Doors Demons Use You Need to Close Immediately

I want to talk to you this evening about closing doors to the demonic. Closing doors to the demonic. Now, let me first say clearly that Christians can be attacked by demonic powers. We would not need spiritual armor if we were not in a spiritual battle. Amen. We would not be given warnings about the devil and demons if there was no danger around the powers of darkness. So let's establish this truth right at the beginning. The Scripture gives us instructions for what we actually need, and there's nothing in Scripture that is unnecessary. There's nothing in the writings of the New Testament That is unnecessary. Every word inspired by the Holy Spirit. And so you and I have to be aware of the fact that we are in a spiritual battle. What does that mean though? How does the enemy attack? I saw a funny video online. Someone dressed by someone dressed like a weird creature. They look like I don't know what they were trying to be, and it said the ancient demons. Getting ready to mess with your sound system on Sunday morning. Because I always found that funny, that anytime something's wrong with the sound system, they rebuke the devil, and I'm thinking, why don't you just upgrade the sound system? So, to some degree, we have to be a little more practical than likely we have been, but we have to acknowledge that demons do attack. That they're targeting you. They're targeting your children. They're targeting nations. The enemy is seeking to devour. The enemy has come to what? Steal, kill, and destroy. Well, what did Jesus say he stole? He steals the word. Before he can kill and destroy, he has to first snatch the seeds of the Word. Once the Word has been removed, once you begin to neglect the Word, now you begin to fall prey to deception. Deception is the basis for all demonic attack against the Christian. Think about this. When When you think about the attack of fear and anxiety, it's based on a lie about your future. When you think about the attack of depression, it's based on a lie about your identity, or about God's love for you, or about others' love for you, or your own value. When you think of the attack of temptation, where the enemy tries to lure you in, Think about the fact that that temptation is based on the idea, the lie, that the sin will be worth it. It's based on the lie that the sin will satisfy. It's based on the lie that what is in the world is worth the trade for what is in heavenly places. So every attack of the enemy is based on deception in regards to the attacks that come against the believer. Think also about torment, the fear and the dark projections, the audible sounds that the enemy uses, the demonic imagery that the enemy uses, the demonic scenarios that the enemy flashes before your mind, all a part of the attack of torment. But it's smoke and mirrors. It's an illusion, an exaggeration of his power. Temptation, depression, fear, confusion, torment— all of it is based on deception. So what is an open door? Is it an opportunity for the enemy to physically attach himself to you? No, I don't think so. And as you study Scripture, You'll find that that's not the case. In fact, I've placed many teachings out on this. I did a 3-hour in-depth study on that very topic, just combing through the scripture, and you will not find that that's what the enemy does with believers. What the enemy does is he uses opportunities of susceptibility to come in with attacks of deception. I'll give you an example. We believe that God provides. We know this. Why? Because the scripture says. When is the enemy going to lie to you about God's provision? Is it going to be when you have plenty? No. No, it's going to be when you're struggling. And now that's when he lies and says God might not be your provider. When is the enemy going to lie to you about the love of God? Is it going to be when you feel connected to him, or is it going to be when you feel like he's a million miles away? The enemy will lie to you at the opportune time so that your emotions and circumstances bolster the believability of his lies. And so this is why we have to watch out for those susceptibilities. And sometimes life brings us into these moments where we are susceptible to temptation. Sometimes a tragedy will strike. Sometimes a loss will happen. Sometimes we'll face a disappointment. Sometimes there will be something going on in our minds or in our hearts or in our emotions, and the enemy will take advantage of that opportunity. And then other times we are creating the vulnerability ourselves through what we do or do not do. Matthew chapter 12, please turn there. Matthew 12. Beginning at verse number 43. When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none. Then it says, I will return to the person I came from. So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and in order. Then the spirit finds 7 others more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. So that person is worse off than before. That will be the experience of this evil generation. Now notice here the scripture says, beginning at verse 43, when an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert. In other words, demonic beings travel. Now this is a tad technical, but I want you to think about the fact that this actually proves that demons not omnipresent. Because to be omnipresent is to be everywhere at all times, and if I'm everywhere at all times, then by definition, I cannot travel. How can I move from anywhere to anywhere if I'm everywhere? And so, here we see that demonic beings are limited in terms of their presence. They, in fact, do travel, and they seem to be bound to the earth. It goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none. We also see here that they grow tired. They grow weary. Verse 44: I will return. I will— demonic powers have wills of their own— return to the person I came from. They come back to check for vulnerabilities. Now thankfully, in the case of the believer, we are not being described here in Matthew 12. Look at what it says: So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and in order. Romans 8:9, Ephesians chapter 1, John chapter 3 all make it abundantly clear that the born-again believer is not empty. They are filled with the Holy Spirit the very moment they receive Christ as Lord. Amen. The Holy Spirit isn't a reward for super Christians. The Holy Spirit comes upon you, lives within you at the very moment you are saved. You are not given a baby Holy Spirit, a new convert Holy Spirit. A mini version of the Holy Spirit or a portion of the Holy Spirit. You are given the same Spirit, Romans 8:11, the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you. Full of resurrection power and life. Everything he is, he's committed to you. So never mind with this idea that the Holy Spirit is a reward for the spiritual. In fact, he is your only chance at being spiritual or even desiring to be spiritual. But here we see that these demonic powers come back to check for vulnerabilities. So though it cannot re-enter the believer, this does not mean they are not looking for other opportunities for influence. Verse 45, then the spirit finds 7 others. These spirits communicate with one another. More evil in itself, they are varied and ranked to the degree of their level of evil. In other words, if there are some demons more evil than this one, then there is a ranking system in hell. Otherwise, how would it know who to call? How they decide this, I don't know. I don't want to speculate beyond the Scripture, but what we can surmise is the fact that they rank in different levels of evil. And they all enter the person and live there. And we, of course, know that demonic powers can, like parasites, dwell within the body of the unbeliever. Now, 1 John 4:4 says, but you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than— who? The spirit that lives in the world. Notice here that the Scripture is making a clear delineation. It is saying That one of the spirits, or at least the premise of what is being communicated, is clear, that one is in you, the other is not. Demonic powers come against you, but greater is he who is in you. Amen. You often hear of talk of different names and different ranking, and I think it is important to be aware of the attacks of the enemy. It's important to be aware of how hell is structured. It's important to be aware of the strategies of Satan. But remember this in all your study of spiritual warfare and of all the spirits you'll ever come into contact with: there is no spirit more powerful than the Holy Spirit. Don't you forget that. And so we see that these demonic powers Literal, sentient, evil beings, highly intellectual, who strategize, communicate, travel, and come back to check for vulnerabilities, target you. Now, demonic powers are highly trained spiritual assassins. They've watched human nature for thousands of years. They know the inclinations of man. They know the nature of man. They know the mind of man. They know the physical being of man. They know the emotions of man. They know the history of man, and they know all the behavior patterns of man. And just by studying you, your bloodline, and everyone in history, they've gathered what you would call spiritual intel that they use against you in their strategies. If you try to outsmart a demonic power, they will outsmart you every time. And Jesus lays for us the example of how we combat the enemy, didn't he? Well, think of what happened in Matthew 4. The enemy comes and he challenges him, first challenging his identity. If you are the Son of God. Now, if anyone could have used their own intellect, if anyone could have used their own experience, if anyone could have used their own spiritual rank, was it not Jesus? Amen. Jesus could have said, hey, Satan, weren't you there at the Jordan River? Didn't you hear the voice? Didn't you see the heavens splitting open, the dove settling on me, the Holy Spirit coming upon me? Didn't you hear the Father declare, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased? But he didn't point to that, did he? No. Jesus, who could have used his experience and rank, did not use his own experience and rank when coming against the strategies of the devil. He pointed to the Word. It is written. And so we see again the theme of our warfare. It's truth. Spiritual warfare is ultimately the fight to believe God's truths over the enemy's lies. Now let me talk to you about these open doors. The basis, you know, for the attacks of the enemy is deception. So number one, the first open door: your connections. And by that I mean your relationships with other individuals. 1 Corinthians 15:33: Don't be fooled by those who say such things, for bad company corrupts good Now, we have to balance this because if you reference something like, for example, Mark 2:17, you see that Jesus would often spend time with unbelievers. We must not quarantine the gospel. How many times have you talked to paranoid believers who, they go to shake someone's hand and they're like, I didn't know that person, I have to go pray. Now, you, I know you're Holy Ghost. You could see it in the spirit. So I hope the analogy didn't apply anything. But think about this. We treat demons like they're pathogens. We want to spray, like, spiritual Lysol all over us, disinfect. We say things like, oh, you know, I was shopping, and I walked into this store. I didn't realize what kind of store it was. It was very New Age. And I touched one of the lamps and I don't know, please pray for me. I can't quite— and I get it. I don't wanna downplay the power of the enemy in that regard. But my friend, if you walked into a place unknowingly and that lamp had a demon on it, the moment you touched that lamp, that demon left. Amen. But what do we do? We get to this place of paranoia and we treat people like this. They have a bad spirit. Let me distance myself. Now, let me balance this, because on one hand, we shouldn't quarantine the gospel. You don't have to go become a monk and live in the mountains or disconnect from all people for all time. And some people do that and they actually have, you know, issues with unforgiveness. And then they want to spiritualize that unforgiveness by saying, well, I'm just in a season of isolation. When God did not call you to isolation, God called you maybe to moments of solitude, but never a lifestyle of disconnection. So I get that you have to balance that and avoid that, and you have to stop treating people like they're infected and like you're better than them and like you're so spiritual that if you come into contact with even lukewarm believers, that somehow you're going to be contaminated. That's not of God. On the other hand, We mustn't be so naive to think that others can't affect us. So what is the balance? The balance is found in this question: does the relationship draw them closer to God, or does it pull you further from him? That's it. Simple. That's the question you have to ask. Because if the answer to that question is that they pull you away from God, you have to do one of two things. Either you have to greatly decrease their influence, or you have to completely disconnect from them. Amen. Now, more often than not— please hear me clearly— more often than not, the solution is simply to decrease their influence. But you have to be willing to disconnect as well. Amen. And so while we don't want to quarantine the gospel, we have to watch for this influence. Do you realize that the conversations you have with these people are communications that are affecting the mind? And so you have to be careful, not just in how they're influencing you and your behavior, you have to watch for how your associations affect your testimony. Now Jesus was often criticized for spending time with people that others deemed as the lesser of society, but he was doing so in a way that was impacting them. And so that is the ultimate question you have to ask: does this relationship draw them closer to God, or does it pull me further from him? And in answering that question, you know whether or not you have to shut that door, the door of your connections. Now, how does the enemy use this? Well, if I'm associated with someone, I'm going to become like them. And the more time I spend with someone, the more like them I become. This is why I tell people it's as simple as daily prayer. You want to be more like Jesus? Pray and read the Word. Pray and read the Word. Pray and read the Word. Amen. And the Holy Spirit will cause you to become like him. And in the way you live, he'll bring transformation. But when it comes to those individuals with which you are fellowshipping, you have to be spiritually discerning, not in a way where you're looking down your nose at them as if they're lesser than you, but in a simply pragmatic way, assessing the relationship and asking, who is influencing who? Yes. Even as I'm talking, there might be some names and faces coming to your mind. Be honest with yourself. You have to be honest with yourself because I've seen relationships destroy people. You know, I started preaching when I was 13, and I had many friends who started around that age too. I met a lot of fellow preachers, young, just like me, even now, just like me, young. You can say amen, that's okay. Amen. Thank you. And I've watched them, and I've seen these preachers, these fellow believers, these fellow ministers, Who began with a fire in their heart, who began with preaching in the streets with me. We would preach on school campuses, university campuses. We'd preach at the mall. I had a few friends get kicked out by security. I would go into house parties with them and we would preach. One of the negotiating tactics we would use— I do not recommend this, those of you watching. This was just what I was doing, okay? I don't recommend this. But we would go into a party and we would say, "Hey, there's underage drinking here, right?" They go, "Oh yeah." I say, "Okay, give me five minutes to preach or we call the cops." Now, I don't know if what the Lord thought of that, but people got saved. God can use anything, right? So maybe me in my immaturity doing something like that resulted in something. I don't know. But the point is, I watched as these. Mm-hmm. Fellow fiery preachers, one by one, slipped into the world, and it was always a relationship that began to pull them. Susceptibility, it's how the enemy works. Number 2— so number 1 is your connections, number 2, your eyes and your ears. Now, I hesitate to call these eye gates and ear gates because, again, the implication is that if I look at something, a demonic power can jump into me and that's it, now I'm infected. And by the way, the Bible doesn't talk about asymptomatic demoniacs. There are always severe symptoms that come with demonization. You'll just read the Scripture. So it's not that. But again, balancing, it's not the extreme of paranoia, nor is it the extreme of apathy. There's something to be said here. What you see affects your mind. What you hear affects the soul. Psalm 101:3, I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar. I hate all who deal crookedly. I will have nothing to do with them. Job 31:1 says, I made a covenant with my eyes. Not to look with lust at a young woman. Few things can affect the mind as powerfully as visuals. Visuals have tremendous staying power. The visual experiences that we store in the mind can contribute to the power of issues like trauma, lust, and mental torment, among other issues. The images you allow before your eyes can become imprinted on your mind. Visualization is one of the most powerful forms of thought. The enemy seeks to use these powerful thoughts against us. He uses them to aid in his efforts to cloak our minds under the darkness of his deceptive lies. The enemy takes disturbing, sinful, and distracting visuals and brings them to memory when you're at a weak point. That's right. point. Listen to me, young men, and I know it's more than young men, but I know it's an epidemic among young men. Young men, when you watch pornography, you are storing in your mind ammo for future temptation. Amen. Now again, I know it's not just young men who deal with that, But we have an epidemic in this world, really. Amen. And what happens is not just thoughts of lust. Some of you have gone through traumatic experiences, and the things you saw were imprinted on your mind, and every time that image comes up again, the emotions of that moment come back too. The enemy will recall what's in your memory when you are weak. In fact, forgiveness is a decision sometimes that you'll have to make again and again and again. Because you can forgive someone let it go, and then the memory reoffends you. And you have to make the conscious choice to say that no matter how many times the memory reoccurs, I will forgive them for every time that comes up. Now, that's not fair, but we are to forgive as God has forgiven us. But the enemy will bring back visuals. Amen. The ears are similar. For example— and when I talk about the ears, I'm not just talking about music, but music is a great example. You can consider things also like conversation, or the things you listen to on podcasts, the things you listen to from the false prophets. We call them CNN and Fox News. Amen. You say, David, you mentioned both sides. Yeah, they're all a bunch of demons, I'm telling you. Some of the anchors, I'm sure, but the systems is what I'm talking about. The systems. False prophets declaring, declaring, declaring propaganda, propaganda, propaganda, fear, fear, fear. You just hear it again and again and again and again. And it's like, We forget that every single year there was something new to be afraid of. That's good. Just go back and look at the calendar. Every year there was something to be afraid of. You know what it is this year? It's the economy. And I promise you, when that's done, it'll be something else. Why? Because fear is a means of control. The enemy seeks to control you through what you hear. You're programming your mind according to the patterns of this world when you are listening to the propaganda of this world over and over and over again. Some of us hear more from movies and music and social media and news anchors than we do from the word of God. And it's programming us. So again, another example is like music. 1 Samuel 16:23. By the way, music is spiritually significant. You notice in our services we use music. Now cynics will say, It's manipulation. But we understand that it is a form of expression of worship to God. Amen. And I don't know where this disdain for music comes from in certain parts of the body of Christ, especially when the Word so clearly talks about it. And again, that comes from that place of fear, fear, fear. 1 Samuel 16:23 says, and whenever the tormenting spirit from God troubled Saul, David would play the harp, then Saul would feel better and the tormenting spirit would go away. You who've been to our services can— you know, more often than not, you will hear demonic manifestations during the worship. People are getting delivered. Why? Because there's something spiritually significant about it. 2 Kings 3:15, now bring me someone who can play the harp. While the harp was being played, the power of the Lord came upon Elisha. Now, this is not to say that the harp in and of itself is what produced the power, but this is to say that there was something about the accompaniment of music that set some type of spiritual dynamic in motion. This is also not to say that God needs music to move. This simply means that music is spiritual. Proverbs 18:21, death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Here we see that what we speak can bring forth life or death. Now, can I challenge you on something here? I'm going to do it anyway. That is an often misused passage. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Verse 2 tells us the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep. God has the ability to call forth the material from the immaterial. In other words, before time began, God was. Before material existed, God was. Amen. Before space existed, God was. He is outside of these, therefore He is the cause of these, and they did not cause Him. You and I have been given power in our words, but we have to understand the difference between creative power and cultivating power. Now, you won't see that term cultivating power in Scripture, but you see it implied in verses like this. Let me give you a very popular example. If somebody gets a cold, let's say your nose starts itching and your throat starts itching and you get that just— and you just wake up one day and you go, oh no. You know that feeling? If you say, I think I'm getting sick, there's always that one Christian Who's a bit of an alarmist, don't speak that into existence. I was praying for a lady one time. She comes to the front. I'm doing a prayer line for healing, and we're just praying for the sick. And I said, ma'am, how can I pray for you? She says, pray for my eye. I said, okay, what's wrong with your eye? She said, nothing is wrong with my eye. I said, so we don't need to pray? She goes, no, please pray for healing. I said, okay, what would you like me to pray? Pray for healing in my eye. Okay, what's wrong with your eye? Nothing is wrong with my eye. And it went back and forth like that for probably longer than it should have. And this was earlier in ministry, so I was a little more frustrated. I go, ma'am, listen, lady, if you need a healing, I need a healing. It means there's something wrong. If there's nothing wrong, you don't need a healing. What is wrong with your eye? And finally she tells me, I don't want to speak it. Is that what Jesus said? When people— Jesus, I have leprosy. Don't speak it. Jesus, I'm tormented by these devils. Don't speak it. Amen. Faith does not deny reality. Faith changes it. Faith changes it. So, so you can see where we get a little superstitious. Now I know I'm stepping on toes, but I'm challenging you here as your brother in Christ on something that we need to conform to the Word of God because the Word doesn't teach that. And so we have this idea That if we speak, it happens. Now, I wanna balance this in a moment. Yes. But if you had creative power, you would be speaking extra lanes into existence when you're on the 79. No, I'm not trying to mock. That's what creative power is, to speak and then materialize out of nothing something instantaneously, miraculously, okay? This is not to say that the words you speak have no power, because the words you speak change the way you think, and the way you think determines the trajectory of your life. So death and life are in the power of the tongue. Yes, you can speak encouragement or discouragement. That's right. You can speak truth or deception. You can speak something that uplifts someone or something that slanders someone. You can speak something comforting or something hurtful, and that is the fruit thereof that we receive, because you're speaking words that dictate your life. This is why I say the ears can be an open door, because what you are hearing is programming who you are now. As a balance, I want to balance this. The only time your words have creative power is when you speak what God has already said, because the creativity is in his voice. So when we echo that voice, then there's creative power. So if you're praying for healing, there's creative power behind that because he has already declared healing and so forth. So when you speak what God has spoken, or you speak what God directs and it truly is from Him, then there is creative power. We cannot, by our own will, by our own whim, on our own time, whenever we so choose, just speak anything. And so, this is why you have to watch the eyes and the ears, because these are communication devices that program the mind. Now, number 3, this is one that's very rarely talked about. And that is states of being. There are sins of commission, things that we do that displease God or things that we do that violate his commands. That's 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. And then there are sins of omission. These are things that God wants us to do that we don't do. You can see James 4:17, as a reference to that concept. And then there are states of being that make us vulnerable to fleshly living. I'll give you an example. Don't ever have an argument when you're hungry. Why? Because hunger is a state of being in which you are vulnerable. Remember Elijah the prophet? He calls down fire from heaven, demonstrates God's power, and then, of course, he's threatened, he flees, and he's asking God to take his life. And what does he do after that? He takes a nap, he has a snack, and he's on with his business. States of being. Emotional, angry, sorrowful, tired, hungry. This, by the way, is the reason that some of the greatest falls in terms of sin come when people are overworked and tired. This is why I caution ministers and preachers You want to be Superman. You want to win the world. And you're doing so much that you're not sleeping, you're not eating, and you think you're doing God a favor. My brother, my sister, you're setting yourself up for a fall. Because when you are tired and when you are hungry, you are more impulsive. You have less self-control. You care less about the things that matter. You're not thinking as clearly. And so these are states of being. An example of this, Ephesians 4:26-27. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Neither give place to the devil. Now here the Scripture is making a distinction between anger and sin. People try to spiritualize what Jesus did in the temple, and it was very spiritual, but they try to add spiritual lingo. They say, that wasn't anger, that was righteous indignation. I say, that's the same thing. It's the same emotion, but it was coming from a righteous place. So it is possible to be angry and not sin. Jesus never sinned, and in that expression of anger, he was righteous. But still, some of us in our anger sin. Amen. Think about how when you're angry, it's easier to release that insult. Amen. Think about how when you're angry, it's easier when you get really worked up. I'm gonna prove this to you. You get really worked up, you get really angry, you get really frustrated, you reach behind them into their past and then shove it in their face. And now you're doing the devil's work for him, the accuser of the brethren. Don't give place to the devil is not describing a literal, physical, spatial reality. It's describing an opportunity for him to influence you. In fact, the word means opportunity. And so in our tiredness, in our anger, in our fear, in our exhaustion, in our sorrow, in our hungry, in our confusion, we're more susceptible to sin. It's an open door. But thank God, because Ephesians 3:16 says, I pray that from his glorious unlimited resources, he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. So number 1, the number 1 is going to be? Home. Connections. Number 2, your eyes and your ears. Number 3, your states of being. And your states of being again, are not sins unto themselves, but they are in fact vulnerabilities in which the enemy works. Lift your hands all across this room and say, help me, Holy Spirit. Say it again. Say, help me, Holy Spirit. I pray that you were blessed by the message. If you think others need to hear this sermon, then make sure to leave a like on the video right now. That will help to spread it to more people. Also, don't forget, subscribe to the channel so that you can continue to receive my teachings on the Holy Spirit, prayer, and spiritual warfare. And do click that notification bell when you subscribe. Also, if you believe in what this ministry is doing and you want to help us further advance our mission, then make sure you become a monthly ministry supporter if you're not already by going to davidhernandezministries.com/partner. Your monthly support of any amount is going to make all the difference, and it will help to fund the media, the events, the Holy Spirit School, and various other projects and outreaches of this ministry. Thank you. I love you. I appreciate you. I pray for you. And until next time, remember, nothing is impossible with God.