Truth in Reality

The Hebrew word used for ‘deliverance; is Peleytah or Peletah = pel-ay-taw – to set free: to take and hand over to or leave for another: to assist in giving birth: to aid in the birth of : to give birth to: to cause oneself to produce as if by giving birth: to send something aimed or guided to an intended target or destination: to come through with: produce: to generate the promised, desired, or expected results: come through with: to give results that are promised, expected, or desired, the act of delivering, freeing, or liberating someone or something: the state of being set-free.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”  (Luke 4:18)

To understand what it fully means to be delivered or what deliverance is we must comprehend a few very important facts and they are:

• What does it mean to be bound?
• What is binding the bound?
• How does one become bound?
• What must be done in order not to be bound?

Bound: to confine, restrain, or restrict as if with bonds, to put under an obligation, to constrain with legal authority, to wrap around with something so as to enclose or cover, to fasten round about, to tie together, to cause to stick together, to take up and hold: combine with, to form a cohesive mass, to hamper free movement or natural action, to become hindered from free operation, to exert a restraining or compelling effect.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12)

The Legal Authority the devil has over man that enables him to hold us bound is called a PRINCIPALITY — a powerful ruler, or the rule of someone in authority. The word may refer to human rulers (Titus 3:1, KJV), demonic spirits (Rom. 8:38; Eph. 6:12; Col. 2:15), angels and demons in general (Eph. 3:10; Col. 1:16), or any type of rule other than God Himself (Eph. 1:21; Col. 2:10). The territory or jurisdiction of a prince: the country that gives title to a prince. The devil is the prince of the air (Eph.2: 2). The word title means = ownership, claim, right, it comprises all the elements constituting legal ownership a legally just cause of exclusive possession.

When the devil develops a principality in our minds or our bodies, he produces what is called a STRONGHOLD. Due to strongholds, people are hurting the world over. Children are growing up in a society that has pushed them aside, cast them off, and rejected them as normal, acceptable, and viable members of the social order. They are becoming adults that have no direction in their lives, wondering aimlessly, bound, confused, and perplexed. Many in society are being incarcerated mentally, physically, and spiritually. Although free from the human judicial system, are regretfully imprisoned in a far more cruel and ultimately eternal prison. They are sentenced with a life sentence of emotional emasculation, depression, anxiety, low/no self esteem, and phobias; some are on the habitual death row of deadly narcotics, alcohol, careless, unsafe, and uninhibited sexual activity. Others have been placed in a solitary confinement of physical pain, discomfort, infirmity and disease.

They are being held captive behind these seemingly impenetrable bars and inescapable walls, being made to believe that this is all there is to life. Mentally messed up, emotionally emasculated, and spiritually lost, they are aimlessly wandering through life bound hopelessly waiting to die, imagining that everything will be over if what they have experienced to be life would just cease from being. They are disappointedly unable to see that God has a far more excellent and abundant life. They are struggling trying to break free unable to come into the freedom that is promised to them. They are unable to understand that the price of their freedom has already been paid and all they have to do is come.

Hurt: to affect adversely, to injure, and to feel pain, to become damaged or harmed. Broken: comes from a Hebrew word called SHABAR : it means to crush into pieces, shattered, bruised, violated, not functioning properly, disconnected, overwhelmed with sorrow, raped, plundered, maltreated, desecrated.

The devil has emotionally emasculated the minds of people and placed them in a prison that they feel they will never be released from. They are being held captive and are in need of deliverance. There is an answer for the bound man or woman wandering through this life aimlessly. That is to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus and filled with the Holy Ghost, for true Deliverance is found by looking into the face of God and asking Him to intercede for me.

The devil, which is a deceiver, uses trickery to fight this battle of Spiritual Warfare, and because man is limited in his thinking he often yields to the temptations of the devil, thus fails in the spiritual war. The devil understands that to gain control of the mind is to ultimately have control of the soul. This is how the devil caused the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, because he deceived Eve in believing something that was not true. This was a deceptive measure that tricked the mind of Eve and placed a stronghold on her and because she did not understand Spiritual Warfare and the tricks of the devil, she yielded to the deception. Mind Control is the Nuclear Weapon that the devil uses in Spiritual Warfare because of the destructive capabilities it has.

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of stronghold; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5) Our weapons are not carnal; this simply means that humanistic attempts are futile in spiritual warfare. We cannot defeat the devil with bombs and guns, but the weapons of the word of God will defeat the devil every time. The weapons are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.

Contrary to popular belief alcohol, depression, narcotics, or elicit sexually activity; is not what people are bound by; these are only the manifestations of the true bondage and that is the mind. The Bible says in Proverbs 23:7 “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he”. The devil knows that the way a person thinks is how that person will act. If he can convince a person to believe something untrue then he can cause them to fall and defeat them in this spiritual war. Therefore the alcoholic thinks they need the alcohol in order to make it and are bound because the devil has control of the mind, the drug addict thinks they can’t survive without it and are therefore bound by it because the devil has control of the mind, the sex craved nymphomaniac thinks they will not survive without it and therefore punishes their body because the devil has control of the mind, it’s all bondage of the mind.

The Bibles says in Romans 12:2 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God”.

What is binding the bound: STRONGHOLDS – “A stronghold is a mind set that is impregnated with hopelessness that causes a person to accept as unchangeable something in their lives even though they know it goes contrary to the will of God”.  We often are not aware of the presence of our strongholds, or the way they operate.

It is within our minds that the devil as bound us into thinking that this is the way a certain situation is supposed to be and there is nothing that can be done about it, he convinces us to believe that something is real even though it is not. When we believe something in our minds it not only alters the way we perceive a certain thing, but how we begin to act and live according to what we believe. As you will recall we said that the devil understands that to gain control of the mind is to ultimately have control of the soul.

If we look at the Children of Israel in the book of Numbers 13:33 “And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” The devil had a stronghold on their mind that caused them to believe something was unchangeable even though it went contrary to the Will of God. The weapons of this spiritual battle are used against our flesh, but the majority of the fighting is done in the minds of men and women everyday.

How Does One Become Bound: There are three avenues in which a person can become bound, these avenues are in fact the weapons of Spiritual Warfare that the devil uses against us and we become bound because of these weapons if we succumb to them. Let us take a look at the weapons that the devil uses against us in Spiritual Warfare that cause one to be bound. The Bible gives us in detail the weapons that the devil uses to fight against us, in 1st John 2:16 “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” These are the weapons the devil uses against us that if we surrender ourselves to them will become bound by them.

Let us look at these weapons individually that are used in this spiritual warfare. Although the devil comes at us with many different tricks yet there are only three avenues that the devil can attack us in:

• The Lust of the Flesh
• The Lust of the Eye
• The Pride of Life

The Lust of the Flesh

The Bible tells us in 1st Peter 2:11 “Dearly beloved. I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain for fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” The lust of the flesh is the desires that the flesh has that are contrary to the will of God. The body, which is flesh, is entirely worldly and is influenced by the worldly system. The body will return to the dust of the earth from whence it came, it cannot enter into the kingdom of God; therefore, its desire is to go totally against the will of God. The devil realizes this and uses the flesh as a stronghold against us in spiritual warfare.

The fleshly desires and works are given to us in Galatians 5:19-20 “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, seditions, heresies, envyings, murder, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

The lust of the flesh is one weapon that the devil uses to fight this war and cause the people to be bound.  The different types of ammunition that used in this one weapon are listed:

“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions.”  (Galatians 5:19-20)

The Bible says, in 1st Corinthian 6:19 “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” The devil knows that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost and he knows what the Bible says, in 1st Corinthians 3:17 “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which ye are.” The devil knows that to defile the temple will lead to the ultimate destruction by God himself in the lake of fire for all eternity; therefore, he uses the lust of the flesh to war against us in this spiritual war. Our flesh desires all these things that are against the will of God because it is totally worldly. Our minds are being deceived by the devil and it seems pleasing to the flesh and before you know it you have been infiltrated by the lust of the flesh and lost a battle in this spiritual warfare.

^” But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.” (Matthew 12:28)

The Lust of the Eye

This weapon although mention second is used first in spiritual warfare, because in order to lust after something within the flesh you first must see it. This is how down through the Bible the devil caused many people to stumble and fall. This is the first step to bondage. This is how he captured Eve’s attention in the Garden of Eden by appealing to the lust of the eyes first. In Genesis 3:6 the Bible says, “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” The devil realizes that if he can cause you to get your eyes fixed on something that the flesh will begin to desire it and the struggle then begins. David had fallen to the tricks of the devil when he looked and saw Bathsheba and his flesh lusted after her, 2nd Samuel 11. When David looked upon Bathsheba with lust in his eye it eventually became lust of the flesh. He realized that he was the King and his pride caused him to believe that because he was King that he should have her. In so doing she became with child. David’s pride and reputation was affected, which worked on his emotions and caused him to act a different way. He conspired against Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, and caused his death.

Later David understood how the devil will fight and thus wrote, in Psalms 121:1-2 “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help my help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.” David realized that if he continues to keep his eyes on the Lord that he would be able to fight in the spiritual war and be victorious in the end. There is an old saying that goes “The eyes are the windows of the soul.” We have often used this saying, as we are able to tell how a person feels on the inside. They may have a smile on their face, but by looking into their eyes you realize that something is wrong. What the devil does is he takes this saying and changes it around a little, “The eyes are the windows to the soul.” He realizes that in order to cause the lust of the flesh he must appeal to the eyes first; therefore, the eyes become a gateway to ultimately gaining access to the soul. Bondage is placed upon us because we committed ourselves to looking at something to the point that the temptation of that became a desire, then that desire became an obsession that we had to have, and the obsession was not going to be satisfied until we possessed that which we first saw. I am now bound because of what I first saw.

The Pride of Life

This is the most dangerous and destructive weapon that the devil can use, because it is all fabricated, executed, and manifested in the mind and the Bible says Proverbs 23:7 “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” The devil knows that the way a person thinks is how that person will act. If he can convince a person to believe something untrue then he can cause them to fall and defeat them in this spiritual war.

Pride is the thing that caused him to rebel against God and ultimately got him cast out of heaven. The pride of life is the existence in a person’s mind that they themselves are of great importance. When the pride of life occurs it leads to destruction. The Bible says in Proverbs 16:18 “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” In the Garden of Eden, Eve was attacked with the Pride of Life when in Genesis 3:6 she desired the tree. The Bible says, “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”

The pride of life was that she believed she would become wise. Pride made her believe that she would be like a god and that in her mind she herself would be of great importance. Pride caused Lucifer to fall, he in his mind thought he was of great importance; his destruction will be to spend eternity in the lake of fire because he got lifted up in pride.

The devil realizes that pride is the silver bullet of destruction to the heart and mind of men and women. A person that has tremendous pride to the point they feel as though they are of some great importance is headed for destruction soon, for the Bible says pride goeth before destruction. A person becomes bound by yielding to the weapons the devil uses to fight against them in spiritual warfare.

Someone may say I have been this way all my life, I have committed some of the biggest sins you can imagine, I am at the bottom of the barrel, society has abandoned me, friends have forsaken me, family has forgotten me, surely God wouldn’t deliver me. When a person has low self-esteem they often feel that they are worth nothing, their spirit is broken and they feel like what’s the use. However, this is just the type of person God wants, you are at the point that God can truly manifest himself in your life, for the Bible says in Psalms 34:18 “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”

If we look at Mark the 5:1-20 we find these verses “And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.

Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.  And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine. And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts. And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him.

Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel”. Here was a man that society had literally disowned and abandoned, he was considered the reject of society. He was in a prison of demon possession, which controlled his mind and his action. He was socially shattered, mentally misdiagnosed, physically pushed aside, broken-down, and beaten-up, he was the living dwelling among the dead. The amazing fact of this scripture that we must catch is the Jesus came to Decapolis for no other reason but to deliver this man.

You may be broken-down, beat-up, pushed aside, cast out, but remember this 2nd Corinthians 4:7-12 says “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you”.

Acts 2:39 says “For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call”. John 8:36 says “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”. John 10:10 says “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”. When we are bound by the devil we are not living life abundantly, God wants to deliver you and have your experience life more abundantly.

DELIVERANCE IS FOR YOU!!!!!!!

Being Delivered and Staying Delivered: Being delivered and Staying delivered is not something that is impossible, because the Bible says with God all things are possible; however, the key element in deliverance lays within you the individual.

Strongholds

A stronghold is a mind set that is impregnated with hopelessness that causes a person to accept as unchangeable something in their lives even though they know it goes contrary to the will of God.

To be delivered one must change the way they think Proverbs 23:7 “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Therefore the alcoholic thinks they need the alcohol in order to make it and are bound because the devil has control of the mind, the drug addict thinks they can’t survive without it and are therefore bound by it because the devil has control of the mind, the sex craved nymphomaniac thinks they will not survive without it and therefore punishes their body because the devil has control of the mind, it’s all bondage of the mind. The Bible says in Romans 12:2 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and perfect, will of God.”

Transform

To change in composition or structure, to change in character or condition, implies a major change in form, nature, or function, to go through a metamorphoses which is an abrupt or startling change induced by a supernatural power, change fitting something for a new or different use or function, a change that exalts or glorifies.

Renew

To make like new, restore to freshness, vigor, or perfection, to make new spiritually, to restore to existence, to make extensive changes in, to do again, to begin again, to become new. It implies a restoration of what had become faded or disintegrated so that it is like new the supplying of something necessary to restore lost strength, vigor, and power.

Faith

Once you change the way you think you do not accept that something is unchangeable because you now believe that God can and will make a difference. You now posses the key element which is FAITH.

FAITH: Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. I like this definition of Faith. Faith is standing at the break of darkness and you don’t know if the next step is going to through you off a cliff or not, but faith is knowing that when you take that step that God will either give you something solid to stand on or give you at that time the ability to fly. Faith is being able to believe that God will make a way out of no way.

In The Bible:

“According to your faith” appears 10 times
“By your faith” appears 74 times
The word “faith” appears 339 times

Without faith it is impossible to please God

Faith causes us to believe that a situation is changeable, which cause us to seek a change or transformation, not only in actions, but in our thoughts, which is deliverance from the way things once were, because I am thinking differently now I am acting differently. I have been delivered.

Staying Delivered

1 Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” Philippians 2:5 “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Isaiah 26:3 “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in the”. Trust is a basis of faith, reliance, and hope. Trust is learning how to lean and depend upon Jesus, trust in him and he will provide. That is what Job meant when he said though He slay me yet will I trust Him, If you trust Him He will, not maybe, but he will provide. Staying delivered is trusting in God and keeping your mind on Him.

Never give up, never yield to the temptations of the pride of life, whether it is thinking of yourself as being of some great importance or worthless, never yield to this weapons of spiritual warfare.

Spiritual Warfare

An ongoing battle that we all must learn how to fight in, bondage is the result of this warfare. In the natural war many lives are lost both of the enemy and the ones war was raged against; however, in spiritual warfare we have a guarantee that as long as we do the will of God we will have everlasting life. Isaiah 54:17 says, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.”

If we walk in the Spirit and do not fulfill the lust of the flesh, fall victim to the pride of life, and give into the lust of the eye, then we will remain delivered.

“Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”. (Romans 12:2)

by M.L. Maughmer, Jr.

Related articles:

What is a Stronghold?
Casting Out Demons