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Not a week goes by without my ministering to an individual who is living with someone outside of marriage. What used to be called “living in sin” or “shacking up” no longer even has a pejorative description. Sinners are simply “partners.” But now a new book, Generation Unbound: Drifting into Sex and Parenthood without Marriage, sheds light on just how seismic this fault-line is. The Pew Research Centre, a think-tank, has predicted that one in four young Americans will NEVER marry. This sentiment is expressed with the tongue-in-cheek credo, “You will get to have sex with a different attractive person every night for the rest of your life.” Or so they think. It seems the only place that marriage still matters is with the upwardly mobile. Ninety percent of University-educated mothers get married before their first baby. Among non-graduates, 58% of births are out of wedlock.

The book describes the new family landscape as a “family-go-round” with absent fathers, new (and sometimes sexually abusive) stepfathers, an unstable array of step-siblings (who are also often incestuous), and constant uncertainty. Those of us who minister deliverance encounter this family dynamic frequently, because such circumstances are a breeding-ground for demons. Abandonment, rejection, domestic violence, substance abuse, molestation, anger, unforgiveness; these are all part of this spiritual landscape where demons roam freely. Being born illegitimately into a home of “partners” doesn’t ensure demonization, but the odds are higher. (Read my chapter on the curse of illegitimacy in my book CURSE BREAKING. The book contains a special prayer to break this curse. To order CLICK HERE.) If you’re in a merry-go-round relationship, get married or get out. If you were born into a “generation unbound” environment, get deliverance before the carousel stops at the entrance to torment.

Comedian Jon Stewart isn’t exactly a household name among Christians. Due to his frequent use of profanities, his acclaimed “Daily Show” (seen on TV’s Comedy Central channel) is probably not high on the viewing list of conservative evangelicals. Jon, a two-time host of the Academy Awards, has won Grammys and Emmys. A self-described “socialist” he has never been seen as friendly to either conservatives or Christians. But there I was this past Monday night, our Skype exorcisms the subject of a lengthy report. (To view CLICK HERE.) Last summer Jon flew a crew of four from New York to interview and profile me. It took this long to put the story together and air it. Jessica Williams, a regular reporter on the show, hosted the segment and asked me to demonstrate how I would exorcism her demons over the Internet. The morning after, Salon, the liberal web site, ran a story entitled: “Must-see morning clip: The Daily Show’s Jessica Williams gets an exorcism via Skype.” Of me, Salon said, “He chases the demons out of her with technology.” For clarification, it wasn’t an actual exorcism but a dress-rehearsal for what might have happened had she actually manifested and not been physically present.

I know of no other evangelical Christian minister who has ever been on the show, certainly not an exorcist branding a cross and commanding demons back to Hell in the name of Christ. Such is the amazing opportunity given to us, an open door not available to others of biblical persuasion. Why? I’ll leave that to you to contemplate. In the meantime, we will seek every available opportunity to tell the world that spiritual freedom is available through the power of God.

Jon Stewart has a sharp, often caustic wit. Thank the Lord I escaped without being skewered by one of his editorialized, comedic barbs. Thank you, Jon! I am much relieved.

I saw the movie “Left Behind” last weekend. You must see this movie. Tim LaHaye, the Christian leader and author behind the book on which the movie was based, is a long-time personal friend. For years we skied together every winter. I remember many years ago he told me about an idea he had. He wanted to write a series of novels about The Rapture. At the time, Tim was already a best-selling author, but he’d never written fiction. My novel DEAD AIR (to order CLICK HERE) was a best-seller. He wanted my thoughts about his trying out fiction. I encouraged him, and all these years later I am sitting a theater deeply moved by this movie. As I watched on-screen the panic ensuing The Rapture my eyes grew moist with gratefulness that our whole family knows the Lord. When that hour comes, we’ll all be together with Jesus. I pray your family will too.

Boy are the atheists mad. Last night I came across a blog of an unbeliever, who was raised in a Christian home and once professed Christ, trashing the film in language I wouldn’t use to condemn a porn flick. Vicious. In an article called, “Christian right’s vile PR sham” he vilified the movie as the effort of “fundamentalists” to “corral” American into an “ever-shrinking intellectual ghetto.” He continued: “Christianity expressed in culture and in religious movies has nothing to do with faith, decency, and alleviating suffering. It’s a bizarre American offshoot best expressed by a second-amendment Jesus and cutting food stamps for hungry children.” It gets worse. Regarding “Left Behind” the writer declares of anyone who believes in the Rapture, “This emphasis on mass-punishment of non-Christians makes [the movie] nothing more than a planetary-sized snuff film.”

No doubt here about who is going to be left behind.

Blood-stained dummies, Jack the Ripper eviscerations, and baby-doll killers are having a difficult time these days. It’s that season again of fright for fear’s sake, and it’s getting difficult to up the ante on blood and gore, according to those in the Haunted Attraction Association. (Yes, the haunted house folks have a trade group, the HAA.) Insiders in the business say it’s getting harder and harder to frighten jaded customers. This affects a lot of people: vendors, artisans, builders. As one insider put it, “When we started this, we took our cornfield, mowed a path, bought masks and scared people by jumping out of the corn. That doesn’t do it anymore.” Another business insider says that in a culture of normalized violence “it takes so much more to get them [customers] to that level of fear reaction. They’re so used to it.” Yet another industry leader says, “The only way to satisfy customers would be cut off their arms and slap them upside the head with them.”  On the drawing boards? Haunted houses where people enter naked, to make them feel more vulnerable.

The biblical response to this is so simple: For God has not given us a spirit of fear . . .” (2 Timothy 1:7). Note the verse refers to a “spirit.” Don’t buy the standard exegetical explanation for this text that it refers to an attitude. No, Paul says that fear is a spirit. A demon. What the Haunted Houses are trying to conjure is a demon, by evoking the fear factor inside the natural human response of fright to the unexpected and the grotesque. Christians should have no part of this, although there have been some commendable Christian attempts to redeem the idea by frightening people about the consequences of hell. If you can scare people away from the devil, that’s good. But it’s evil to scare people into the arms of Satan with houses of horror at Halloween.

I’m on the Highway to Hell,

Going down, party time,

My friends are gonna be there too, yeah

Hey Satan, paid my dues . . .

I’m on my way to the Promised Land,

I’m on the Highway to Hell.

Lives there a hard rock fan who can’t sing the entire song from memory? It’s the rock classic by Australian band AC/DC. Formed in 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus young, they’re considered one of the top 10 selling rock bands of all time. They survived the death of lead singer Bon Scott in 1980 when, in a drunken state, he suffocated in his own vomit. Now, having sold more than 200 million records worldwide they face another crisis. Malcom is being treated for dementia at 61 years of age. While it may not be clear that the hard living accompanying his music contributed to his health issues, it certainly didn’t help. In fact, Malcolm had a history of drinking problems, even missing tours as a result. He’s now in a nursing home, not exactly the high-life surroundings he’s undoubtedly used to.

Sad. All that money and fame and no memory of it. Not even knowledge of who the people are in his old band. Shuttled back and forth to the bathroom and dining table, with nowhere to go and all independence gone, Malcolm Young is truly on a living highway to hell. No party, no promised land. I pray that somehow in his addled state the hope of Christ becomes clear, if anyone has ever shown him the Way. If not, the hell he lives in now won’t be nearly as terrible as the Hell that he described in his lyrics.

 Deliverance isn’t in the Bible. Now that I’ve got your attention with that statement, let me explain what I mean. Many beliefs and practices in Christianity are not explicitly pronounced in the Bible, but the implications are there. For example, I’m pro-life, but I can’t quote a scripture saying, “Thou shalt not commit abortion.” I believe in the rapture, but it’s not mentioned once in John’s Revelation, where you’d think the Holy Spirit would have placed it, if anywhere. Many Christians believe that for baptism and accepting Christ as Savior with full mental recognition there should be an “age of accountability,” but it’s not taught specifically. Baptism by immersion is pretty standard for evangelicals (me too), but it can’t be proven that’s the only way to baptize.

Now to my point. Yes, Jesus cast out demons, but there is no specific formulaic system laid out to follow procedurally. The command of Christ to cast out demons is explicit. (Matthew 10:1, for example.) Exactly how it should be done is implicit, gleaned from the anecdotes in the synoptic gospels. We infer how to go about it by piecing together the accounts of Christ’s exorcisms. (Yes, I know, when Jesus expelled demons it wasn’t actually called an exorcism by the gospel writers. That came later in church history.) So the next time someone tells me that what God has called me to do isn’t found in the Bible, I am inclined to smile inside and agree with them. That should keep them quiet for a while.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going — to the next husband! I’m all for a backup on computer hard drives, a backup on internet passwords, and a backup in baseball. But a backup mate? According to a published survey in the Daily Mail, 1000 married women were questioned as to whether they had someone waiting in the wings if their marriage went south. Half said they did. Some said they had more than one backup, usually an old friend or ex. Ten percent said the backup had already confessed love and was waiting for things in the marriage to worsen. Twenty-five percent of women admitted they felt as emotionally strong toward the backup as their spouse.

Obviously, trying to make a marriage successful while wasting energy on the “what-ifs” undermines success in the present relationship. The Mail likened it to “boarding a vacation cruise wearing a life jacket for the duration of the trip.” What’s apparently missing with many in this survey is that having a backup could well be the reason the marriage doesn’t work. This all reminds us how narcissistic and self-indulgent many have become. Jesus said (Luke 12:34), “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” One’s spouse should be the ultimate treasure. And if a marriage does fail, God forbid that it should be because of a backup “treasure.”

If E. T. were to phone home, now that he could use a smartphone not available to Steven Spielberg in 1982, where would he call? A new book called The Copernicus Complex, states all the usual arguments for life having evolved on other planets. But it offers an unintentional kudo for creationists. Enter the “principle of mediocrity.” According to a review in The Wall Street Journal, this principle says that “we live on an ordinary planet, orbiting an ordinary star, in an ordinary galaxy.” In other words, life on this planet isn’t such an evolutionary big deal. But Complex actually claims that conclusion is too exaggerated. Earth is quite extraordinary when compared to the rest of the universe.

 The book seeks to prove that our earth, in the order of things, is incredibly unusual. Elsewhere in the universe, chaotic disorder is common; in our galaxy there are more circular orbits that have left earth relatively undisturbed for billions of years. In fact, about 97% of other planetary systems don’t allow for the conditions that might lead to life. Our galaxy is in the 2% where life might be possible.  As Hebrews 11:3 says (KJV), “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.” No chaos, no elliptical orbits, no disorder. Life formed by God in the only place it could have happened, here on the planet, by the creative hand of God.

For a moment I thought I had checked into Hotel California, you know, the Eagles’ haunt where you can “check out but you can never leave.” (Cue an old Vincent Price laugh.) I was setting up for my seminar — yes, I really was in a hotel in California — last weekend when I realized I was just a few doors away from a massive ballroom filled with hideous paraphernalia. It was the “Horror Film Fest.” I checked out the scene as the merchandisers were preparing for the onslaught of ghoulish customers. I was conscipcuously out of place, sans tattoos, piercings, and black, skull-infested T-shirt, which it seemed was the requisite dress of choice.

You probably can’t read what’s on the posters above so I’ll translate; ESPAPE FROM JESUS ISLAND comic book, DAYS OF THE DEAD poster, and schedule sheet, featuring workhsops such as “Serial Killer Culture.”   A catatlogue offered movies you probably won’t download on Netflix: “Witchhouse — Demon Fire,”  “Demonic Toys” (Chucky on steroids), “Virgin Hunters,” “Decadent Evil,” “Dungeon of Desire,” “Teen Sorcery,” and hundreds of other titles.

Thousands of aficionados of horror/sex/bloodlust virtually took over the hotel. Meanwhile, at our end of the corridor we were dealing with real demons in real people. We were casting demons out while those down the hall were inviting them in. Yes, they had more people and took in a lot more money, but at the price of their souls. My weekend in hotel California was one more reminder of how important this ministry is, to set free those for whom demonic horror is no film fest.

It’s that season again when all that’s negative, macabre, sinister, and downright evil becomes legitimized. And commercialized. Today’s American motto seems to be, “If a buck can be made, make it.” Morality in the marketing? Who cares? But what’s really scary is how culture has absorbed the kingdom of Satan, even embraced it, without a blink. Exhibit A, the photo above which I shot in a supermarket aisle yesterday while picking up some cereal and yogurt. The candies weren’t even in the Halloween section. They were displayed in the midst of Snickers and Butterfingers: a big bag of mini-candies to hand out to the trick-or-treaters. The Hershey’s, Reese’s, Almond Joys, and KitKats were combined into a sugary blend labeled: DEMON TREATS.

So what does that mean? Treat the demons at Halloween? Treat the little “demons” who knock at the door? It doesn’t matter. What’s important is this trivialization evil. You don’t have to be an exorcist, such as I am, and encounter despicable demons face-to-face, to see that the deeds of demons are everywhere. Beheadings. Human trafficking. Child porn rings. Serial killers. It’s a long list. Must our society, and candy manufacturers, make light of what demons do? What if the label on this bag had read: PEDOPHILE TREAT, or RAPIST TREAT, or METH DEALER TREAT? Well, these are evils that demons facilitate. It’s time to get serious about who demons really are and what they really do, and find a better way to label caloric concoctions.

FREE DOWNLOAD! Download and print our newly revised Halloween tract! It’s a great way to share the truth about the dangers of Halloween with your friends. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD This downloadable pamphlet is designed for 8 � x 11 tri-fold and needs to be printed on both sides. Please remember it is your support that provides the resources to bring  salvation and deliverance to millions worldwide. You can donate today by CLICKING HERE.