This is the 6th or 7th time I have written this same book. Each time God pushed on me to rewrite it, He would show me a new theme to add. As I pondered while writing this one, it became obvious that again, a new theme appeared. The old themes had by now been refined and shortened to fewer words, so it was easy to find room for the new theme,
In the past, I had head knowledge about vows we make as children, but that knowledge became revelation as I pondered while writing this book. That caused me to write a little about it in the allegory about filling our knowledge boxes. Then I added a sentence here and there through the book so readers could see the effect of those vows. Now it is time to clarify just what power those vows have, why they were made, and the results they cause in our lives.
People just do not realize how much authority we have in the spirit world. The words we speak empower either the good or evil spirits. As I said before, spirits are capable of sending feelings to people. Think back to a time when someone verbally attacked you and how it made you feel, even for days afterward. Unknowingly, they unleashed evil spirits to oppress you. Those should have bounced right off you, as they did when Jesus was insulted time and again. But if there is some uncertainty in one’s makeup, they will attach to that and you will suffer from it.
Now, let’s go back to our childhood and remember when we were brooding over how we were being treated and feeling absolutely powerless to get it stopped. When angry or shaming words came from authorities, especially parents, this gave the demons the right to enforce the feelings of the child. The hurt was sp deep, they needed some relief and the demons were right there to help them. They got them to make vows to someday show all those people that they were not insignificant, after all.
A heart vow is powerful, even if it is made by a child. That vow gave the demons the right to see that it was fulfilled, even though the child would not know that is what he was doing. You might see here, that a vow made under those conditions would be for vengeance. Soon, the vow would likely be forgotten by the child as pressure is lifted off him. But the demons would know how to secretly make that vow come true. During the course of growing up, many more various vows would be made as well.
Now, let’s consider that we live in a flesh body, one that came down from early times when Satan put his own spirit in all lineages. That means we start our life with our own spirit and the shame spirit fighting within us for control. Satan’s spirit is trying to make us a son of the devil. A child’s as yet unawakened spirit is defeated in a short time as shaming drives it into a corner of the soul.
Then when the vows are made, they point the direction in life from their hidden position. The child will lean one way or another in all his learning, according to what best pleases the flesh. Did you get that? Our flesh has the spirit of the devil in it and it makes demands to be pleased. This is what “following after the flesh” means.
Then when he gets saved, he naturally becomes humbled by the fact that the Very Creator came after him and made him feel special, the very thing he so wants deep inside. In time, he learns how to please God and that makes him feel pleased, as well. He gets filled with the Spirit and a new exciting world opens to him. For now, the vows remain dormant in the face of the humbleness in him.
But little by little, the demons begin sending feelings of pride swelling up in him with each good accomplishment. He notes this and forces the feelings back down, while letting it be known that anything good about him comes from the Lord, not him. But the demons are persistent, and will send those feelings time after time, when the host does something good. This wearies the host of having to repeat that the glory goes to God. But that is not the only thing going on to ruin humbleness.
It is hard to hear the still small voice of God. (We are not talking here of when God gives us a command, which you know comes with power.) Still small voices come more as a thought than a spoken sentence. The thought comes into your mind and you form the words yourself. Just as when you are listening to another and you get a thought of what to say next. You then wait your turn to speak, and then the words just come forth naturally.
Let’s say you are a pastor and you hear God’s still small voice tell you to feed the sheep. Now, if you have an agenda to grow your flock, you would assume that voice meant to go out and feed the poor to bring more into your flock. That has become a tradition of men, and so it would seem right. So this and other programs make the church grow, and people get saved. It looks good on the outside, but there is leaven in it to make others just like yourself, thus fulfilling the childhood vows to be seen as significant, worthy of being followed.
There is a satisfaction that comes from seeing success in your ministry. You would not know that part of that feeling was from satisfying your flesh. This is fulfilling the childhood vows to someday be seen as significant. It is unseen leaven. Meanwhile, the demons are still sending that swelling feeling of pride. And you dutifully say that all glory goes to God each time the pride feeling comes.
But notice, back when you started with God you could feel your own humbleness. Then later when you no longer felt it, you know to say the words to look and act humble, anyway. This is the insidious method of demons putting pride leaven in all you accomplish for God. This does not only happen to pastors. The same happens right down to the least of us.
Remember back where I listed the names of many demons. After a leader demon comes in a host, he will try to get as many of his cohorts to come in as well. Each of them will do its part in trying to establish itself. Each will try to get you to make vows with which they can work to guide you. Then as different circumstances come in your life, a particular demon will arise and guide you in that situation.
Let’s look at some examples of how evil spirits work with our vows and send feelings to ruin our lives. Know that they can either try to make us fulfill the vows, or they may try to make us fail to fulfill them, which would make us frustrated without knowing the reason why. Know further that these vows have put an expectation within us, even if we are not aware of it being there.
For example, if someone insults you, either a demon of self pity or anger will send you feelings to trigger your defensive reaction. This is because that insult was a threat to your having fulfilled your vows to be seen as significant.
If you were overwhelmed as a child, you may have gone into panic at not being able to control the situation, as you vowed to do. Later in life, the demons would wait for overwhelming circumstances in your life and trigger feelings of panic. This was to paralyze you from being able to solve the problems sensibly.
One may even turn to addictive substances to quiet the feelings of not having fulfilled the vows. Then when he quits the drugs, the long drawn out battle begins. The argument in the head is constant as the demons persist trying to reason why he should just take one dose, in order to get through today’s problem, then quit again, afterwards. The demons can also send feelings of craving to enforce their effort to once again entrap the host.
More often than not, depression comes from unmet expectations. We don’t even know we have put expectations in ourselves through our vows, but they are a constant force. When we sense we are not fulfilling our expectations, we can sink into depression and not know why. This can be triggered by life circumstances which show our hopes are not coming true. You may see here then, why mid-life crisis is so disturbing, when we are looking back on our lives to see why we are not happy with our accomplishments.
In our hurting times as children, we may have wished we were dead. This allows a suicide demon to accompany us through our lives. When bad circumstances arrive, they rise to the occasion and again make us want to die. They send the same feelings we felt as children, when we were brooding over our bad situations.
Quarrels between married couples can come from one not helping the other fulfill his expectations of being seen as significant. The quarrels will only be surface ones about what one is doing or not doing in the visible. Neither is likely to know what the root of the problems are the vows we made when we were young.
The spirit of lust in Christians is far more prevalent than most believe. Usually, it started in childhood when the curiosity arose about sex. If they experimented with it, that allowed the spirit of lust to enter. It would surprise most to find out how many children, even Christians, were at the very least touched sexually by their parents or other authorities. When authorities do this, it gives lust demons permission to enter them and to drive them sexually toward goals they are unaware of. Lust demons can also send feelings to enforce their powers, taking people beyond normal sexual desire.
Those examples could go on and on, encompassing all the demons and their specialties. But the thing to see here is that if the churches are not willing to go into the roots of the problems, they will never be of real help to us. Applying the law does not get the roots, but only makes us act healed until the problem arises in great power again. We may think we can handle anything that comes up, but we are unaware of just what may come along in our life, should we have as great a trial come upon us as did Job.
Let’s give an example of just how traumatic a trial could be in our lives, to see if self discipline could really win for us; Let’s take a young man who had the spirit of lust, having been deep into pornography. But then he gets saved and forsakes his old ways. He joins a church and meets and marries a young woman there. He is recognized by the leaders in the church as an upright man, and soon finds himself being promoted to leadership. He and his wife have children and are living a happy prosperous life.
In time, he begins to notice his wife has developed a little coolness towards him. But he is confident this will pass as long as he trusts God to intervene. But it doesn’t pass, and it eventually grows until they are arguing over nearly everything. Then he finds the note from a man to his wife, and it reveals to him that she has a lover. This devastates him, but he tries hard to follow God’s commands in this, to bring her back to loving him.
But the wife has her own will, and she chooses to divorce him and take the children with her into her new life. While this was devastating enough, he soon is called before the church board. They have a rule that divorced people cannot serve in leadership in the church. He is forced to resign his position. No clarifying announcement is made to the congregation, but they soon see his is no longer in leadership. Soon, gossip is spreading about why he is no longer a leader.
Some suspect that the reason for the divorce is that he had been unfaithful to his wife. The gossip gets back to him, further taking him down in a spiral to new lows. He tries hard to discipline himself to trust in God that this will soon end. But he becomes so uncomfortable at church, that he finally has no choice but to leave. Now he spends lonely nights, sitting and thinking about all that has come upon him. Depression takes him even deeper.
While all this is going on, he hears what he thinks are his own thoughts, but they are the voices of demons whispering to him that he needs to do something to fill his time, to stop the thoughts of his losses. In time, he is tempted to go back to his original love, pornography. After a time of those persistent voices, he gives in to them.
From this story, you may see that trials can come upon a believer that will not be solved by following the Law. The churches keep themselves blind to demons being a reality, so they do not get at the roots of the problems. Many sheep are lost because of this, but the churches go on blindly, looking for new sheep to take the place of the lost ones. They think to themselves that the poor fool should have known better, and should have better disciplined himself to not fall.
When you go on the Hard Path, your vows will be threatened by the circumstances God has arranged in your life. The demons behind them will trigger your emotions to defend themselves, and you will find yourself in confusion about what is going on. This is not the time to panic or run for prayer to call off the confusion. It is time to expose the “whys” of the emotions, to get at the roots of them.
It is not enough to just know that the demons and vows are there. You cannot just renounce them to make them go. One must look at the circumstances surrounding you, and they will tell you which demon giant’s vow God wants you to expose. They cannot stand the light of truth being shined on them. So you have to let God take you back to your childhood hurts to see the demon lies you believed, which gave them permission to come in. The truth will set you free of the vows and the giants behind them.
In my seeing how vows empower us to fulfill them, I can look back on my life and see their handiwork in me. I can see that even in the former books I wrote, I had this same leaven drive. I see how when my parents shamed me and my older siblings constantly told me I was stupid, that I made vows to one day be smarter than all of them. I did not do well in school, but my defiance satisfied my flesh for that time.
Then when God chose this fool to give much knowledge to, that also satisfied my flesh. I had fulfilled my childhood vows, even while doing God’s work. Here I was, writing about the blindness in others, blind to my own pride. I am confessing this before God and you, the reader, in order to put pride in me over in the same corner of my soul that my spirit has forced shame to cower in.
I’d love to hear comments and/or questions from you! Email me!