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Unseen Persons And Their Works Series
Contributed by Felix Ishola on Mar 7, 2020 (message contributor)
Summary: Effective faith involves being aware of the supernatural. It recognises that God Himself is a Spirit and that the most important things take place in the spirit realm.
The bible shows us that there are unseen personalities and operations around us. Some of them are working for us while some are working against us. Some want our good while some want to harm us in whatever way they can. This does not have to make anyone nervous, it should only stir us to become more aware of what takes place around us, especially in the unseen realm.
A lot of the happenings we see around are orchestrated by certain unseen persons. Many accidental occurrences are not accidental after all; they are planned and executed by powers beyond the sight of man. The bible shows us that unseen persons (spirits) can cause accidents and even make buildings to collapse. For example, God is a spirit but He caused the Egyptians to have accident in the red sea by removing the wheels of their chariots (Exodus 14:24-25).
Job’s children were partying in a house when a strong wind blew that made the entire building to collapse on them, killing everyone inside. To the ordinary eyes that was an accident or the result of a defective architecture, but actually it was an unseen person, the devil that deliberately did it.
The bible says, so Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job (Job 2:7). All the disasters that came upon Job appeared like accidents, human attacks and natural sicknesses but a real person, Satan was behind them all! (Job 1 & 2)
This is not to say that all accidents, building collapses or any other disaster are caused by unseen forces; but it does prove that unseen persons are real and their influences can both be seen and felt in the physical.
A mother brought her twelve year old son to me while preaching for a pastor in their city. She told me with tears how the boy has brought her shame from place to place. She had to move from one rented apartment to another across the city because the boy always did something that brought shame to the family and forced them to relocate. One time he went into a neighbour’s bedroom to steal and he was caught.
According to the mother, that boy had three main issues: ‘he steals, he is dirty and he is profoundly stubborn’.
While the woman was speaking I was moved by the Spirit of God to lay hand on the boy and bless him. So, I moved close to him and put my hand on his head. Then I knew immediately by the Spirit that he had three demons in him and that each of them was responsible for each of his horrible behaviour. One makes him steal, another makes him dirty (he even defecated on the floor of their dinning) while the third kept him stubborn and uncontrollable.
Let me explain something at this point. This does not mean that demons should be blamed for all the bad characters of people. Most of the wrong things people do are works of the flesh and expressions of their own desires. The bible says each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. (James 1:14) But there are times that some impulsive behaviour is caused by demons that have taken residence in certain people. Mostly, when people continue in some wrong patterns of behaviour, they eventually open themselves up to be taken over by demons in those areas.
We must note however, that there is a difference between someone doing wrong because he wants to and someone doing wrong because unclean spirits made him do it; the two situations are related and sometimes are difficult to differentiate. This is why we need to work with the Spirit of God who knows all things. Demons move people to do things they would not have done on their own. A man was controlled by demons to dwell among tombs and injure himself continually.
And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones. (Mark 5:5)
So in the case of this boy, the demons in him made him to be the way he was. After the Lord showed me what was wrong with him, I spoke to those demons and cast them out in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the process, he fell to the ground, rolled on the floor and finally made a loud noise. Then he became calm, looking exhausted. When we lifted him up and spoke to him, he said that he saw three strange birds come out of him when I ministered to him. Those ‘strange birds’ were the demons living in him and making his life and that of his family burdensome.
There is more to life than the physical eyes can see. There are unseen forces around all the time. Some of them are good and on our side while others are not. The good news is that the unseen persons who are on our side are far greater and much more powerful than the ones that are against us. Remember the story of Elisha and his servant (2Kings6:15-17). Those that were for them were more and greater than the ones that were against them. The same thing is true for us: those for us are more numerous and more powerful than those against us.