You Need a Shepherd to Guard You

I feel like commenting on my continuing experiences as a person who has been re-baptized by what, I hope, are proper New Testament standards.

I have already reported that I have had an easier time resisting temptation. If I were a reader of this blog, here is the question I would ask: after almost two weeks, is it still working?

Yes. It is still working. It has gotten better.

Let’s look at love of food, since it’s a particularly irksome problem that runs in my family. Along with drinking, it cost my dad and my aunt their minds. It killed my aunt, it is going to kill my dad, and my sister is obese. I have had problems, too, although I never got over about 213.

I don’t like being fat at all, so if it bothers you to see someone complain about weighing 213 pounds, tough. That’s not far from 50 pounds above what I believe to be a good healthy weight for me. By my standards, it’s disastrous.

Some people are happy if they can shoehorn themselves behind a car wheel. Some people think a person isn’t fat as long as he can buy clothes at normal stores. I don’t see it that way. If you’re uncomfortable and you look like a cherub in a Renaissance painting, you’re fat, even if you’re only “a few” pounds overweight.

Take a look at a 10-pound bag of sugar some time. Fat is lighter than sugar. That means 20 pounds of fat take up more room than two bags of sugar. It’s a lot of material. And you carry it everywhere! That’s something any intelligent person would want to fix.

There are many people out there who think being 50 or 80 pounds overweight is not a real problem. If that’s you, you have two problems: love of food, and supernatural blindness.

For a long time, I’ve known that demons make people overeat. If you have a hard time losing weight, you’re an addict, and addiction is demonic. When I’ve been out of God’s will regarding food, I’ve felt as though something behind me were pushing me, telling me to eat one more bite. I wasn’t imagining it. There really was something there. It was probably with me at birth, and I cooperated with it and cemented its power over me.

It’s unusual to hear a spirit speak in a voice you can hear the way you hear other people’s voices, but everyone hears spirits speak. Sometimes you’ll just feel an urge, but you may actually hear words form in your mind, in your own voice. If you haven’t been purged of evil spirits, you are hearing from them all the time, and they direct a lot of the behavior you think you choose on your own.

Based on my experience, spirits can speak to you in four different ways. I think there is a fifth way, but I’ll focus on the four I have experienced or witnessed firsthand.

First, they can stand outside you and tempt you, before you really have a problem. This is a fairly weak method of control. Say you’re 19 years old, and your best friend wants you to shoot heroin with him. You’re not addicted, and the idea is scary and off-putting, but something inside you wants to be included. This is the first way spirits speak to us, and it’s not that hard to resist. Because resisting is not hard, your guilt is very strong if you give in. You can’t say you were coerced.

The second way spirits can speak to you works like this: you’re in the grocery store, and you pass a display. Twinkies are on sale, two boxes for the price of one. You’re not addicted, but you’ve had Twinkies before, and you like them. Something inside you says, “It’s okay if I buy those, because I’ve been good all week,” and maybe you start to steer your cart over toward them. It’s harder to resist than something you’ve never tried, but you should still be able to break away.

The third way spirits speak to you is from the inside. You see the Twinkies, a spirit you have welcomed, fed, and praised for years says, “We’re buying those Twinkies, plus some chocolate sauce and root beer,” and instead of resisting, you say, “Of course we are,” and you buy the Twinkies and eat them until you can’t push one more bite in. You’re an addict, but it hasn’t ruined your life, and you can restrain yourself for short periods when you’re highly motivated.

On the fourth level, you crave things so badly you will steal from your mother’s purse in order to get them. You will break into people’s houses to get things you can sell. You will rob people on the street with a gun. You will loot your child’s college fund to please your demons. I have not been there yet, but my sister has.

It happens commonly with drugs, but it also happens with gambling, and I have seen it happen with food. America is full of people who ride electric carts because they’re fat. They literally gave up the use of their legs (and paid high social and economic costs) so they could stuff themselves.

I assume the fifth level is possession. I don’t know much about it, but my understanding is that when a person is truly possessed, it’s as though their own personality is strapped down while demons run the body.

I used to live on the third level with regard to some things. There were activities I didn’t see as sinful, so I didn’t try to restrain myself. Also, I was a washing-machine Christian. I figured I could do what I wanted, and God would forgive me later, washing me clean. I thought some things were only a little sinful, so I would sin and then ask for forgiveness. When I tried to break free of these things, I kept going back to them, because while I sincerely wanted freedom, I still had the demons.

To put it plainly, I was full of voices that were not mine. I didn’t hear what Christians call “audible voices,” but I heard them just the same. Even though the voices were not very strong, they still won regularly, because they could not be fatigued. They never gave up. Demons don’t have to rest. No matter how well I fought them with my own will, I eventually gave in. Human beings tire out.

Third-level demons are why dieters have cheat days. If you don’t have a demon, you don’t need to give yourself special holidays when you can sin. If your demon is still with you, you may be able to strike an unstable truce by setting aside days during which you pack yourself with food. I used to do it, and it worked fairly well for a long time. These days were like religious holidays, and the food was like offerings.

Before the new baptism, I heard the voices of my flesh, evil spirits, and other people very clearly, but when I was tempted, the Holy Spirit was not as loud. Now things are different. Let’s say the temptation is food. I’ll be in the kitchen, and something will say, “Go ahead and have a Coke. You behave so well these days, it’s okay.” Then I’ll hear something else, saying, “Or you could forget about it.” Then I’ll stop in my tracks and think about what just happened. Then I’ll drop the idea of having the Coke, and I will be conscious of great gratitude. I’ll feel like something inside me is pushing desire out of my stomach. At times like these, I know I’ve been saved by someone else.

If you have behaviors or thoughts you can’t control, maybe you can understand what a great thing it is to get victory over them. Some Christians have been delivered from drug addiction instantly. They are probably among the most grateful people alive.

People can’t change themselves very well. We struggle to change, we get temporary control, we hang on as long as we can, and then we fall back into our demonic habits. You can’t suppress them forever, because, again, demons do not get tired. Sooner or later, you will falter, and they’ll be as fresh as ever.

Fat people give up and get bariatric surgery because demons don’t get tired. Doctors prescribe drugs to neutralize or replace other drugs, because demons don’t get tired. Smokers who quit either start up again or get fat, because demons don’t get tired. When God delivers you, it’s different. The demons leave. If they stick around, outside of you, trying to catch you at a weak moment, the Holy Spirit rises up and responds, enabling you to resist or at least repent quickly.

Jesus said this:

Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

This essay tells you where I am today. I’m not promising anyone things will continue to go well. This is just documentation. I have ruined deliverance before. I am reluctant to prognosticate. Still, when I blew it in the past, I had not been baptized correctly. I had not made the proper agreement with God. My hope is that the repairs I have made to my foundation will help me stand permanently.

In the Bible, sand represents ideas that don’t come from God. Rock represents ideas that come from the Holy Spirit. Water represents voices and words. Jesus said that if you build your house on sand, it will wash away in the rain. The constant bombardment of demonic words is as persistent and hard to fend off as rain.

When you try to change yourself using strategies that come from men, you build your house on sand. When you let the Holy Spirit do the building, you build on rock.

Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the Lord guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.

I think Torben Sondergaard and The Last Reformation are right to believe that a proper water baptism is mandatory and powerful. That’s what I conclude from what has happened so far. It looks like true success without it is impossible.