, whether it's coming in from something you eat or something you breathe. If you've been on an aircraft, on long-distance flight, you are 200 times more susceptible to catching an infection, getting sick, if you've travelled on aircraft than any other way, because there's just a huge amount of research there. You wonder why the amount of times you travel overseas and you end up being sick on the other side. You're being exposed to bugs you're not normally used to, which at home, you're exposed to it all the time, but you've got this immunity to handle it. People who live in some of the places we work, like in the Congo, They can drink the water and not get sick. You come and you're sick, terribly sick the first day. You don't have an immunity to that. For example, we saw people in Eastern Europe. They resisted communist persecution for decades. They had a built-in and developed immunity against atheist indoctrination, communist persecution threats. But suddenly, freedom arrives or they go to the West and before you know it, they fall for temptation. They had no immunity to handle the worldliness and the seduction of the West. We might be able to handle that, but we don't have a natural immunity to handle the violent persecution that they endured. And so you see people in different parts of the world, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically, have different levels of immunity. But, for example, we can take control of the thoughts of our minds. Do you know that you can literally, and you learn this from Dr. Caroline Leith, who has spoken on, and she's written books on, who switched off our brain and how to turn on our brain, and that, you know, you can literally delete thoughts and ways of thinking from your mind. You can consciously say, that's a lie, That's nonsense, I refuse to believe it, and you can basically remove it from the forefront of your mind. You can decide that's not even worth remembering, and it can be after a while completely forgotten. There's other things you obsess over, and I mustn't forget this, that can be in your mind for Decades to come. So you can take control of your thoughts. Some people say they can't, but you can. Martin Luther said, you cannot stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can stop them from making a nest in your head. And so, yes, I can't stop a bad thought passing my mind, or temptation, but I can Stop it from being entertained, welcomed, sitting down having tea with it. You don't have to invite every vagabond and criminal coming down the street into your home. In the same way, you don't need to invite every deception into your life to actually give it a part. God has placed a hedge of protection around his children. Physically, our skin is part of our body's immune system. I mean, if you think of the things that our hands have touched and come in contact with, but you can wash it. And as long as you don't have a cut that bacteria won't enter into your body. But when a wound breaks the integrity of the skin, bacteria can enter and cause infection. That's why when there's a cut, it's so important that you have antiseptic cream, antibiotic cream perhaps, bandage, plasters, whatever. I remember when I came off my motorbike at the battlefront in Sudan, 1996, I was only wearing a half jacket and short sleeve. I wasn't wearing... I've come off my bike in... South Africa, even on tar droids, and stood up and walked away with barely more than a bruise or gash because I had a leather jacket, long trousers, boots, gloves, helmet, and so on. But in Sudan, because it was so hot, I was going along with just gloves, helmet, long trousers, but nothing to protect my arm. You can still see the horrible scars on my elbow. As my left elbow hit the ground and the amount of dirt and rubble and junk, you could see the bone there was so much cleaning out of the wound every day to get out for the next couple of weeks to get all the dirt and grime and grits and gravel out of there and to prevent infection. In fact, when the doctor examined me when I got back South, he was astounded that I didn't have serious infection and that it should have been pussy sore. But I had a very dedicated nurse with me who cleaned that out. The point was my wound made a way for infection to enter the mainstream of the body. Bacteria can enter and cause infection, disease, and in the case of tetanus, death. In the same way, demons will try to cause a break in our mental and spiritual walls of immunity against them. So just like your body's got the skin, and then it's even got layers and layers of millions of positive bacteria there to protect you against the negative bacteria from the outside. So God has built us with basic mental, spiritual immunities. You have to violate God's laws. or someone needs to cause a wound in you in order to get past that wound. So for example, once a demon succeeds in making a gap or an opening or a wound, they will enter in and establish a foothold or stronghold. They'll attempt to attain a stronghold and ultimately a stranglehold. So this isn't always your fault. For example, you may not be a drunken driver who caused an accident. You might be the victim of a drunken driver. will still injure you. And from that injury, all kinds of negative things can come, including infections, festering wounds, and so on. If a wound is not swiftly and effectively treated, it can become a way for evil spirits to enter and bring bondage in a person's life. So a person has gone through a traumatic experience. It may be through no fault of his own, but he could become a victim of demonic bondage without realizing it, if they're not careful. So for example, You might cause problems in your life. You may go and worship in a Hindu temple. You may go to a Clairvoyant. You might go and play glassy-glassy. You might be involved in any kind of things and welcome the demons in and give foothold to them. But someone else might attack you, mug you. You might suffer horrible betrayal, divorce. Somebody backstabs you horribly and now you're wounded. And this wound can make a way. for resentment, bitterness and other things to build, which gives place to the devil. So sometimes it is not open. What demons cannot obtain by force, they attempt to gain by fraud. So by storm or by stealth. It's not always the same way. So these are the two ways in which the enemy seeks entrance to your life. He either storms it in, or he does it by stealth. For example, It's like with our physical bodies. Some bacteria can enter through the trauma of a vehicle accident. You end up on a tard road, as I have. You can be very grateful if you're wearing a leather jacket and leather gloves that you don't get that gravel scraping open your skin, enabling all kinds of... I'm horrified when I see people riding motorbikes with shorts, slip-slops, no gloves, no helmet. You think, are you out of your mind? You can have bacteria enter your body through an assault with a knife. Others can enter by stealth. For example, when you unknowingly drink contaminated water. Some of the sickest I've ever been has been from drinking unfiltered, unpurified water in a field like Sudan, Congo, Nigeria. I remember times when a person's given me a glass of water and I thought for a moment, has this water been purified? Has this been boiled? Has this been filtered? And, but I don't want to offend anyone by asking and I didn't have chlorine tablets to slip in and I drank it and I had the next few days opportunity to repent at leisure over not having checked or... Sometimes you're given, and that can make you ill, sick as a dog, you want to die. So, it can enter by stealth. You may think, I believe this is purified water. Well, that's not going to change the fact of whether it is or not. Watchman E taught, for each and everything God has created, there is a law. What you sow is what you reap. All actions are governed by laws. Hence, evil spirits can operate according to definite laws. Certain causes produce certain effects. Violating the law of gravity will cause you to fall. It's not just a suggestion. Gravity is not just a good idea. Gravity is the law. You violate the law of gravity, you will die. You drop off a table mountain. I remember the first time I took my wife up a table mountain, she said, But there's no barriers. People could just fall off the mountain. Well, yes, this isn't America. We don't have a risk-free environment. There aren't barriers around the whole of Table Mountain's edges. Yes, you could just walk off the edge. And Blind said the same. Out here in Africa, we don't think we've got to protect people from stupidity. I mean, the Darwin Award. People can knock themselves out of natural selection by just sheer stupidity. Putting your hand in a fire will result in you being burned. Cause and effect. What you sow is what you reap. The principles by which demons can successfully break through the hedge of protection that God has placed around us and weaken our spiritual immunity, gaining ground for the devil and bring us into bondage includes these different methods, these different principles. permission by the victim. You may give the devil permission. For example, when you decide, I'm going to do transcendental meditation, I'm going to open myself up, I'm just going to clear your mind of everything. Why would you want to clear your mind? Passivity is the biggest cause of people coming under demonic possession. To empty your mind, to open your mind, why would you do that? We need to take every thought captive to obey Christ. We don't make ourselves just passive. There's parental bondage. Remember there are times that the parents could have been involved in Freemasonry, occultism, witchcraft, and that can affect the child. For example, The nurse of Muhammad, and Muhammad's mother died when he was about two, so Muhammad was brought up by this nurse mostly. She said that the mother of Muhammad had used the evil eye, occultic methods, to heal the baby when he was sick. And the nurse said that when she came to look after this child, he was already demon possessed. And there's testimonies which you get in the Hadith. Stories about that that mom would go into these uncontrollable fits, foaming at the mouth and writhing on the ground and the demonic possession symptoms were there from him very early, from the time his mother used occult methods and the evil eye to heal him. And that often happens. Kurt Cocker said that when people seek spiritual healing from occultic methods, then the sickness goes out of the body and into the soul. And you see people who've been demonically healed. They might be physically healed. But there's all kinds of other problems that come in with it. A lot worse. And then there's paranormal activity, like witchcraft, Ouija boards, and so on. Now, Reverend Greg Donation, who is one of the top demonologists, not just in our country, but in the world, he said, nobody can make me do something that I don't want to do. If something is not in my heart, the devil will not be able to make me do it. So this business of the devil made me do it is a lie. The devil can tempt you, he can coax you, cajole. He knows how to hit your trigger switches. But the fact is, if it's not in my heart, if I don't want to do it, it won't be done. It's not like you can be forced to do something that's against your conscience. It's that we justify it to make it possible. So it's not the devil made me do it. By involvement in occultism, or idolatry, or stubbornness, remember, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. And pride is the national religion of hell. The middle letter of pride is I. We can give permission to demonic forces to gain a foothold in our life. We can also give permission unconsciously through deception. For example, people go forward at these forgive me for using the word so loosely, but inverted commas, churches, where they ask them to come forward and clear your mind and open your mind and, you know, and they try and encourage you, push you or pull you back or whatever, to fall down under the power and all sorts of manifestations or now and again of the laughing spirits and I've seen people crawling on the ground, and hissing like snakes, and writhing like snakes, and clucking like chickens, and barking like dogs in churches, and many people think this is spiritual. I've seen people waving around disruptively in the service. I've asked the people, what's going on? No, she's under the influence of a spirit. Yeah, well, it's not the Holy Spirit. And yet, there is this passive acceptance of anything supernatural, assuming, well, it's got to be of God. Not so. Most things that happen spiritually are idolatrous and anti-God and unbiblical. So people who've allowed themselves to be pushed over backwards and lie under the power of whatever and laughing and... This is not a biblical thing. This is opening ourselves up to demonic possession. By accepting emotions or deception suggested by evil spirits, we can come into spiritual bondage. You see, There's no such thing as a harmless lie. Lies always bring bondage. That's why the truth sets us free. We can come under spiritual bondage by accepting a mode. Like, you take these people who get whipped up into hate. They have the two-minute hate and the hate weeks up at UCT and so on. And, you know, we're all going to direct the hate against the statue or monument or against the whites or the colonials or whatever it is, Cecil Rhodes, Jan van Riebeeck. But when you allow yourself to be whipped up into hate, You're just giving permission, come and build a stronghold in my life. And deceptions as well, if you want to believe whether it's false religions, false doctrines, that brings bondage. That is why we're commanded in 2 Corinthians 10 verse 5, capture every thought, make it obedient to Christ. Passivity gives permission for evil spirits to work in our lives. The chief condition for the work of an evil spirit in a human being, apart from sin, is passivity. Passivity is the law, suggestion is the tool that the devil uses. That's why television is probably one of the great means of getting people open for occultic and evil spirits. We are commanded to do anything but be passive. The Bible is full of commands to watch. Resist. Fight the good fight of faith. Obey the scriptures. Work while it's still day. Trust in the Lord to test all things to see if these things are of God or not. The scriptures teach us that a person is cursed when they are lazy or slack or passive or Cursed is he who is lax in the Lord's Word. Cursed is he who keeps a sword from bloodshed, says Jeremiah 48 verse 10. And so these people who think it's funny or spiritual to be stupid and roll around and laugh and make idiots of themselves and lie on the floor in a so-called worship service, they are just opening themselves up to demonic possession. Now, I've spoken to the people who do this. And they explain, when a person is slain in the spirit, when they fall backwards and so on, what this is doing is it's like when God's putting them on the operating table and they need to be under anaesthetics. Like, okay, well, where's the fruit? Because when When Saul, the persecutor of the church, was struck off his horse and struck blind by God, what happened? He went to the city, he was baptized, he learned the scriptures, he had a life of dedicated sacrificial service to the Lord, and we can see the fruit. Now, these people claim that they've been put on God's operating table under anaesthetic and had a deep operation. Okay, so where's the changed life? Where's the glory to God? Where's the holy, dedicated, zealous evangelist and prayer warrior coming out of this? Many of these people are as backslidden, if not worse, afterwards than they were before. So where's the fruit? If they really had a touch from, just a touch from Jesus, forget about on his operating table under anaesthetic for a deep surgical, major surgery, would we not see some change for good? Nope. Normally they're just as addicted, just as backslidden, just as worldly afterwards, if not worse. Passivity gives place to the devil. Passivity is sin. Why sit you here idle, the Lord says in one of his parables. Or take even, when people can pretend that they do something spiritual, like praying. In the book of Joshua, we read of the defeated Aaron, Acts 7, in Joshua 7, the Lord says to Joshua, what are you doing lying down there on your face? Get up, there's sin in the camp. Now, Heco said, well, I'm doing something spiritual, I'm praying. There's a time to pray, and there's a time to act. And many people use, I've got to pray about it, as an excuse for disobedience and inactivity. Just like, do you want to join us for prayer life outreach? Do you want to join us for this activity or another? I need to pray about it. Yeah, that's actually blasphemy, because they are pretending to be spiritual, and it's just this sheer laziness and passivity, but finding a spiritual excuse. In the Ten Commands God declares, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before you. You shall not make yourself an idol. The Lord reveals he is a jealous God who will punish the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate him. Now this passage in Exodus 20 might have disturbed all of us at some stage. But the Bible makes it clear in Ezekiel 18.20, children are not held responsible or reckoned guilty for the sins of their parents. But they do suffer the consequences of parental sin. If a parent goes out and gambles everything and even gambles away the house, mortgage, and the family loses their home, they may not be personally guilty, but they suffer the consequence of the father's stupidity, wickedness, drunkenness, vice, evil, or whatever it may be. There's consequences. The principle is seen in the physical realm. For example, a child born with a disease transmitted by the parents. A parent can have AIDS, and the child gets that. If the child's not guilty of anything, they're an innocent victim, but they're still suffering the consequences. Dr. Albie van Heerden of Doctors for Life was telling us at a minister's conference that they have discovered this truth in DNA, that if a father of a child who never even lived in the same home with the child, but if the father of the child smoked cigarettes, it will damage the DNA of the child to the third generation. We're not talking about them being in a household where they would have got the smoke sick then, but even if the mother didn't smoke and so on, but the DNA that they can see in the laboratory that a child will suffer the effects of unhealthy things done by parents. So whatever the parents have been doing, whether it's drugs or... I remember doing ministry in the streets of Hillborough back in 1981, and what did I know back in 1981? I was a very new Christian. I came across this young woman full of anger and cursing against God because her child had been born deformed. How could God allow this? And within the same hour of trying to counsel and make some sense of this, it came out she is mainlining LSD while pregnant. Well, I mean, gee, a man's own wickedness ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord. How often do we not blame God for what we are directly, personally responsible for? It's also seen in the psychological realm and the spiritual realm. Darkness and deception in the ancestral line has the potential for bringing about familial bondage. You get many, many Christians, you wonder, what is the problem? Why can't they grow? Why don't they respond? Why is there not But then the parents were involved in witchcraft, or clairvoyance. The parents were involved in deep demonic bondage. They were involved in the Freemasonry secret cult, which was actually pretty much satanic worship when you get to the higher levels. And then, yes, this does affect the children and the grandchildren. George Macdonald wrote, I will assert that it is an honour for us to have the sins of our fathers laid upon us. For thus it is given into our pouch, but has stopped them, so that they shall descend no further. Make no mistake, a familial bondage can be broken. Take for example Mary Slessor. Her father was an abusive drunk who beat her and her mother. Abusive, abusive father. And yet Mary Slessor, who had to go to work, at age 10 half-time and age 12 full-time to care for the family, because the father was not. She ended up being the great missionary to Nigeria who ended widow burning, ended the slave trade in large parts of eastern Nigeria. There's a phenomenal amount of work. So yes, there's a curse upon her and upon her family because of her father's sin, but because the grace of God it could be broken. And this is the thing, the devil can make chains for generations, centuries and millenniums. and the Word of God can come and smash those chains in an instant so that the curse goes no further. So, yes, there are consequences. For example, my father was in his words an agnostic and he told me how he went to Clairvoyance in order to make contact with his mother when his mother died. He wanted to speak to his mother's spirit and so he's going through Clairvoyance and we had in the house masks that we'd bought from the side of the road of witch doctors in Rhodesia and I remember Dad going even to the witch doctor for him to tell his fortunes on. I remember standing outside this village on the way to Worldview in Metopos and on the way to Rhodes' grave. And there was this witch doctor in a mud hut thing on the side of the road in Mudderby land, offering to tell people's fortunes. And my dad stopped the car, he went in, and he did it maybe for a joke, and he came out and said, you know, he knew things that he couldn't have known. I did for a laugh, but you know, this is real. He really has power. This came back to my mind when I was converted a few months and I was now working in Hospital Christian Fellowship and they were dealing with these sort of things and I brought this out and I thought, you know, you need to renounce this. I mean, there's some familial bondage, your parents involved in occult, it's a serious thing. And I brought it out and there was prayer for another Christian and there was, I saw a massive change. It was like A backpack of rocks had been taken off and the ball and chain around my ankle was gone and there was so much more freedom afterwards. There is bondage. but we don't need to be fatalists like the muslims say, inshallah it's the will of Allah, there's nothing I can do about it. No, Christianity continually tells us that we can know the truth and the truth can set us free and there is no reason for us to continue in bondage no matter how we've got people who used to be satanists who are now serving Christ. I mean there's books out like set free to serve Christ there are people whose parents were the mother of the ones who trained witch doctors who now are on fire for Christ and some of the first people converted in the revival of Crescent Mountain were people who were not just witch doctors but those who trained witch doctors. We know Satanists and many others have been converted so there's no chain that Christ cannot break. The fourth principle by which evil spirits work is through witchcraft or occultism. The law of God forbids us to give attention to mediums and familial spirits. Do not seek of them to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. When you come into land that the Lord your God has given you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. Now here you've got a picture of England. at Stonehenge, which probably was used for human sacrifice in the past, and you've got this great revival in our lifetime of Wicca and paganism and even straight Satanism in what used to be civilized countries like England. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or is a soothsayer. Or one who interprets omens? Or a sorcerer? Or one who conjures spells? Or a medium? Or a spiritist? Or one who calls up the dead? I mean, he's covering all the bases here, is he not? For all who do these things are abominations to the Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord your God drives them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations which you will dispossess, listen to soothsayers and diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you. Deuteronomy 18 should be read, reread, and studied. Because this explains why Nations like the Mayan civilization that didn't have the wheel or written language, that built these pyramids in what today is Central America, and had people march up the top roof, they're beating hearts out to make the sunrise tomorrow. They were so wicked. that they were handed over. That's why the Spanish were able to conquer them. God drove them out. And people forget the fact that the nations in Africa that were dispossessed by colonial powers, they were into witchcraft, Satanism, into cannibalism, human sacrifices. So, yes, God can drive out any nation. He can give nations to every nation. But the trouble is when those European nations who came and brought the gospel, when they turned away from God and they turned to atheism and to paganism and body piercing and all these evils, next thing they could be driven out too. And now Britain, which sent out missionaries to the world, now is itself being paganized and is losing its own country. Why? They've turned away from God. This works any and every way. Any nation that turns to paganism will find it's going to lose its country, and others will come and take it. That's just, it's the law, it's the way it works. God has not appointed these sort of soothsayers for us. We want to go to soothsayers and clairvoyants and paganism and witchcraft, just think in Cape Town. We've got a mayor, small m, inverted commas, Dillow, who saw the benefit of asking for an interfaith rain ceremony on the slopes of Table Mountain when we were in a drought. That's a good way to prolong a drought, aggravate God. You know, there's everything from witch doctors and clairvoyants and, oh my goodness me, and someone there with rhino, with the corkscrew kudu horns and wearing porcupine crawls. It looked like a joke. You can't make this sort of thing up. It's like a comedy show, and yet they will do this openly. 1994, what did Mandela do for the inauguration of his presidency? Had a witch doctor acting as a prayer singer, had a Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Rabbi, Buddhist and so on there, plus some fake so-called Christian dressed up in a bishop's outfit to represent the Christians apparently. And he abolishes prayer in Parliament. What is that asking for? Well, that same month we got hit with the worst storm in living memory in the Cape, which led to our first penguin rescue crisis back in 1994, in May. The main methods which demons use to bring people into bondage are darkness and deception. Darkness, sin and deception lies. Sin and lies. Darkness and deception. He also uses doubt. Think how this works with Adam and Eve. Did God really say? Doubt about God's Word. Discouragement. Difficulty. Desire. Eve looked and she saw that it looked pleasant to eat. It was good to look at and pleasant to eat. Disobedience. God made a clear command. Don't eat of this tree. disunity, disease, and death. These are some of the demonic D's. And these demonic D's can be seen in the downfall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 3, Satan comes with doubts to Eve's mind, then desire in her heart, and deception about what God's Word says, and disobedience to God's clear command. This results in darkness, followed by difficulty, Thorns, pain, sweat, disease, death, depression, discouragement, disunity, Cain killing Abel, his own brother, departure from God and man, death, not just for Cain but for all people, both spiritually and physically. Adam and Eve were deceived into darkness by doubting in the mind, desiring with the heart and disobeying with all body, mind and spirit. It starts normally in the mind, it goes on to the heart and it ends up in the hands and the feet and the life through the will. All sin is darkness. Persistent sin gives ground to demons and brings bondage. You can see that. It's so hard to give up the smoking, or the drinking, or the gambling. And often it just doesn't make sense. The person knows it's bad, knows it's unhealthy, knows it's destructive, knows it's bankrupting the family, and they still do it. I mean, we know a family where the husband's got a gambling addiction, serious addiction. He has bankrupted his family so many times, he's been bailed out by family members so many times. And he goes right back and he does it again, even though he knows. Gambling is a tax on people who can't do maths. This person, by the way, is an accountant. So he should be able to do the maths. He knows the house always wins, and he keeps going in gambles, and he bankrupts his family and himself time and again, until his family has now said, we're not bailing out anymore. We've had enough. Now, this is just an example of how there's a bondage. If you've ever read some of the Jungle Doctor series, the Jungle Doctor series speaks about these naughty monkeys challenging the hippo, can you break the A reed? Well, of course you can. What about 5? No problem. What about 15? 20? No problem. But at a certain point they find the magic number there. It's just a reed, but hundreds of times, the next thing he falls over and he's helpless and they run away laughing. Well, that's a thing. Yeah, you can do a thing once or twice and break the habit, but you know, Even a thin little string, wrapped around thousands of times, you might as well have chains. It's going to be very hard to break that. Sin is the greatest enemy which we have in the world and it does us more harm than the devil himself. For it betrays us to the devil and under the pretence of favoring and pleasing our nature, it betrays us. Sins kisses kill. Sin lusts. fights, wars, captivates the soul. Sin is madness, selfishness, lawlessness, missing God's mark and self-centeredness. In Galatians 5.19-21 the Works of the flesh are listed. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Of which I told you beforehand, just as I also told you in times past, those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. So, at this point, let me stop for questions, answers, discussion. Any questions or comments so far? We're laying foundations for understanding demonology. Questions? Comments? Complaints? Criticisms? Would that family bonds to Jewish craft or whatever, how does one, I mean, does one just break it through prayer or how do you do it, Patrick? Do you know someone who's got something? Yes. I mean, I know that my grandfather was a Freemason, so now I don't have But my brother is not a Christian. The family are into new age and all kinds of things. What can I do about that, other than pray for them? I mean, I witness to them, but I mean, they reject the... they think their new age is better than Christmas, and all that kind of stuff. Now, isn't there... I'm just wondering if it goes back to this Freemason thing somewhere, or... Undoubtedly, yes. Of course, that's the whole theme of all the rest of the presentations is how to reclaim the ground. My people are just droid for lack of knowledge. There's an information component, there's an intercession component, there's an involvement and action component. Yes, we'll be going through step by step. how to get people free. There is elements of spiritual warfare on our knees and prayer and then the information, the counselling and then reclaiming the surrendered ground, for sure. Yes, Daniel. that inside church environments, certain activities or frequencies are still allowed or allowed to flourish. It's actually seen as, for one, you don't speak about not allowing something, because everything must be allowed. That looks great. And just I found that even sitting once in a few, Yes, thank you for bringing that up. The point is we're living in an age of tolerance and it seems that the greatest sin is intolerance and tolerance without any regard to whether what you're tolerating is good or bad. Tolerance is the last virtue of a dying society and a dying church. So a church where you've got to accept anything and just be tolerant of anything and there's no discernment, no discretion and no clear speaking against these things. So we've got a number of literature that's been put here to help, like the hard words of Jesus. Boy, did Jesus speak hard. He wasn't tolerant about sin and hypocrisy and things like that. Spiritual diseases, I mean there's a lot of that in our church. The reclaiming surrendered ground is probably one of the most practical, helpful here in terms of step-by-steps. Looking at some of the tools that Satan used like Halloween, Marxism, the heart and soul of Karl Marx. Body piercing, that's a big one, we'll go to more. Drugs and pornography, which is a huge one. Glamorizing idols, like Che Guevara is just one example. So we've got these leaflets here, and it tracks the Gospel booklet, 50 page booklet, Satan versus Christ. available in different languages from World Missionary Press. That is absolutely vital. It's the tract I prefer to use the most when I'm doing evangelism in almost any rural area, but increasingly more in the cities too, because it tackles the demons, what's the scriptures about Satan, many of these top verses. We love Scripture Gift Mission and World Missionary Press because it's all scripture. in his booklets, and that's powerful. So do help yourself some of those. By the way, my notes for what I'm giving today is also on the table there, titled Spiritual Warfare. If you want to follow along with the rest, you're welcome to take that. Yes? I would like to go back to the place where some Christian pray over another Christian and it falls over. I would like you to go a bit deeper into that. Did you say that when somebody falls over, they're being prayed for, is there a certain Yes this falling over business is deeply disturbing because first of all in the scriptures we don't see the Apostles or anyone practicing come forward let's pray for you have you fall over and so on. Next thing is when you read about somebody falling over in the scriptures falling backwards It's judgment. Like you can see Eli falling backwards after he had been warned by Samuel about the word from God. You get when Jesus in the garden identified I am he and the soldiers who came to arrest him staggered backwards. And falling backwards is always a judgment. Slaying the spirit, yes, that's like Annihilation of Spira. Slain, dead, judged in the spirit. Falling forwards is an act of worship. So you see how people fell on their faces before God to worship Him. So scripturally, this falling backwards is never seen in a worship sense, but in a judgment sense. Whereas going forward on your face and lying face down, bowing forwards, that is seen as worship. But again, this idea of making it like a new sacrament in the church. Like in the past you came forward for baptism or for the Lord's Supper, now you come forward to have somebody lay hands on you. Sometimes, let's face it, it's just manipulation. The guy's from behind are pulling and the person in front is pushing or even smacking the guy on the forehead. And other times it's mental suggestion or almost hypnotic or crowd control or putting in people's minds expectation. So it's not always even something spiritual at all. It's not always demonic, but sometimes it's demonic. I mean you get these people walking around throwing their jackets at them and you can see sometimes it's like there's a real power has knocked them over. Many times, most times, I think it's just sheer manipulative nonsense by someone who's got some crowd control techniques, group sort of psychosis. You give them expectation. But whether it is done through manipulative charlatans or well-meaning people who are just gullible and they didn't realize this isn't that biblical, or if it's absolutely demonic, in all cases it's dangerous. Because the person's opening themselves up and opening yourself up, you know, An open mind, an open heart, an open anything can receive any kind of bacteria and garbage that's out there. So I do believe that many people who've gone forward have got some kind of demonic at least toehold or foothold they've given. So would you say when that does happen we need to pick that person up and play golf with? Yes, certainly we shouldn't be encouraging it. What we should be encouraging people is not to do external things for people to see, but to be going into their inner room to study the Word of God, to pray. As Jesus commanded us to work through the Scriptures, these people, I want a word from the Lord, or I want to touch the Lord. Well, have you read the whole Bible? Have you been studying the Bible? Let's get first things first. I had a pastor put it to me, he said most of my pastoral counselling could be put into this category. I have a problem. How can you help me to solve this problem without me needing to repent of my sins or obey the Bible? Now I won't put it that clear, but that's what it comes down to. Because if a person comes to you saying, I've got a problem. What does the Bible say about it? You tell them what the Bible says, thank you, he goes out and does it. How simple is that? You stole something, do restitution. You've got a problem with someone, you make right. Scriptural counselling is not very complicated. What makes it complicated is our desire to justify ourselves and to seek some kind of rubber stamp for what I've already decided on in my rebellion. And so a lot of psychology is there to try and make you feel good about yourself even while you're actually doing the wrong thing. Yes. Yes, I've read some of his books, very helpful. He's putting a lot of scriptural principles and a lot of common sense, practical, important, workable steps of reclaiming surrendered ground, recognizing the dangers. Yes, I mean that's one of the same balanced, helpful sources of teachings on this subject. Yes. Q. Sir, I just would like to work on your idea of passivity and people actually not paying attention to what they do. For instance, if I start repeating the Lord's Prayer, and I just completely repeat and repeat and repeat, what I'm hinting at is somebody like Mary Eddie Baker, who started Christian Science. And she claimed to have a healing through that, but I believe that she opened herself to demonic forces. I'm sure, indeed. No, definitely. Sorry, I'm just trying to see, where were we? That was very well done, Elliot. Yes. Mary Becker Eddy and Christian science, that's an example of a misnomer. It's not Christian and it's not science. Like new apostolic reformation. It's not new, there's nothing apostolic about it, there's no reformation. So a lot of terms, you know, like to talk about freedom fighters. They don't fight and there's no freedom. There's a lot of oxymorons out there, yes. But it's super dangerous for us to just repeat things or think there's power in words. This business of speaking into existence. Only God can speak into existence. God's word of power. And so when people stand up and say, God's words in my mouth has as much power as God's words in his mouth. How on earth can anybody be so egocentric and stupid as to make comments like that? No, nothing is more powerful than God. And we don't know enough to apply God's words wisely. It's like me saying, a violin in my hand is as effective as a violin in the hands of a master violinist. Or a sniper's rifle in my hands is as good as a sniper's rifle in the hands of the world's top marksman. A surgeon's scalpel in my hands is as good as a surgeon's scalpel in someone else's. You know, really and truly, how can God's words in my mouth be as effective as God's words in his mouth? I don't know enough to know how to apply it well. Yes, the word of God's got inherent power, but God himself, who's all-knowing, when he applies the word, it's perfect. I doubtless misapply God's word and fail to understand the full implications of God's words, no matter how well I've studied. None of us can dare to put ourselves on the same level as God. And yet you get this endless... You've seen, I'm sure, some of the call for discernment videos of these arrogant people strutting up and down, claiming, you know, I don't just have God in my life, I am a God. And, you know, these... Oh my! And these people are meant to be Christians. This is like breaking the first and second command blatantly. Good. It's time for tea, juice, water. And yes, one more question before we break. What would you say is the best way to understand this scripture from 1 Samuel 18.10? It says that the next day an evil spirit of God appears forcefully upon Saul. Right, an evil spirit from God. Sometimes God judges people with an evil spirit. Just like we read that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, although we also read that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. I mean, both are true. The same sun that will melt the wax will harden the clay. It's the substance that determines whether it's melted or whether it's hardened. God's Word can bring joy and faith to so many people and it can bring anger and bitterness and resentment and a real rebellious spirit with others. And yet, I mean, just imagine, you know there's times when you've heard the same thing or you hear this hymn and you just, your heart's lifted up and other people are just, antagonized by it, and so yes, God can send an evil spirit as judgment upon a person. Because people loved the lie and did not love the truth, God sent upon them a strong delusion to believe and to do what ought not to be done. So Romans 1 tells us that too, that there is a judgment upon people who willfully reject the truth. There is a term which We don't like the word gods, but the gods want to destroy the first, make mad. There's that term, it's a Greek proverb. But in a sense, the biggest judgment God can give upon us is to abandon us to our desires and evils and deceptions. And you can see that for some. And that's why the world's getting so foolish and stupid and hypocritical and double-standard, that you can see in a place like Canada, it's illegal to speak out against homosexuality. You can lose your job, your position in university, you can be kicked out of school, you can end up in jail for saying something as obvious as, well, I think marriage can only be between a man and a woman. And yet, a person who's committed terrorism against Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan can be welcomed back and given not just citizenship, but all kinds of benefits, more than that if you're a soldier, a veteran who's coming back. It's just insane, but they think it all makes sense. Trudeau, the so-called Prime Minister of Canada, said, the worst thing about Canada is the Christians. Now, it's such a stupid comment, but you can look at him and see a strong delusion has been sent upon him. He is so wicked that God's handed him over to, you know, go the full, let me give you enough rope for you to hang yourself, basically. But the worst thing God can do is to just leave us and not rebuke us, correct us. Just, you want to rebel, just go all the way. See where it's going to take you. And I think that's the kind of strong delusion that God can send upon a people.