The Idols Have Devils

Many years ago while I was still in the Catholic church, I experienced a demonic expression in our home. Rodger's mother had a picture of "the sacred heart of Jesus", as the Catholic's called it.

Basically it is a picture of a man with long hair depicting Christ, with his heart displayed on the outside of his body. My mother in law gave me that picture to have in my home, telling me it would protect me from evil. Just the opposite turned out to be the case.

I placed the picture on the wall in the hallway. I began to feel strange around that picture as though it were alive. One day as I walked past the picture, the head of the man turned and laughed at me. I became hysterical with fear, praying to God to protect me. Then I called my father to please come and take the picture away, I didn't want to touch it or go near it. My father was not particularly spiritual and acted as though I was having a break down.

I fell to my knees after that incident and asked the Lord to forgive me of my sins and to save me. I had made a profession of faith at 12 years old, but had not lived for the Lord and had no encouragement in the home to read the Word or seek Him about anything. Going to church was more of a ritual than it was about righteousness and holiness.

It wasn't until years later my husband told me that his father had the same experience with that picture, laughing at him, which was the reason his mother was getting rid of it, but no one told me.

Some of these artifacts that Catholics worship have demons attached to them. God used that terrible experience to show me my sin and my need to turn to Him.

Shortly after that I began to question everything I had learned from the Catholic church, it all began to look dirty and ugly to me. I am convinced that the experience with that demon was God allowing me to see pure evil, frightening me back to Christ. If I was saved at 12, the need to be obedient to His Word was being neglected. I was not reading His Word, until now I thought I wouldn't be able to understand it. I then began to read the Word, seek the Holy Spirit and have been growing ever since. Not only could I understand it, I now had the drivenness to seek every tidbit of wisdom God could give me.

I write about these things to warn believers that we are living in a time when the demons are very active, they know their time is short, that in these last days they will be attempting to ruin the lives of as many people as they can through their lies and tactics.

Also, the warning is that many people who say they believe the Bible, will not believe that demons are active today. With the increasing wickedness of our times, the mocking and rebellion against God in every way possible, we are going to see things that we never before saw, violence becoming more intense and vile. More people will act wickedly, more people will have no conscience and more people will be lacking natural affection, empathy and kindness. As God says in His Word, "they will have a form of religion but deny the power thereof."

2 Timothy 3 tells us all about it. The father of lies is whispering in the ears of false believers, making them think they have a reason to hate those that walk with Christ.

2 Timothy 3:1-8
"3 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,
4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses,
7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith.
9 But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also."

These wicked people mentioned in 2 Timothy will not be operating merely in human sinfulness, they will be controlled by the devil, the reason their hatred, contempt and activities are so deeply depraved and foul, as well as completely irrational.

We are living in these last days right now, make no mistake, the things you see in the actions and attitudes of people are real, they are not normal, they are not natural human responses, they are without a doubt, demonic.

1 Timothy 4:1
"4 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;"

The good news is that we do not have to be overcome by the wiles of the devil. We can walk in victory over sin through Christ our Lord Who lives in us. We can learn the effectiveness of prayer and obedience that protects us from the devil's ploys. Hallelujah!

2 Peter 1:3-11 3"According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

Christ Knows Better Than We

When you don't know how to pray, never fear, God takes care of that:

Romans 8:25-27 "…25 But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it patiently.
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words.
27 And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.…"

Ask the Holy Spirit!

There is no excuse for believers to be unaware of what is needed, when we have the Spirit of the Creator of the universe living in us.

James 1:4-6 "…4 Allow perseverance to finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith, without doubting, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.…"

You Think You Know Better Than God?

Incredible arrogance to think we can know better than God and that He can "get it wrong." These people are placing themselves above God, thinking that He should do their bidding. Instead of realizing their own flaws, they assign flaws to God. Typical projection of narcissists is to blame others for their own sin and bad attitudes.

Joe Barruso

"I'M SO ANGRY AT GOD!" IS SATAN'S WORK!

I hear this all too often from people who feel they've been wronged by God for ignoring their prayers. This is the unfortunate and inevitable consequence of the false teachings of the Christian religion. It's become a very common practice that when a trial arises in a Christian person's life they respond to it by praying to God to fix it for them. And then when things don't go the way they would like they become angry with God for not hearing their prayers. They actually feel entitled to having their prayers heard based on what they've been taught at church. And what's been taught is if you simply say: "I believe," get baptized and show up for church each Sunday along with tithing the Lord will answer all your prayers. But instead their prayers are unanswered and they are left feeling disillusioned and angry toward God. This is Satan's work! To separate sinners from their Savior! Religion and it's false teachings serve mankind, not God. You would do well to see this truth and pay closer attention to EXACTLY what's written in your Bible rather than what you're hearing in church on Sunday. And to NEVER make the mistake of taking out your anger and disillusionment on God. You can trust He is doing everything He can to save you from yourself!

Self Reliance Doesn't Work

Self reliance only appears to work and only temporarily.

Sadly there are those who depend on "self reliance" to get them through life.

When we are reliant on Christ, we can speak the truth, live in transparency while the victory comes through Christ.

John 16:33 "33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”"

The Lord Prevailed, Hallelujah

Update on Rodger, after the casting away of the demons, he is on the mend. He feels a little tired and weak but the temperature is gone, the lymph nodes have diminished to almost no swelling, there were no night sweats last night and he was out watering plants in the yard this morning.

Praise the Lord for His mercy and protection. His recovery began immediately after the prayers against demonic activity and the next morning we saw a dramatic difference in him.

I cannot praise the Lord enough, it has been a long three weeks, God prevailed. Hallelujah!!!!

Psalm 34:19
“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.”

Evan a White Lie Keeps One Out of Heaven

Did you know that a little white lie can send one to hell as well as murder or adultery.

Many who hold past forgiven sins against fellow believers, misunderstand that their attitudes of superiority is as big a sin as all those other sins they do not commit.

Isaiah 59:1-4 "1 Behold, the LORD'S hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear.
2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken falsehood, Your tongue mutters wickedness.…"

It is sinfulness in our spirit that causes ALL demonstrations of sin in anyone. Our God cannot be in the presence of any sin at all, this is why Christ had to cover our sinfulness with His blood for us to be acceptable to the Father.

Those who are attempting to reach heaven by their own good works or lack of bad works will not reach it because of the "self righteousness" in their soul that keeps them separated from God.

Isaiah 59:1-2
"Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear."

God counts hate as murder, it is the heart condition that determines our standing with God. When we have become born again our standing changes from the lost state to the state of justification because of Christ.

One way I have heard "justification" defined is in this way; "just as if we never sinned." When Christ changed us into a new creation, our heart is changed, our desires have changed. Before we were born again we loved sin and justified it. After we became born again we hate the sin we used to love. We are completely different people, the spirit of sin in us was changed into the Spirit of God.

Those that think they can attempt to be good without a changed spirit, will not be able to sustain the goodness they seek, because it is fleshly, self righteous and flawed, based on personal aggrandizement. Without Christ and His covering, the blood, no one will be anything but lost no matter how many good works they do.

The good deeds that emerge after the born again experience are based on the righteousness of Christ and His work in us, therefore they are not temporary but eternal.

Ephesians 2:10
"10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

Ephesians 2:8-13
"8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
11 Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. "

I fear that there are many "self" righteous people who believe they are going to heaven, but have never been changed into a new creation by Christ. These people do good deeds, love themselves for their good deeds, but lack the Holy Spirit as their seal and guarantee of heaven.

Ephesians 1:13-14
"13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,
14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory."

Also, there are those who believe adamantly that they are headed for heaven at the end of their life, but will arrive only to find out they will not be allowed in, because their trust was in their own goodness instead of in the righteousness of Christ.

Matthew 7:21-23
I Never Knew You
"21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’"

Those who will be turned away from heaven did many good works, they looked wonderful to everyone around them, but they were not born again in Christ, so they will not gain entrance into heaven.

It is only trusting Christ for His payment of shed blood that anyone can become born again and guaranteed of heaven. When Christ saves us, we are saved forever. Christ continues His work in us all the rest of our life as we are being cleansed until the very end of our life.

2 Timothy 2:5-6 "5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself as a ransom for all—the testimony that was given at just the right time.…"