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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: Teresa Seputis ts@godspeak.net http://www.godspeak.net

FireSide Chat

Informal Prophetic MentoringWith Teresa Seputis

Week 8
Demons And The Prophetic

Dear Teresa

Someone told me that when you start to move in the power gifts, like prophesy or healing, that demons will be more attracted to you than if you did not operate in God's power. They said that demons will seek out prophets to interfere with their ministry and to cause them problems in general. Is that true? If I grow in my ability to prophesy, will demons become a problem for me?
- Feeling Concerned

Dear Feeling Concerned

You are really asking two separate questions here. One of them is subtle and implied, but let me address it first. That question is: "Will increased demonic activity become a problem for me?" The answer to that is that it doesn't have to be, because Jesus has already given us authority over demons. If we exercise the authority that He has given us, increased demonic attention won't be a much of a problem for us.

In Matthew 10:1, Jesus "called his twelve disciples to Him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness." In Luke 10:19, Jesus said, "I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you."

God's authority is kind of like a credit card sitting in your wallet. A real-life credit card gives you financial authority up to your credit limit. But the credit card does not do you any good unless you pull it out of your wallet and use it. The same is true for your spiritual authority. Jesus has basically given us a credit card (that doesn't have a credit limit) when He gave us His authority. That credit card gives us authority over the plans and schemes and harms of the enemy against us. But we have to "take the credit card out of our wallet" and use it, or it does us no good at all.

If the enemy attacks you and you don't use the authority that Jesus has already given to you, then that attack will be a big problem for you. But if you rise up in the authority that you already possess (because Jesus has already given it to you), then you will turn the tables on the demon. When you exercise the authority that Jesus gave you over the demon, you become a big problem for the demon.

(By the way, the more you learn to use your authority in accord with God's plans and purposes, the more the demons become afraid of you, and the less likely they are to haphazardly attack you. But by the same token, the more you learn to effectively use your authority, the more of a problem you become to Satan's plans and purposes, and the more he will strategically deploy his demonic forces against you. But you do not have to be afraid, because "Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4).

Now that we have dealt with the fear issues, lets move on to the original question: "Are demons attracted to those who move in God's power? Do they seek you out when you move strongly in the prophetic?"

I believe that answer to that question is a qualified "yes." I don't think all demons feel that way, but there are some who do. We see one of those types of demons in Acts 16. The Lord used a vision to call Paul to Macedonia. After a long journey, he finally arrived in Phippippi, a city in Macedonia. He led Lydia to the Lord and things were in place for him to start a powerful ministry there. Let's pick up the story at Acts 1616:

"16Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, 'These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.' 18She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, 'In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!' At that moment the spirit left her."

Paul did not want to engage the demon because he knew that if he cast the demon out, the slave girl's owners would get mad that she could not tell fortunes anymore. He did not want anything to interfere with his ministry. But the demon was drawn to the power and anointing he carried, and it persisted in following Paul and harassing him. Finally Paul could not take it any longer. The demon because such an annoyance that he finally had to deal with it and cast it out.

That is just one example from the bible.

Instead of givng you more bible examples, I would like to share an experience of my own as a recent modern-day example. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a Pastor's Retreat where Bill Johnson was one of the main speakers. Bill has a very strong apostolic anointing that tends to make other people's anointing operate strong than usual when they are around him. I am a prophetic person anyhow, but during the first meeting (Monday afternoon), the prophetic in me stepped up a level or two. I kept getting very specific, detailed, and powerful words for people around me, even when I wasn't seeking for words. The meetings are run in a very informal and ministry intensive way, so I had opportunities to share the words I was getting.

That evening, this Asian lady moved into an empty seat that was two seats away from where I was sitting in the second row, way on the left side. The front row was a short row, and there were not any chairs in front of my seat or her seat. This lady did the strangest thing during worship. She left her seat and stepped directly in front of me, raising her arms so that her hands were only an inch or two from my face and waving right in front of my eyes. This made me uncomfortable, so I moved over a few feet to my left. She immediately moved in front of me again, but there was no reason for her to move because no one was in front of her.

She was so close to me that she really made me uncomfortable. At first I got mad at her and then I decided that I did not want to pull out of worship. I noticed an empty spot just behind an audio speaker, that was next to the stage. So I quietly slipped from my spot and moved about 12 feet or so away, planting myself directly in front of the speaker unit. I figured this lady could not get in front of me and disturb my worship at that location.

Since she could not get in front of me, she did what seemed like the next best thing to her. She followed me and got directly behind me, so close that her stomach was brushing lightly against my back. At that time I hadn't figured out what was going on and my biggest goal was to press into worship. So I tried to stay focused on worship. Then she began to sing very loudly into my ear, using a lot of weird shrieking sounds a singing a good two octaves higher than the key of the worship music. I did my best to focus on worship, but it was a struggle. I began to realize that something was really wrong and there was probably a demon operating here, but I hadn't figured out what to do about it.

When the music stopped, Bill asked us to grab someone and pray together with them. I quickly grabbed the lady on my left before the weird lady behind me could grab me. In fact, everyone in the vicinity paired up and she had no partner, so she went back to her seat, which was a good ten feet away. Someone partnered with her there. We were praying and suddenly I felt this hard force smash into my hip and spin me around and almost knock me over. It was that weird lady who'd been harassing me so much during worship. She had very forcefully backed into me and then went down as though she had been slain in the spirit.

The force of the impact was so great that it hurt my back and I was in so much pain I had to leave the service early, buy some aspirin and go back to my hotel room to lay down. I remained in so much pain the next day that I could hardly concentrate on the meetings. That lasted until dinner time, when one of the Ministry School students prayed for me and I got seriously drunk in the spirit and apparently was healed at that time.

I go the story of what happened with the Asian lady the next morning at breakfast. She had been standing in front of her chair (a good ten feet away from me) and someone laid hands on her to pray for her. She suddenly whirled around and began running backwards really fast until she ran into me. She was so far away from me when they started praying for her that they were amazed she was able to move way over to where I was and hurt me.

I don't believe it was an accident. I don't believe the lady had anything against me personally, but I believe she hosted a demon. And her demon, like Paul's, did not seem to like the anointing that I was carrying in that meeting.

Believe it or not, there is more to the story. I carefully planted myself in between two large men on Tuesday so she could not get near me. She did not try to sit in our section. As I said, I got really drunk in the spirit and was healed just before the evening session and there was a really strong anointing on me. Bill asked to pray for each other near the end of the meeting and I prayed for a deaf lady who got her hearing back. (I think the Lord restored 11 people's hearing during that ministry time, as the Spirit was flowing powerfully through anyone who was willing to flow with Him.)

We were dismissed just after the ministry time. It is a large auditorium with only a couple of doors, so it took a while to file out of there. I was with John (another GodSpeak staff member) and he was directly behind me. Suddenly I felt a strong demonic presence behind me. I turned around to see what was going on. That same Asian lady had somehow squeezed in front of John and was directly behind me. As soon as I saw her, I stepped into one of the aisles and let her press me, so I could rejoin John. The lady tried to press in to the aisle with me, but I had positioned myself so she could not fit in, and she had to keep walking forward. John commented to me about how the demon seemed to be following me.

We laughed about it at the time, but that night I really prayed about it and I came to the decision that if that demonized lady got near me again, I was going to cast that demon out of her no matter what was going on in the meeting. Up until that point I had been mad at the lady about how she hurt me, instead of feeling compassion for her being oppressed by the enemy. But my attitude changed as I was praying. I forgave her and started genuinely wanting to see her set from the enemy's torment in her life. Then the Lord spoke to me and said, "That demon is not going to get anywhere near you. It knows you mean business now, and it will avoid you like the plague."

Sure enough, I did not see the lady at the Wednesday morning session (which was the last session of the conference). I sort of kept an eye out for her, but I did not see her. I figured she must have not stayed for the last day of the conference since it was only one session.

There was a different (and much smaller) meetingafter lunch that was not a part of the conference. It was a business and information meeting for those who were in a fellowship of churches. At one point during that meeting, I noticed this demonized lady. She was sitting across the room from me. Instead of looking forward at the speaker, she was twisted in her seat and was glaring at me from across the room. Every time I would glance her direction, I could see her glaring at me. That sort of confirmed what the Lord had said to me about this demon avoiding me like the plague now that it knew I had godly motives towards its host.

I was with someone else and we had to leave the meeting a bit early because we had a long drive home, so I never got a chance to minister deliverance to this lady.

The reason I shared this example is because it is a case where a demon's attention was drawn to me because I was operating in a strong prophetic anointing. That sort of thing does happen from time to time, just like it did with Paul and the salve girl in Acts 16.


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-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --

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