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Many problems we have in life come from traumatic experiences, which have often happened in early childhood: in the womb; early childhood; or during school years. These experiences tend to shut us down, and control the memory of the trauma. We do not realise that these experiences are actually controlling you: relationships; reactions; and approach to life. The effect of these traumatic experiences can only be overcome and healed through prayer; by exchanging old memory pictures with scripture memorisation; and by inviting the Holy Spirit and the truth into the situation - for total restoration in Jesus name!
[Intro/Review]
Great to see what God is doing. I want to try to conclude with a teaching part in this first session, so we have room to work with the Holy Spirit in the second session. So, if we just go back again and just quickly outline what we did – we looked at Jesus’ teaching on deliverance; how deliverance is a manifestation of the kingdom; and that in order to minister deliverance, a person has to work with the Holy Spirit, and it requires faith to do that - you must believe that when you come to pray for someone, something will happen. Then we looked at Jesus teaching on what happens after a person is delivered, and we saw that demons, once they’re cast out, will try to re-establish a hold again.
So, we concluded from that, that it’s important a person make changes in their life, so that there’s no structure for the demon to come back to. That meant we need to think beyond just casting out demons, to demolishing demonic structures in the person’s life. We identified 3 major roots that demons use – legal rights, traumatic experiences, and then reactions to traumatic experiences. We saw that there are certain foundations; the bases upon which someone gets free.
The first is the work Jesus did for us - Jesus at the cross, redeemed us. So, you’ll find sometimes the demon will argue – the person belongs to them; so we have to be able to contend, and hold the word of God – this person belongs to Jesus. We saw that there are also personal foundations - we must prepare the person for deliverance; and failure to get a person delivered usually is because we haven’t prepared them very well.
We saw that the person must first recognise what the problem is, and take responsibility for their part in it. If a person won’t recognise what the problem is, and take ownership, you can’t move them any further. All personal change starts when we recognise the need for the change, and take responsibility for our part in it; and we saw so many times that people will come and want you to fix them, but they don’t want to take ownership of why they’re in this mess in the first place. As a minister of deliverance, we need to help them see how they got where they are, and what their part is in getting free.
We saw that: one, the person needs to repent of sin, and confess it. They must turn from sin, and bring it to the cross. Two, they must release forgiveness, and also receive forgiveness. Sometimes people have difficulty forgiving themselves. So forgiveness – firstly receiving forgiveness for themselves; and then release it to others who have hurt them. If a person won’t release forgiveness, they tend to remain in bondage, and you can’t easily set them free.
We saw also, the importance of people renouncing bondages in their life. To renounce means to speak words to cancel something that’s been constructed. So for example, if a person has worshipped an idol, and served an idol, and come into an agreement with a demon, they need to speak words that cancel this agreement. If a person has been dedicated to an idol or a demon, they need to speak words to cancel it. Jesus said: “The words I speak are spirit and life”. So, words are very important.
We saw also, the need for people to actively resist. They can’t be passive (oh, just do something to me). There’s a spiritual warfare that goes on around deliverance; and people must be willing to resist – to make a stand against the devil, and on the side of reaching out to Jesus for freedom.
So, we looked then at some of the structures in the heart; some of the bondages that get established in people’s lives; just so we could identify them, so we would know what needs to be dealt with.
We talked about soul ties – attachments in the soul to people, images, and things. We talked about bitter root judgements, or beliefs in the heart. We talked about inner vows, word curses, where people curse themselves, or they receive cursings from others.
We also shared that when people have trauma, this affects them as well, and traumas have to be dealt with. So, we saw some of the bondages in the heart – soul ties, bitter judgements and expectations, inner vows, traumatic pictures, and word curses. Sometimes people put burdens or expectations on people.
Then we started to look at how you address the doors of entry; and we looked at several specific doors. Generational curses – it’s established over a family when someone does something; it’s dismantled when someone deals with it. We saw that the curse is dismantled when someone, as a representative of the family, owns up to the sin, brings it to the cross, and holds the cross of Christ between them and this problem. We suggested that if you’re going to diagnose problems, always identify where it began, because that’ll be a clue to generational curses.
We shared that occultic practises and idolatry open the way for demons. We saw that sexual sin opens the way for evil spirits. We saw patterns (or habits) of sin: anger, bitterness, hatred, unforgiveness, rebellion, bitter judgements. All of these create doorways for spirits to enter a person’s life.
[Main Content]
So, now what I want to do is I want to look just briefly at the area of traumatic experiences. Then I want to show you some steps to how to find if a person’s got the root of the problem; and then how we focus on freedom or helping the person walk out of it.
So, we need to look at the area of trauma. It’s a big area, and I’m learning my way into that right now, because I have found that many of the problems people have began when they were very young; and often it began with a traumatic or painful experience.
So, a trauma is an overwhelming emotional experience. It’s an experience that overwhelms the emotions and soul; and it leaves an indelible imprint in the person’s memory.
Now, there can be many traumatic experiences ranging from mild to quite severe; and different people react in different ways. You need to understand this – people don’t forget what happened to them - the more painful the experience, the more deeply it’s imbedded in their memory. So if an experience is of a major one, and extremely painful, or it’s a prolonged one, then it imbeds in the memory.
For example, the person has a motor accident. The shock sometimes is so great, that the whole of the mind shuts down, and it’s like it doesn’t remember what happened. So you talk to someone who’s had maybe a motor accident, and they remember before and after, but they don’t remember the accident. Actually, they do have memory of the accident, it’s just they’re not conscious of it. It was such a trauma, that the memory gets dispersed through their body.
When a person has a traumatic experience, they have a memory imprinted in them; and the memory consists of these things: it’s chemically imprinted into the body; and demonic spirits use it as a doorway of entry. When a person has a traumatic experience, there is first of all, a memory or a picture. The memory of the trauma is made up of these things.
1.) There’s a picture. There is an image. There is something they remember vividly. If you were to think back into your life, can you remember a very embarrassing situation at school or a very embarrassing or painful situation in your life? Most can remember something. What happens is, a picture comes up. So your memory retains the trauma first as a picture.
2.) Firstly there’s the memory of the experience; and secondly: how the person interpreted the experience. What did this mean to them? For example, for a person who was sexually abused, there’s the picture of the experience, the memory of all the smells and sights and sounds and feelings of it; and there’s how they interpret it - what did this mean? I’m powerless. I’m worthless. Men will hurt me. There’s the reaction that the person makes; like an inner vow. I’ll never trust anyone.
So, within the memory of the trauma, there’s: a picture, a belief they formed about it; and a reaction to it. The picture, feelings, what they believed; and how they responded. All of it is contained in the trauma.
So, for example, when you have a person who is sexually abused, they have a picture of the abuser and what happened; there’s the feelings and sounds and smells and sights - all of that is remembered. Then what they believed about this thing: “I’m powerless. I’m useless. I’m worthless. It’s my fault.” Then, how they reacted – “I must never tell anyone. I’ll never let men get near me. You can never trust men.” So, those heart reactions we talked about. So when a person has a trauma, all of those are in the trauma. Particularly powerful is the picture, and what they interpreted that picture to mean.
Now, later on a person can control it all, and bury it all. Later on they may see something, or hear something, or smell something, and it triggers the memory; and all the emotions come back up to the surface, flooding up. I’ll give you just a simple example. Late last year, one of my daughters who lives in Indonesia, miscarried after 5 months. I left and went immediately to be with them, to comfort them, and also to take a service, and to walk them through the process. So after a long trip on the plane – I get off, a little bit of time, then we have a service and a few days, very busy days. I had to keep all my own feelings managed, because I’m there to serve people. Then I came home, it’s Christmas, I’ve got lots of things to do.
About 4 weeks later, I was sitting watching a television, and a song came up – Amazing Grace; and I just began to weep and weep and weep, because the last time I heard that, was in the service we held in my daughter’s home. So I had pushed down all the grief of the experience, but hearing the song again triggered off the memory, and up came all the grief that I had buried; and I could vividly picture being in the room, seeing her singing, and my grandchild dead in the box. It was time for me to grieve and to let go. So, it’ll be just as simple as something like that.
Now, my daughter who went through a huge grief over this situation, and particularly the way they do the cremations, there was quite a traumatic experience for her. So, she was left almost in shock; and I said: “It is important for you, that you see this from God’s point of view. It’s important you have a different picture, because the last picture you had was deeply distressing for you.” I said: “You need God to put a different picture inside you. You can’t remove the memories people have. What you can do is open the way for God to show them a different picture.”
So when we go through a painful experience, we have a limited perspective – what we see is very around our own pain. So, one of the ways you approach a trauma, is to invite the Holy Spirit to take the person back into the experience, and to show them Jesus in the middle of it. This takes some willingness on the part of the person, to be willing to let the Holy Spirit go there. Most people just try to bury the memory and the pain. It’s like locking it up in a room, and then just not letting anyone in. They just try to control the pain.
So I encourage them, if you’ll just let Jesus into that room of that memory, if you’ll let Him come into that room, and be willing to go there again and feel the pain, He will speak to you and comfort you, and He’ll change that situation for you. So, with my daughter, I asked her to close her eyes and to look into that picture of what she saw, and to invite Jesus to come into it. She saw immediately. She saw Jesus standing there, and she saw Him grieving, and she saw Him pick up her child, and hold her child in His arms. He smiled at her and spoke to her; and immediately the grief all subsided, because instead of the memory of a casket going into flames, she had a memory of Jesus taking her child. It brought a deep release for her.
So, when a person has a traumatic experience, they need the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus in that experience. If you think of in the Old Testament, I think its 2 Kings 6 - Elijah’s servant looked out, and they were surrounded by the Syrian army, and he was terrified. So when he looked at his experience, it was overwhelming, and he was filled with fear; and he cried out in fear to his master. He didn’t know what to do; and Elijah prayed this way: “Lord open his eyes, so he can see what he hasn’t seen. Open his eyes, so he can just see there’s more for us, than against us.” The Holy Spirit opened his eyes, and he saw in the spiritual realm from God’s perspective, he saw the presence of all the angels. He still could see the army, but now he could see something else. He could see the overwhelming power of God on his side, and he came to peace.
This is how, one of the major ways, that God heals traumatic pictures. I usually explain to the person that they’ve just put this memory in a room and locked it up. I explain they’ve tried to save themselves. I ask them to be willing to go back to remember what they didn’t want to remember; and invite Jesus to come in. So, often the person will start to weep as they remember; and then I ask them: “Look and see where Jesus is. What is He doing? What is His face like? What is He saying?” I get the person just to talk to me, what they’re seeing. What happens is, a different picture comes in; and it overwhelms and changes the memory. It shifts it, and puts something in that wasn’t there, and that’s the last thing they remember.
For example, I had one girl, and she had been adopted when she was 5. She shared her testimony to the church that she’d been adopted, and how when she heard our testimony and she came to Christ. When I heard her testimony, I said: “Look, I feel the Lord put on my heart to pray for you. He wants to heal you. Can you remember the day your mother gave you up?” This is what she said: “I remember it vividly.” In other words, it’s a picture in her mind; and in that picture is a lot of grief. In that memory is a picture of her mother handing her over to a stranger. A huge amount of grief; and she questions: why she do this? What’s wrong with me? I must be bad, because I’m being given away. All kinds of things were in her mind.
So I said: “I’d like you to do this. Just to close your eyes, and to allow yourself to remember that experience” and she began to cry. She remembered the experience, and she began to just weep in front of us all. Then I said: “Look and see if you can see Jesus.” She said: “I can see Him.” I said: “What does He look like?” She said: “He’s weeping. He’s very sad about what’s happening.” I said: “Why don’t you just reach out to Him?” Now, I didn’t expect her to literally reach out. It’s like she reached out like that, and then she froze; and she remained there like that for an hour and a half, standing in a meeting just like this. Just down on the ground like that, frozen for an hour and a half.
You just can’t do that. It’s impossible to do that, and hold your hand out like that. She was literally caught up in a vision, and then I just preached; held an alter-call for salvation; we got people to stand around her, so she didn’t get bumped. Then suddenly she just came out of it like that; and I said: “What happened?” She had been in an encounter with Jesus. I said: “What did He say to you?” “He said to me: it’s not my fault.” All these years she had believed the lie: ‘it’s my fault’, and she was tormented by spirits. When Jesus spoke to her the truth –“it’s not your fault. You’re not a bad person. I love you. I’ll never leave you.” Jesus spoke with her. I saw her the next day, and I actually didn’t recognise her, she looked so different. There was a joy and a life in her.
I remember praying for another girl who’d been sexually abused and I asked: “Are you willing to go and remember what happened?” She began to weep, described the scene, and described her father coming into the room. I said: “Now look for Jesus”; and she saw Him, she began to weep. She said: “He’s full of compassion. He’s weeping, because He sees what’s happening, and He’s very sad.” I said: “Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, looking for what He does and says.” She just interacted. She said: “He’s coming towards me. He’s standing between me and my father, and I can’t see my father now. Jesus says He’ll protect me.”
So, she was totally transformed. Within a space of about 3 weeks, she was greatly reconciled with her father. So, she got healed from the trauma. The picture of the trauma was replaced with a picture of something different. Now, sometimes there are demons inside the trauma, there are soul ties to the trauma. So when you feel the Holy Spirit lead, break the soul tie to the trauma, and command spirits to come out; but let the Holy Spirit do the work of revealing Jesus.
Often people are incredibly angry, very bitter, and they need to be lead through prayers of forgiveness. So, the core of the trauma is a picture, feelings that go with the picture, the way the person interprets it, and what they believed, and then their reaction. So the reaction – people repent of that. The lie is replaced by them seeing the truth and hearing the truth; and sometimes they just need to re-live it, and the soul tie broken.
I encourage you to try this sometime. I encourage you, if someone has gone through a painful experience, to ask them to invite Jesus to come into the experience and heal them. You might be surprised how easy it is, and how very quickly people can be set free. I prayed for one woman who was grieving over an abortion; and she saw Jesus standing, holding her baby. Tears began to come down, and Jesus spoke these words to her: “You need to forgive yourself.” He’s already forgiven her, but she wouldn’t forgive herself.
So, these areas you’ll find many people have got all kinds of experiences; and it’s always got a picture, feelings that go with the picture, beliefs that go with the picture, and a reaction. The belief is changed by seeing and hearing the truth; the reaction is changed by repentance; and demons are just cast out.
Let me give you just some situations of trauma, just so you’ve got some ideas what you may be looking for. If I give you a list of some typical trauma experiences that people have, when you are working with people, you’ll know something to look for. So, remember, a trauma is a negative picture that’s imprinted into the person’s memory because of some painful experience. What is a trauma for one person may mean nothing to another.
So, I’ll just give you some of the typical ones, or ones that we have experienced in ministry. Firstly, pre-natal experiences... Prenatal means the child’s in the womb. So a child in the womb that’s rejected can become quite traumatised, and have memories that last all of their life. For the last hundred years or so, people have believed that all of the experience, or memory and identity of the child, is in the brain; so if the brain hasn’t been formed, then they have no awareness. The last 4 or 5 years, experiences or research with ultrasonic scanning of the child realises that’s not true. When a child is in the womb, it is deeply aware of the mother and the environment.
A child unwanted in the womb, experiences deep rejection. A girl in the womb who comes to realise both parents want a boy, experiences deep rejection in the womb, and can be demonised from that point. A child in the womb is deeply aware of the mother’s emotional state, and so it can be traumatised if the mother has deep anxiety or fear, or there are conflicts in the home. So a child in the womb is aware when the mother’s speaking to it; when the mother’s speaking to the husband; when the father’s speaking to it; and when the father’s speaking to the mother. The child is aware of these things.
So, if the pregnancy has complications, for example the mother gets toxaemia, the baby is traumatised by the fear of death. If there’s an attempted abortion, the child is aware of it, and remembers it. If there’s been a previous abortion, the child is aware of it, and is affected even while it’s in the womb. So only the Holy Spirit can reveal if the issues go right to the prenatal experience.
Sometimes birth traumas can leave an imprint on the child. Premature birth, the cord wrapped around the child’s neck, sometimes the force of delivery can be very difficult, and traumatises the child. If there’s no bonding with the mother, the child can be quite traumatised.
People tend to think because the baby can’t speak, it doesn’t know. The reality is, children are very vulnerable, and demonic spirits can enter them, and they can be traumatised. There can be childhood traumas e.g. a child is adopted, or abandoned, or rejected. If there’s turmoil in the family; physical or verbal abuse; frightening experiences. A divorce can traumatise a child. Serious sickness, or long sickness; surgery; accidents. The death of someone in the family or a close friend. School experiences. When we talk with people we find most remember very painful experiences from school. Broken relationships. Accidents. A miscarriage can be a trauma. An abortion is always a trauma.
So, there is all kinds of ways that people can experience a shock to their system. Demons use that to come in and then torment the person. So, when you are working with people, look for the possibility there may be a trauma of some kind in their life, a powerful negative picture. So, we have to ask the Holy Spirit to bring these things to the surface as we talk with people. I’ll just show you some steps to follow in this. So, traumatic experiences create these problems. 1.) The picture, the memories, the feelings, the reactions, the beliefs. 2.) Sometimes the person is soul tied to the trauma and you just need to break the soul tie. 3.) Sometimes there are demons attached into the trauma, and once you minister into the person, then you can cast the demon out.
So we’ve now looked at a range of doorways for demons to come in. So, if you are trying now, or sitting with a person, and trying to work out what is the person’s problem, so let me give you some steps for diagnosis. Usually when someone comes to you they’ve got a problem. “Please help me.” So, you have to ask questions and listen. If someone comes with a problem, you begin to inquire, like you’re searching for contributing roots to the problem. So, whatever problem the person has, we begin to ask a number of questions.
We are looking for several things, and so we’re looking for root systems that support the problem, and allow the evils to be in there. Our approach in ministry is: tear down the demonic house - remove the demonic house; then cast out the demons. So remember what the demonic house is made up of: it could be generational curses; it could be patterns of sin; it could be reactions, like soul-ties and bitter inner judgements; or it could be made up of traumatic experiences.
So, this is how we would approach it. “Tell me what the problem is. How is it affecting you? How long have you had this problem?” When you ask the question ‘how long’, you can begin to find whether this was a generational problem. Here’s what we would look for in diagnosing the problem.
1.) Is this a generational issue? In other words, is there a generational curse operating? Do members of the family have the same problem? So when you’re talking to the person about their problem, did other members of the family have the same problem? How long have you had this? Often the clue to where to look is found in when the problem started. So it’s like we’re searching. We’re trying to gather information, and we’re listening to the Holy Spirit. He may prompt you to ask random questions. So, number 1: is this a generational problem?
2.) Are you soul-tied to some person or event? Is there someone who contributed to this problem, and you are attached to them? So the problem may be a soul-tie to someone sexually; a soul tie to someone who abused them; or a soul tie to someone who abandoned them. So are there any soul ties? Are there any bitter roots – unforgiveness? Are there any bitter roots present; or bitter judgements against someone? “I can never trust men. Men will always let you down.” Are there any bitter expectations? So you’ve got to ask the questions, and try and find these problems. Has the person made any inner vows? “I’ll never do this, I’ll never do that.” Did you make any inner vows?
Maybe it comes up with nothing, but you just mentally have some things you’re looking for. Are there any word curses in the person’s life? They cursed themselves; or a death wish of some kind? Are there things they’ve been saying to themselves? Are there words others spoke over them? You’re looking for that, it may contribute to the problem. Are there any habits of sin - patterns of destructive sin? Are there any of those? Are there any traumas? Are there any pictures in their mind that are creating negative memories, negative pain. Then, what kind of demons are in there? So, if you begin to think about the person’s life that way, then you systematically can deconstruct the demonic house.
Use the tools of: repentance and confession; release forgiveness; receive forgiveness; renounce the bondages. If we don’t look to the heart issues, we’ll just try and change their behaviour, and it won’t last. You have to deal with what’s in the heart. So when a person comes to you with a problem, don’t be in a hurry to pray for them. Search it out. Ask questions. Listen. Notice if you see emotions come as you talk to the person. So, if I’m talking with a person, and I see tears come in their eyes, I just stop. “What’s happening now? What are you feeling? What triggered that feeling?” It tells me something is going on in their heart.
So, you notice that this is not just a 1, 2, 3, 4 step to fix everyone. It requires we be sensitive to the Holy Spirit; and He will show you where to go. So I start, I relax the person, ask questions, begin to find my way to the root of the problem, and then I look for all the contributing issues: Generational issues; Soul-ties; Inner vows; Bitter judgements; Death wishes; Word curses; Sin. Everything has got a way you deconstruct it; and then when you deconstruct it, deliverance is very quick. So always think: deconstruct the demonic houses; remove the armour. Take away the armour the demons trust in, then deliverance is straightforward.
Now, is this always easy? No it isn’t; but often you’ll find if you’ve got a process, it’s much easier. You may like to share, without identifying it, just the situation we had last night. You share about that. Well you were there...
I’ll backtrack. I’ll start with your visions. Is it ok if I start with your visions? I won’t do the vision. I just shared that last picture.
So, in this situation that we had, we had to establish very clearly, responsibility; so the person understood what they had done. She was grieving and in tremendous pain. She was tormented by what she had done. So I had to put it very clearly, but also in love, and gently. “You chose between yourself and your child, and you chose yourself; and you have taken the life of your child.” I shared a vision God had given me of children in heaven, and how God cares for them. So I said: “When you chose the abortion, you chose what seemed like a simple path; but you didn’t realise you would have other problems after it.
So initially, you feel relief, because you’ve solved a problem. Now you have different new problems which are even worse. So we took her through the journey step-by-step, to help her out of her situation. First come to the Lord and confess the sin. If you confess, God will forgive you. So we dealt with the issue firstly of confession of sin. Then we dealt with the issue of grieving over the child, and prayed that God will give her a vision; and she opened up her heart, God began to reveal himself to her, and Jesus spoke to her. She saw Jesus with her child, and Jesus said: “You need to forgive yourself.”
Then I got her to listen and find out what this child is. Is it a boy? Is it a girl? Immediately there was a witness straightaway - we knew exactly what it was. I said: “Now give your child a name, and release your child to the Lord.” She did that; and that’s when she saw Jesus holding her child, and smiling at her, and speaking to her words of comfort.
So step-by-step, this is a process. We dealt with the sin, I commanded the demons, we led her into an encounter with the Lord, and got her to take full ownership of the name of the child, and it brought great closure. You could see her countenance visibly changed afterwards. We had systematically deconstructed what the devil had built over her life. It started with a lie: “this is nothing. You can get rid of it without any problem.” It ended with her acknowledging the truth: “it was her son. This is his name, and she took his life.” But Jesus has forgiven her, and He’s now caring for the child. So it’s a journey through the process; and it was just step-by-step-by-step.