OVERCOMING THE BARRIERS OF BEWITCHMENT.

SERIES: WE SHALL OVERCOME.

TEXT: ACTS 8:9-13.

Bewitchment is a very serious bondage against the captivated victims and only the truth of God, with fervent prayers under the power of the Holy Spirit can bring genuine and permanent deliveries. Bewitchment is one of the common satanic barriers used against people from fulfilling their God given purpose and destiny in life.

To bewitch is to charm a person and spiritually control him using satanic powers. Evil powers like witchcraft or sorceries are used to charm, to enslave or to mislead a person. Witchcraft can be used on a person, a place or a property.

Many people behave like the Samaritans of the old in the text above. The people of Samaria were under so much suffering but they never realized it. They were under blindness and satanic elusion but they did not know it. They were praising the very same man who was destroying them.

The people of Samaria did not really know who Simon was. Simon was sapping them but they believed he was delivering them. It is the same thing with a lot of people today.

Simon was destroying them thoroughly but satan was ensuring that they were blinded to it. The people of Samaria ignorantly nailed their enemy.

One sign of bewitchment is to call your enemies friends and your friends enemies. This is what bewitchment is all about. Your parents, brothers and sisters become your enemies, while those you don’t know well become your best friends.

In Samaria, destruction had already settled over them, sadness was everywhere in the city, unclean spirits had already possessed so many people. Nevertheless they went about normally. They thought Simon was the answer to their problems where as he was the problem.

The people of Samaria were dying and praising the man who was destroying their lives.

They were bewitched, but all of sudden the Holy Spirit located Simon and declared him as a satanic agent. Today, may the Holy Spirit locate those who bewitch you and destroy them in Jesus name.

We have many people going about, they look normal and they are spiritually influenced by the power of witchcraft and are spiritually blinded to such satanic influence, others are enslaved. It is common to see men working for women who they are not married to. Women feeding them, working day and night to maintain men, giving them pocket money, cleaning their clothes and houses, trying to buy love, but are bewitched. Let us learn:-

THE MEANING OF BEWITCHMENT.

• Bewitchment can be described by one or more of the following:-

1. It is an act of wickedness to entangle and spiritually control innocent people using satanic powers.

• Wicked people issue cubes on good and innocent people. It doesn’t matter whether you have committed an offense or not, before they decide to curse or charm you. The fact that you are walking on the path to make progress in life makes you their target.

1. It is an act of enslaving people and making them to operate under an evil control.

• Bewitched people would not listen to good counsel. They are always involved in errors and doing the wrong things.
• Bewitched people have their minds closed to the truth-Gal. 3:1.

1. It is an act of captivating people’s mind and making them to experience continuous confusion of the mind, loss of self-control by forcing them to obey strange and evil commands.

• A bewitched person walks in accordance with evil commands and directives under the irresistible influence of the power of darkness.

1. It is an act of evil oppression making victims to experience all forms of evil occurrences continually.

• A person may have continuous accidents, frequent sickness, loss of income, loss of position, loss of reputation, affliction with diseases and pains and so on.

1. Land could be bewitched. Once a land is bewitched, no business will prosper there until the bewitchment upon it is broken.

• When a land is bewitched, even if you plant crops there, they will not do well.
• At times people find it difficult to complete their houses because they are building them on bewitched lands.

1. Houses could be bewitched.

• Immediately people get into such houses they become broke.
• They begin to experience various satanic attacks because the house is bewitched.
• Immediately some people enter into a particular place, their prosperity would be swallowed, such a place is bewitched.

1. A town or village could be bewitched.

• Jezebel the wife of King Ahab bewitched an entire nation-2nd Kings 9:22.
• When you live in a bewitched city or town you will experience various setbacks and failures in life.
• Living in a bewitched town can reduce you to a pauper.

1. A marriage could be bewitched.

• Immediately after the wedding there will be no money or business.
• Progress stops, every good thing would stop and bad things would start to happen. The marriage has been bewitched.
• Bewitchment is therefore a very wicked satanic weapon that a believer in Christ should never take lightly.
• It is the work of witches and wizards that has turned some people to nonentity in the streets.
• Witchcraft has held up many people from progressing.
• You and I can overcome witchcraft and be set free in Jesus name.

THE MANNER OF BEWITCHMENT.

There are various intermediaries that bewitch. They get their powers from various sources. These powers include:-

1. Sorcerers-Acts 8:9. Examples are witchdoctors, voodoo men, false prophets and priests in marine powered churches.
2. Witches and wizards-2nd Chron. 33:6; Exodus 22:18; Deut. 18:10.

• These are in churches, schools, work places, residential neighborhoods.
• There is a proliferation of them everywhere.

1. Diviners-Acts 16:16.

• These are those who see visions and prophesy, not by the Holy Spirit but by evil spirits.

1. Enchanters.

• They cast spells on people. This makes their victims to misbehave or believe in wrong way as a right one.

1. People that have familiar spirits-1st Sam. 28; 2nd Chron. 33:6.

• These are demonic powers that are used in carrying out satanic supernatural activities.

1. Occult people.

• These are people in various occultic groups and secret societies with satanic powers to influence others (free masons, illuminati, brotherhood, sisterhood, priesthood etc).

1. Magicians who use strange powers and strange mirrors.

• Some magicians hide under religious activities, they burn incense and candles and carry out all sorts of religious rituals.

1. Necromancers-Deut. 18:11.

• They consult the dead to get power to bewitch others.
• Necromancers believes that the dead know more than the living but the dead know nothing-Eccl. 9:5-6; Job 14:21.

THE MANIFESTATIONS OF BEWITCHMENT.

There are several manifestations that could serve as evidence of bewitchment.

1. When a person blindly clings sin in spite of warnings.
2. When a person is spiritually handicapped to use his or her divine weapons like prayer, holy communion, fellowship, the word of God etc.
3. When a person is suffering from mind confusion and not fully in control of his/her actions.
4. When a person is exhibiting stubborn disobedience to godly counselling and instructions.
5. When a person frequently makes unexplainable mistakes.

• Such a person cannot explain why he does some things, he cannot justify his actions.

1. When a person is operating under different demonic powers and influence that are beyond his or her control.
2. A bewitched person struggles against a force he cannot understand and cannot master.
3. When a person is under the bondage of the spirit of the devourer.

• He/she cannot know what happens to his/her money.

1. When a person is experiencing series of bad dreams.

• Some of these dreams are attacks, resistances, robbery, sexual assault, evil covenants and evil fellowship.

1. When a person has completely lost the joy of the christian life, that is the joy of salvation.

• He/she gets tired of the christian life and feels that life was better as a non-believer.

CONCLUSION

• Bewitchment is a serious bondage in the lives of the victims.
• Only revelation of the truth of the word of God, backed with fervent prayers under the power of the Holy Spirit can bring true and permanent deliverance and overcoming.
• Today there is deliverance for you, even from life domination sins and sinful activities.