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The media constantly asks me, “What demon do you deal with the most?” The answer is easy – Jezebel! That name conjures ideas of an adulterous female character. To call a woman a “Jezebel” is to evoke images of seduction, cleavage, come-hither glances, and sexual fascination. But that’s missing the point. Jezebel isn’t a one-dimensional character lifted from a grade-B erotic flick. Jezebel is mentioned 22 times in the Bible as a literal, historical figure. But this name also represents one of the most hideous demons in Satan’s kingdom, an archetype of evil and the #1 spiritual enemy of this age.

As Chapter Two of my book JEZEBEL points out, this demon has appeared in many forms and with various names throughout the ages. Some such identities include Ishtar, Ashtoreth, Diana, Aphrodite, Isis, and Kali, to name a few. Whether Egyptian, Greek, Roman, or Middle Eastern, cult worship is the focus, and the ultimate purpose is the same: Disparage the patriarchy of God the Father and displace the Holy Trinity with devotion to a matriarchal-based system of occult worship. And Jezebel is to be found in the church.

As I state on page 124 of my book, “One of Jezebel’s main purposes is the destruction of true worship. You’ll find Jezebel haunting the precincts of religion, even fervent worship of God. Jezebel especially likes to be found behind priestly robes and thunderous pulpits. What better place to subvert God’s word and purposes.” Thus, a strategy is needed to recognize when the Jezebel spirit is at work so it can be countered effectively. It’s critical to understand how this evil spirit operates to avoid the traps that Jezebel sets to destroy relationships, churches, families, and marriages.

NOTE: The above is adapted from my book “JEZEBEL: Your #1 Spiritual Enemy.” To order CLICK HERE.

An encouraging word: JESUS SAVES

 As I was recently walking down the streets of a busy city, I saw a man carrying a hand-written sign saying, “Jesus Saves.” You’ve probably also seen such. The man didn’t stop and said nothing. He simply bore witness to a basic spiritual truth. It shouldn’t get more complicated than that. The apostle Paul declared in 1 Timothy 1:9, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” In America’s culturally sophisticated Christianity we emphasis, and sometimes over-emphasize, the most minute aspects of Christian living. But we must never forget that none if it matters without the foundation that will get us to heaven: Jesus saves. Are you saved?

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

The extent of Christians being persecuted is reaching a scale that is historically unprecedented. Most evangelical Americans who flinch at the slightest incursion on religious liberties, and protest they should, have little idea regarding the scope of worldwide attacks on the church, especially from Islam. Dr. Walter Russell Mead, distinguished scholar in American strategy and statesmanship at the Hudson Institute, has written an incisive account of the slow death of Christianity in its cradle, the Middle East. His views are too voluminous to recount here, but the facts he cites are profoundly disturbing.

For example, early Christianity took root in Syria and Iraq and has survived there for 2,000 years. Even under Saddam Hussein there were still 1.5 million Christians. Today less than 20% of that amount remain. As recent as the 1920s, one-third of Syrians were Christian. Today it’s less than 10% due to the persecution of Islamist radicals. In 1900, most of Constantinople’s (present-day Istanbul, Turkey) residents were Christian. Today about 1% claim any faith other than Islam. And the nation of Turkey recently refused to acknowledge the genocidal slaughter of 2 million Christian Armenians in the early 20th century.

Perhaps the devil really does know that his time is short (Revelation 12:12) and has pulled out all the stops. One thing we certainly can learn from this is that the church must be very serious about its mission in these Last Days. All Christians everywhere are combatants in an openly declared war, and we must be prepared for battle. That’s the mission of our International School of Exorcism?. If you haven’t yet enrolled, do so NOW! Learn the strategies of spiritual warfare before it’s too late to protect yourself and those you love. (To enroll CLICK HERE.)

An encouraging word: THE MESSAGE OF CREATION

We should all be grateful for the Bible. But what about those who had no scriptures available while the 66 books were being compiled for more than 1,500 years? And what of those who didn’t speak Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek and had to wait for St. Jerome and others to start the process and Guttenberg to make it available to the masses? Psalm 19:3 in the Living Bible makes the obtuse more understandable. Of the glories of creation the psalmist says, “Without a word or sound their (the heavens) message reaches out to the whole world.” God has spoken through creation to every living soul so that none may be excused from comprehending His might and power.

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

Okay, so I’m a week late. But I had to write about what I shared in a brief homily delivered to family and friends last week on Mother’s Day. My scriptural reference was Matthew chapter 20 where Salome, the wife of Zebedee and mother of James and John (and likely the sister of Mary), approached Christ to ask a favor. In verse 21 she said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.” Remember that, even though Christ had already started to speak of his suffering, his followers still expected some kind of earthly kingdom, overthrowing the Romans. That’s one Jewish mom with a lot of chutzpah. She was thinking big. She was bold. She was brash, but Christ didn’t condemn her desire. We need more moms like that. She was a spiritual warfare mother.

After decades of ministering to broken lives, many of them demonized, I’ve made some interesting observations. I have no intent to diminish the important role of fathers, but here’s what I’ve noticed:

1. A strong mother can help to compensate for a spiritually inept father. It’s not God’s best plan, but a godly mom can help to fill the vacated role of an ungodly dad.
2. A warfare praying mom can keep a kid out of sin when they are determined to rebel.
3. An abusive mom is often worse than a bad dad. We expect more of moms, so when they fail a child, the hurt may be very deep.
4. An Ahab dad can damage a child. But worse yet, a Jezebel mom can turn a youngster into a dangerous menace. (If you question this, read my latest book on JEZEBEL. To order CLICK HERE.)

In summation, an unloving or neglectful father causes profound emotional damage, but the brokenness from a derelict mother is harder to heal. Those involved with inner healing and deliverance will likely find that what I say resonates with their own experiences in ministry.

An encouraging word: HE CREATED ALL THINGS

Christ is the Creator. Not of just you and me, but EVERYTHING. Colossians 1:16 puts it this way: “For by Him all things were created . . . all things were created by Him and for Him.” You can’t get much more specific than that. The evolutionist may argue that Bible doesn’t say how He did it. True. But HE DID IT! There was no “ascent of man” from primordial soup. No transition from monkey to souls with intelligence. Most importantly, it didn’t just happen. It was designed by intelligence. Knowing this gives life meaning that there is purpose, not randomness to our existence. Be encouraged that God made you and He formed you with intent and design.

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

What does an exorcist read? The Bible, of course. Every day. Beyond that I stay in touch with politics, religious trends, social change, world events, and church history. I’m particularly interested in knowing how the American evangelical church has adopted such a mostly pathetic state of dumbed-down Christianity. I don’t mean that Christians are dumb. I’m referring to our culture-driven, comfy-cozy, intellectually-dull, entertainment-oriented, commitment-phobic brand of Christianity that so predominates American spiritual life. Mostly, I fear how any call to real spiritual warfare is avoided assiduously.

In addition to all my other reading, I work my way through several major books a year. My current passion, a book my wife got for me (she knew I’d love it, and I do) is entitled, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought. The nearly 400 page volume seeks to uncover the true roots of post-apostolic Christianity by delving into the mindset of the greatest early theologians. The author, Robert Louis Wilkin, is Professor of The History of Christianity at the University of Virginia. The book is published by Yale University Press. Wilkin’s exploration ranges from St. Augustine to Cyril of Alexandria to Maximus the Confessor in the 7th Century.  The book is deep and I’ll not bore you with its complex intellectual meanderings.

What a book like this does make clear is that for the first 1,000 or so years of the Church, the leaders of Christianity took the Bible very seriously. They often wrote hundreds of pages (on parchment by hand, not churned out on a laptop) about a single sentence, or a single word. Take John 6:38, for example and the word “will.” Huge church councils were called to debate exactly whose will was being exerted, and whether Christ’s will was different than that of the Father. The outcome of that discussion determined much of what we believe today.

Sadly, it is hard for American Christians to even read God’s Word, let alone parse deeper meanings. And when it comes to the thought that the true Kingdom of Christ is established by casting out demons (Luke 11:20), that is incomprehensible to most evangelical. What we have is a version of Christianity for Dummies, ignorant of the battle with Satan that rages all around us, and mostly unaware of how Christians can be demonized. Our International School of Exorcism is out to change all that. If you haven’t enrolled, please do so today and learn the truth about spiritual warfare. (To enroll, please CLICK HERE.) 

An encouraging word: LET GOD AVENGE YOU

 Everyone has enemies. They may be disgruntled family members, former friends who turned against you, or people in the pathway of life who oppose you for seemingly little reason. There are good and bad ways to handle this problem. The bad way is to retaliate and make your enemy angrier. The psalmist

David had the proper attitude in Psalm 18:47-48: “He is the God who avenges me, who saves me from my enemies.” When you meet opposition, it’s better to leave it in God’s hands than to take matters into your own hands.

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did® (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

As an unsaved teenager with my own rock band, I strained at the sounds coming from my 45 rpm record player. Did the singer really say what I thought he said? Like many other kids my age, I was fascinated by the controversy. It all seems prosaic now when compared with today’s foul-mouth rap artists spouting constant obscenities. It was a million miles from the disgusting vulgarities of Eminem. But “Louie Louie” was scandalous for its time, for what we thought were clandestine four-letter words. I bring this up because the man who fronted the band the Kingsmen, Jack Brown Ely, died last week at age 71. He took to his grave the secret of what he really said that day in the recording studio when he belted out that early rock classic.

What I never knew, until he died, is that Ely eventually became a Christian and even released a Christian rock album, “Love is All Around You Now.” Strangely, he eventually turned to the Christian Science cult, according to a surviving son. (Christian Science is explained in my book LARSON’S BOOK OF WORLD RELIGIONS. To order CLICK HERE.) He died of skin cancer because he refused medical treatment. Still, at one point he obviously walked close to the Lord. In the song “The First Time I Touched His Hem,” Ely sang, “Oh, praise Him, Just praise Him, Yes, praise Him for His wonderful love.”

However things ended up for Ely, it’s a testament to what God can do with a life headed the wrong way. I got saved and so did Ely. I left “Louie Louie” behind for spiritual warfare, and Ely left the muttered obscenities of his song for Christian music, at least for a while. God does amazing things we can’t comprehend. If there was hope for Ely and me, there is hope for anyone to find Jesus.

An encouraging word: OVERCOMING TRIBULATION

“In the world you will have tribulation.” The words of John’s gospel are sobering (16:33). Jesus followed that warning with the promise, “I have overcome the world.” But reflect on that first part. The Lord has not promised us freedom from suffering and heartache. He hasn’t said by that following Him all would go well. Quite the opposite. As long as we dwell on earth, there will be trials. The right response isn’t to suggest, as do some theologians, that God only wants us healthy and wealthy. Reality testifies that sometimes Christians have to go through deprivation and pain. But never fear, we too shall overcome no matter what the world throws our way. 

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did® (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

Ours is a death-denying age. We mourn briefly. Scatter ashes. Out are wakes and open caskets. We push the idea of dying as far out of sight as possible. But in China they’ve taken death and dying to a whole new level by inviting strippers, complete with pole dancing, to funerals. So few people in China bother to honor the dead these days that funeral parlors have taken to inviting strippers to entertain and draw a crowd. China’s Ministry of Culture wants to eliminate the practice, which is seen as a national embarrassment. The last straw was when a dancer in the city of Handan removed her bra with assembled family and children watching. The erotic show was for the farewell of an elderly gentleman, who was no longer alive to grimace or leer. Some strippers have performed with snakes, a sign of good fortune to some Chinese.

It should be obvious that this is an extension of Communist ideology. Even though the Peking regime may not like the funeral strippers, what’s to be expected when God is officially expunged from society by Marxism? While most Americans might not go that far, who is to say that some won’t? In Las Vegas a group of atheists, including magician Penn Jillette, have formed a United Church of Bacon, that’s right  bacon, and claim 4,000- members worldwide. In Tennessee a swinger’s club has opened next door to a Christian school, claiming they are a church. (Their S&M “dungeon” room has been relabeled a “choir room.”) In today’s climate of “emerging” church thinking, where evangelicals are encouraged to drink beer and go light on Hell and sin, the door is open for Satan to work overtime. More important, when deliverance is eschewed and the idea that Christians can have demons is mocked, evil has an open door. Too many churches in America have “stripped” the Gospel of its power over demons and the devil.

An encouraging word: THE HEAVENS SPEAK

In our age of militant atheism, we need to pause and ponder Psalm 19:3.Of the glory and wonders of heavens, David declared, “Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.” Creation is not silent. The sun, moon, and stars speak of His glory and wonder. Only a fool would deny what the eye beholds. All this could not have existed in its complexity by chance. And the God who made it all conveys His awe by the “things which are made” (Romans 1:20). Tonight, gaze upward and remember that He is not silent. The heavens speak loudly of his majesty.

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did ® (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

He claims to be a Christian but hardly ever goes to church. Try to name the last night you saw Barack and Michelle Obama, with their children, exiting a church on Sunday morning. Rare. He’s not exactly compliant with Hebrews 10:25 to not forsake the assembling of believers. But open a mosque, and he’s there on the spot, or at least he plans to be. A 15-acre, $100 million mega-mosque is about to open in Lanham Maryland, not far from Washington, D. C. It was paid for mostly by foreign money and will be dedicated by Turkey’s repressive Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. America is a free country and if Muslims want to build a mosque, they can. But one has to wonder about the extraordinary infusion of such massive state money, supplied by a foreign government, to impress upon America a religious viewpoint that has factions which have pledged our destruction and the annihilation of Israel.

But more to the point. Show me a single photo of Obama attending the dedication of a church, any church, let alone an evangelical one. But Islam calls, and he comes running. That’s not to say that our President is a Muslim, but you have to wonder what’s really going on in his heart. Most are aware of his refusal to label ISIS terrorists as “Islamic.” More important, what does this mean for our country’s future? We are slowly slip-sliding away from our Christian heritage to a more secularist society, but also a more Islamic culture, aided by our President. If Mr. Obama feels he has to attend the Lanham mosque to promote international relations, that’s one thing. But at a time when radical Muslims around the world are beheading Christians and throwing them off boats to drown, this would be a good time for the President to get his family in a solid Bible-preaching church on Sunday morning to hear the Gospel. I recommend a good African-American deliverance church where he can get a dose of Holy Ghost power. I’ll be speaking in such a church in Raleigh this weekend, and the invitation is open for him to come.

An encouraging word: DELIVERANCE FROM ENEMIES

Do you have enemies? Everyone does. They may be casual acquaintances or even family members. Those are sometimes the worst. Well, I have good news from Psalm 18:48. The promise of God as expressed by King David was that the Lord “saves me [you] from my enemies.” Not only that but the Lord also will also “lift you up above” your enemies. Deliverance and exaltation. It doesn’t get much better. But this is a promise you must possess by faith, so start now declaring its truth in your life. Watch how God will keep you safe from all your adversaries and help you rise higher than all their attacks.

Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.