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Cat, do they have the website yet? You know, and yet we know the reality of the mafia and its influence in our society, but it's underground, right? Well, you know, the SRA and DID issues are in a sense life act, spiritually. Uh-huh. Oh, he's seen evidence, so that's a good point. So what I want to do is look for evidence. Because we don't want to just be believing something that is totally taking us on a rabbit trail of deception. That's it. He's looking for evidence in exactly the right place and that's the Word of God. If we have an experience, that alone does not validate the reality of something. we need to see does the Bible, is there evidence for it in the Word of God, or are there proscriptions against it that says don't believe this? Or are there things that say believe this? Well, if you look on page 198 in your manual, there's a few fill-ins. How do you discern if the reality of something that is not mentioned in Scripture The first point is, does it violate any known biblical principles? Does it violate any known biblical principles? I'm going to kind of go through these fast because this is kind of just a preface to where we're going with the concept of SRA. Secondly, is there circumstantial evidence for the reality of its existence? Is there circumstantial evidence for the reality of its existence? And thirdly, what is the effect of believing that it is a reality? In other words, if you're working with somebody, they come to you with reports of horrific abuse of children, involved in Satanism, there's a shattering inside, an emotional shattering, and you treat it as a situation of a person who's gone through SRA and DAD, what is the outcome? I'm not talking about the skirmishes, I'm talking about the peace treaty at the end. Are they more dedicated to Christ? Is it a process of them being more and more free to see their identity in Christ? Is there a continual desire for things of the Lord that grows and grows? Or is it when you absorb the belief that this is an SRA situation, the person goes downhill? They hate God more. They're away from God, and I'm not talking about temporary blockages to moving ahead in discipleship. But what is the outcome of believing that? Do other godly men believe it, men and women? Are there Dr. Bubeks in the world, Dr. Fred Dickinson and others that believe it? And lastly, does the Lord confirm to your spirit through prayer that it is a reality? Does the Lord confirm to your spirit through prayer that it is a reality? When I first heard about the issues of MPD as it was called back then, or DID as it's called now, I was very skeptical. I thought it was a deception. I never had trouble believing that there were wicked spirits, that there was worship of Satan, because that was going on in my home. I remember sitting in church as a little child. It was a very fundamental church. And the pastor was going on and saying, if you don't mess with Satan, he won't mess with you. And I kept thinking, he's never visited my home. I never had trouble believing in the reality of the spiritual world. But I thought when DID or MPD was introduced as a possibility by my pastor, after there had been a lot of spiritual deliverance from bondage, And I still heard voices and I still had blank periods of time and all this other stuff was going on. I thought we were being deceived. I thought the voices have to be demonic. They just have to. I don't, I just don't think it could be that. So the pastor said, well, let's go home for a week and pray about this and see, does the Lord confirm this or not? Well, wouldn't you know the way the Lord works. He gave both my pastor and I separately the same verse of confirmation. And it's that verse in Psalms, I won't give you the reference because I'm not good at that. It's probably not right. But it says, Unite my heart to fear thy name, thou hast brought up my soul from the depths of Sheol. And I knew that my soul was in Sheol. Psalm 86, wonderful. And so the Lord confirmed to me, yeah, this is what DID is in reality. I hope that we have a room full of Bereans here who take nothing that we say as truth until they check it with the word of God and the Lord confirms it. And if by the way when you do that you have real suspicions and hesitations, please come back to us, call us, email us, give us a heads up. Some of you are thinking, well, I don't think I'm ever going to have a situation with one of these oddball SRA folks, you know? Well, besides having the Lord tinker with your attitude a little bit, another thing that you might want to do is to say, well, maybe I can take this information at an appropriate time, present it to my pastor or my church or a counselor that I know who themselves is first encountering an SRA situation. So it may be helpful not only for yourself, but how could I use this to pass on to someone that is totally, has had no contact with SRA situations? One of the things we need to watch out for is that fear that our enemy uses as one of its basic tools, I guess. Some of you may be thinking, boy, after Dr. Rumberger spoke, I hope I never have to deal with any of this MTV stuff, or SRA, or whatever. The Lord is so good about bringing us exactly the people that He wants us to walk beside for at least part of their healing. And all we're saying is be open to where He leads you. And if you sense a fear, or if you sense just a die-hard, adamant skepticism, It just can't be, it just can't be. Not a desire to go to the word and check it out, but just this sort of malignant skepticism. Ask the Lord, why am I in that place? Why am I susceptible either to this fear of somebody showing up in my church and having some demonic eruption or something, or somebody coming and telling me they've been diagnosed with DID. Or why is there that definite belligerent, it can't be, it can't be. He's real good at revealing our heart. If you look down at the middle of page 198, what does a person have to believe in order to acknowledge the reality of SLA? This is just real basic stuff and I don't want to read all the way through it. But I do want to just highlight some things. The first of course is the reality of the global battle. between Satan and Christ. Are we in the battle? Yes, the scripture really is clear on that. There's no ambivalence about that. And is Satan attempting to get at Christ through his children? Yeah, right? Even up to Revelation, you see, and he persecuted the woman who gave birth to his child. And his hatred against God is spewing out in this world against believers Most of us don't have trouble with that. If you have a question or comment, by the way, as we go along, feel free to flag me down here. Most pastors can believe that, I think. I won't read through those verses that are there. But let's go to the second point, the existence of wicked spirits. On the next page, some people do have trouble with this. One of the bold statements that I like to make is, if you're going to be biblical, you have to believe in the existence of wicked spirits, because Christ himself believed in it. I went through the Gospels once, and I was afraid somebody might get my Bible and see, what in the world is she studying? So I just used the initials, W-S, for wicked spirits. And in the margin, I wrote that every time in each of the Gospels Christ encountered wicked spirits. It's amazing. The percentage of verses that deal with his encounter with wicked spirits. I've just written some down there from the Book of Mark. Look at all of them there. And what I did was I took each verse and I said, well, what does this show me about the reality and the truth of wicked spirits and how they operate? And it was amazing to see a course in Wicked Spiritology or something. I don't know what the fancy name for it is. But it's in there. It's like Craig goes spaghetti sauce. It's in there. You know, you can't say it's not in there. Probably the most controversial point is the next point. The belief that Satan can oppress Christians. That's probably where your pastor or the spouse of the person that you're working with may have trouble. Well, how do you answer that? Let's look at some of these verses in a little more detail here. First, Timothy. Was Timothy written to Christians or non-Christians? Christians. All right. And at the same time, he's talking about this group of people in the church. They also learn to be idle as they go around from house to house, and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention. Therefore I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach. For some have already turned aside to follow Satan." Are these Christians he's talking about? Yeah. Some have already turned aside to follow Satan. That sounds pretty interactive to me. It sounds that when it says that we're sealed by the Holy Spirit, we're not talking about Tupperware. You know, it's not that no germs can get in and everything like that. We're talking about the seal, the mark of ownership, the down payment. We're not talking about the erroneous belief that if the Holy Spirit is in a body, there cannot be wicked spirits in there too. Would you give me a verse for that? Matter of fact, sometimes my flesh looks an awful lot like a wicked spirit. You know, the day after I got saved, The Holy Spirit was living in there with my flesh. 1 Timothy 8, 1-19. Now, this command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may fight the good fight. Now, he's instructing a leader here in the church, keeping faith in a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered over to Satan so that they may be taught not to blaspheme. We won't go into all the implications of what's involved there, but that certainly sounds like there's something going on with a believer in the world of darkness. Satan is attempting, as he shipwrecked their lives, to do further damage, and the Lord wants to turn it around and restore them. First Thessalonians, Now Paul, certainly, some people say, if you are a strong Christian having a faith, you're not going to be messed with by Reconciliation. Well, Paul was weak in faith then because he says, for we wanted to come to you, I Paul, more than once, and yet Satan thwarted us. Are you telling me that Satan had such an impact on Paul's ministry that he could interfere with Paul's plans to travel? Well, maybe there was sin in Paul's life. They have to do a bit of spiritual gymnastics. 2 Corinthians 12.7. Again, this is interesting because this is a group of believers whose main problem was they transferred their spiritual experiences before they were Christians into their Christian worldview. And the result was a spiritual immaturity and a fleshliness. Because of the suppressing greatness of the revelation he's talking about his own thorn in the flesh For this reason to keep me from exalting so myself It was given to me a thorn in the flesh a messenger of Satan to buffet me To keep me from exalting myself. I Don't know about you but some days are worse than others where you just see the fingerprints of the oppression and the harassment of the enemy on our lives and our ministry I asked, I got frustrated one day with the Lord and I said, you know, why don't you make the boundaries around him smaller? And you know what he does sometimes, I said how I'm always at Pesky Parker asking him lots of questions. He answered me with a question. He said, won't it be wonderful when you get to be with me and not only him but your own wife won't be present. So he kind of didn't say why he didn't make the boundaries smaller. But he said there's coming a time when his very presence will be missing. Acts 5.3, here's Ananias. Satan has filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit to keep back some of the price of the land. Remember that where they said they sold it for $150,000 and actually it was a quarter of a million. And they just said, yeah, that's really what we sold it for. So they could make a big religious show of giving their money. Of course, we know we never fall into religiosity, do we? Luke 22, 3, and Satan entered into Judas, who was called Iscariot, belonging to the number of the twelve. Luke 13, 16, and this woman, this to me is a real important passage. It's about the woman who's bent over, you know, for 18 years, and this woman, a daughter of Abraham, as she is, whom Satan has bound for 18 long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?" Remember, the leaders were ragging on him because he performed a miraculous thing that they themselves were nowhere near able to do, but it was the wrong time of the day. It was during the Sabbath. So they were just taking task with him for doing that. But the phrase, this woman, a daughter of Abraham, I know just enough Greek and no Hebrew to be dangerous, but what they tell me is in the Old Testament, this phrase, the daughter of Abraham, or son of Abraham, is a word that in essence is a description of an Old Testament Christian, a pre-Christ Christian. In other words, there were two groups of people that did sacrificing. The Lord said, do this, do this, do this. There were those like Abraham that did it by faith. And there were those that just went through the motions. And this phrase, daughter of Abraham or son of Abraham, is the phrase that's used in the Old Testament for those that by faith worship God even before Christ. Christ coming to earth. So what he's saying is, this Christian whom Satan has bound for 18 years, does everybody whose sins have a wicked spirit come into them? Do you have to sin like 10 times in a row and then you get a supervisor with a spirit or something in there? I mean, how do... We're all pussied from the outside, right? We're all harassed. Well, when we're talking about SRA, we're going beyond that. We're talking about the deliberate placing by the demonic of a spirit being inside a person. To me, I know in SRA, when you go to ceremonies or dedication to Satan or being a bride of things, there are assignments of spirits that are given to you. But outside of SRA, sometimes I wonder that some of the bondage that I see in non-SRA people in the counseling office are people who either have been tricked into opening doors to the demonic, for example, We live in Colorado, there's a lot of Spanish influence and in many Spanish cultures, the grandmothers are very active that when the baby and their granddaughter is born, they think it's helping that person to assign a guardian angel or a spirit and send that spirit to live and surround that little one. Well, they think they're helping. Or what about the person like Raven, who was the 11-year-old, 12-year-old who was in my office actually in the ICBC office. She hadn't been able to read. She didn't come from an SRA background, but she got to first, second, third grade, she couldn't read. Well, her mother, who had very obvious emotional problems, and her stepfather, who was a cocaine addict, opened the door for her because they realized if they gave her books about vampires, no matter what grade level of reading it was, she could instantly read those. So they thought this was a good idea. It would help her read. So they kept bringing her all these books about vampires. By the time she was 11, she was so involved in the occult that she had gone to the local library and checked out all the books on how to cast spells and dedicate your life to Satan, how to be involved in witchcraft. She formed a vampire cult that still goes on in Colorado Springs with teenagers that get together, drink each other's blood, and do vampire stuff on the weekends. one of the parks there to make dedications to Satan. She had the psychic power to quote-unquote dedicate people to Satan. So they'd come to her and say, I want to serve Satan the rest of my life. Sort of like a conversion experience. And she'd go through these incantations and that person would be dedicated to Satan. While she was home one day, you know, sometimes we feel if we haven't gone through the, taken the Roman road, or we haven't gone through the Coral Ridge program, people aren't going to get saved. Well, we forget it's the Holy Spirit anyway. She was there in her mother's apartment watching the movie, Dead Man Walking. Now, I guess that's about a prisoner that a nun or somebody sort of gets communicating with and visits him in prison. But the phrase of this movie comes from the fact that on death row, which is where he was, as they walked to the gas chamber back then, the other prisoners would yell out and the supervisor of the prison, dead man walking, as a deterrent and announcement that this person is being killed. Well, right there in her living room, she realized, what's going to happen when I die because I serve God's enemy? And right there in her living room, she made a commitment to Christ. She showed up in my office in your vampire getup with all the black and everything, but she said, well, the reason I'm here is I want to undedicate my life to Satan. and make it clear that I choose Christ. Well, now for that person to just do that and then say, okay, now you're a Christian, there's no more influence of wicked spirits in your life. She said the name of the cult was the Belshazzar cult. And I said, why did you name it that? And she said, well, that's the spirit that started talking to me, said that that was his name and he wanted to be honored by these ceremonies. So I told him to come in and take over my life. We talked about how you normally get rid of demonic influence, and that's by pumping in truth. But there are cases, like Raven, where you need to teach them to do more. You need to teach them to take their authority in Christ and say, that spirit that I let in on such and such a day, I take back the ground that I gave as I agreed. And I command that spirit in all its works to leave me and go where Jesus Christ sends it. Whatever you want to say, it's not the wording. It's the idea of recommitting to Christ that area that you've committed to the demonic. People like Raven don't find a haven of safety and deliverance in many of our churches if you believe that if you're a real Christian, you can't have that level of powerful demonic intervention. People used to be afraid of me when I went to churches. There was something about churches that drew me to that symbol of the cross that would light up at night. Nights were terrifying for me, so often I would go where I could find a church that had a cross. And in my confusion, I knew somehow God had the answer to this. I belonged to Him. I was seven years old. When a miracle occurred, I was, I'd gone to, our family was involved in a Finnish-American church first that was a very cultic church. It wasn't a Bible. They had the Book of My Stadius besides the Bible, and it was sort of like the Book of Mormon, It was very blasphemous and it was held up as co-authoritative with the Word of God. But we did start attending a fundamental church and they had a visiting child evangelist and he spoke out the gospel to the children. So I went home and I'm sitting in my room in the middle of all that darkness that surrounded those generations of Satan worshippers. The Lord brought the Holy Spirit to me as I accepted Him as my personal Savior. Suddenly, can you imagine this in that huge, dark place? There was a new spirit. The problem for me was that I had been being groomed to be a very powerful person in the Indian cult because of both grandmothers' positions as witches. Suddenly, those plans had to be modified. So at seven, the change came that now they knew There was another spirit in me that wasn't of them. The whole focus was to destroy me then. That's why when I went to councils after that, they said, we're not sure how to help you because we've never ministered to someone who's been as severely abused as you because most people don't survive that kind of abuse. There were three near-death experiences, and actually two of them, I really believe that if I wasn't very close to death, then I actually had died in them. momentarily, but I say that to speak of the power of the one we serve. It really comes down, spiritual warfare comes down to which is the greater God, which is the more powerful God. That's why when somebody comes in and they're like, oh, I was in this occult, we don't have to do, what are we going to do? The confidence that we have is because their God is not as great as our God. We don't have to be torn up with fear and all that. I don't know if Fred Dickinson mentioned it, he probably didn't, but he had gone for years to minister to a place in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And there's in Gettysburg a very powerful occult center. There's a group called the Brotherhood that's been there for about 30 years or 40 years. And they sort of find out who's speaking at this conference. And then they have, among their membership, all-night prayer meetings for curses and the people who come to speak. Now, wouldn't it be wonderful if the speakers had people who would go to all-night prayer meetings on the other side? Sometimes the dedication leaves us wondering, you know, on the other side. He had done speaking and he sat down in the front row and a teenager, some 18, 19-year-old lady, all dressed in black, came up the aisle slowly toward him and as she passed, some people noticed she had this big on butcher knife. I guess she was going to comment on his sermon techniques or something. Knowing Fred, you know, when she got up to him, he saw it and he put his hand out and he said, was that intended for me? And, of course, she handed the knife to him and he took her out to lunch and witnessed it, you know, just like Fred does. Well, I showed up three years later teaching at that same place. I knew that story. And as I was teaching, that same lady came up the aisle. I have to say, my heart fluttered for a minute. I was thinking of contingency plans. But she came up, she said, I don't mean to interrupt, but I wonder if I could say something to people. And we were off mic, so I didn't. I didn't want her to be saying things that may throw the whole thing at you. And she said, I'd really like to tell people, because they know me, they know my reputation, that 20 minutes ago, I decided to renounce the darkness and choose Christ. Well, now, if people there, when she was in the first situation, had been totally terrified, or nerved up, and, what do we do, what do we do? The more they knew their God, the calmer they could be. Because it's not that you're not wise in situations, but I've been ministering for 30 years, a lot of times to people coming out of that story, and God by His grace has protected me just in miraculous ways. I had a lady once plunge at me, you know. I forget what she, oh she had some sort of sharp thing in her hand, I don't know. And I knew that she had lunged at me because there was demonic that was controlling her. So I said the scripture verse and I had memorized it in the King James and even in the moment of emergency I couldn't remember the New American Standard. So I said, I'm begotten of God and the wicked one touches me now and I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to sit down and remain seated. And she fell back into the chair. I mention that because Sometimes when we hear about spiritual warfare and the intensity of SRA, we think, oh man, I hope I don't run into any of those people. Well, the Lord's in charge of that, but He also wants you to be reminded that He is El Shaddai, the Most High God. That means every other God is lower than Him. There's a card, a greeting card I like. It says, keep looking down. And you open it up, because most people say keep looking up, and it says, For we are seated with Christ in the heavenly. I like that. That was a little bit of a rabbit trail, but I think it was important. If you look on the next page, page 200, now Peter, it says that talking about the influence of Satan in his life, the Lord turns around and says to him, But interestingly, he sees the disciples. So you wonder, not only for Peter's sake, but as a training for the disciples looking over the situation. Christ rebukes Peter. This is when Peter said, well, certainly, Lord, don't go to the cross. I mean, that's a bad idea. I mean, just forget the whole thing. And Christ says, get behind me, Satan, for you're not setting your mind on God's interest but man. There has to be some reason why God just didn't say, Peter, You're setting your mind on God's interest, not man's. He says, get behind me, Satan. Mark 1, 13, and he was in the wilderness. Christ was in the wilderness, 40 days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild beasts and the angels were ministering to him. 1 Chronicles 21, 1, Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel. 2 Timothy 2, 24, remember this is in the context of Does Satan affect true Christians and can he have such a powerful impact on their life? And the Lord's bond servants must not be quillsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition. If perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. Genesis 3 1 now here we see what the he thought of the modus operandi of The serpent the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made in the sense of women Indeed has God said we shall not eat from any tree of the garden Right from the word goes Satan's main tactic was distorting God's character Is this a good God you said I mean what is he and what do they call it? Megalomania or something maniac, you know, he wants just He wants everybody to worship him? I mean, what was his motive behind saying that? Are you sure that this is hurrying up enough? So it's not unusual that people who have been abused and had that trauma and had the enemy taking advantage of it, that one of their main problems is distortions about God. That's why when you disciple him, that's a safe place to head for first. Because everything else you teach them about God, if they don't have a clear picture of who the God is that you're talking about, there may be, the distortions may be maintained. I was saved when I was seven. And I'd had, you know, the Coral Ridge people, which I'm not making fun of that, I like that evangelistic approach. How many remember the days when we used to go door to door? Now you go door to door and they call the police on you or something, I don't know. But anyway, back then, you know, we learned evangelistic techniques. Well, people would ask me, one of their things is, do you know you're going to heaven? And then you can find out, the second question is, why, if God says, why should I let you into heaven, what would you say? So you can talk to a person to find out, really, are they a born-again believer or are they, well, yeah, I've always had good ideas about God or whatever. I was going to church. Well, no one had ever asked me a third question, and that was, what's going to happen when you get to heaven? And I remember a pastor, I was saved when I was seven, when I was 22, a pastor asked me, what's going to happen when you get to heaven? And the distortions about God were so embedded in my belief system that I very nonchalantly said, well, when I first get to heaven, God's going to try to strangle me. But then he's going to say, well, I guess I said everybody that believes in Christ can come into heaven. So I guess I have to include you, so come on in. And that fit perfectly in my theology. I was just glad I'd eventually get to have them, you know? But I had never known anybody, any powerful person, that didn't want to strangle me. So it fit well with my theology. Needless to say, his eyes bugged out and decided to enroll me in a discipleship class. But when we think of the deceptions about hurting people carry with them, one of the main ones is this. Distortion about God and that's the fingerprints to Satan Second Corinthians he tries to warm up warn the people the Christians I'm afraid Paul says lest as a serpent be seeded by his craftiness Your mind should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached or you receive a different spirit now Wait a minute. Hey, oh, I thought these were the sealed people You know, how could they receive a different spirit? They already had the Holy Spirit. That's what it said, they could. The potential is there for receiving a different spirit. If you have not received a different gospel, which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully. Again in Corinthians, and no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Second Corinthians, 210. But whom you forgive anything, I forgive also, Paul says. For indeed, what have I forgiven, if I have forgiven anything? Indeed what I have forgiven if I have forgiven anything I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ In order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan, but we are not ignorant of his scheme Mike you want to bring a mic back there Mike Mike? This passage is really interesting to me because, you know, it relates to the 1 Corinthians 5 text about the brother living in immorality. And he tells them to deliver him to Satan. And so it suggests, I think, that there's some kind of power that the community of believers has to extend or withdraw a protection against Satan. Can you comment on that? Well, just that I think it's a very good point because we forget that the spirit realm works in legal terms. That's why covenants are important. That's why curses and blessings and words spoken are important. That's why when it lists all the hierarchy of the spirit world in the demonic realm, principalities, powers, I mean it doesn't use the same words there. It gives the idea of the prince of the power of darkness. In the angels, there's archangels. Well, that makes you think that there are some that aren't archangels. Michael is an archangel. And the legality, the authority of the church is really what we're talking about here. As an under-shepherd of the great shepherds, and as the body of Christ, that's why community, authentic community, brings so much potential for growth. It brings protection. in so many ways. That's what the passage says. That he's encouraging the church to take an action that will hopefully, eventually, end up in restoring this person. That's why being a maverick and ministering outside of the church, because you're mad that the church doesn't have a clue yet, can be real dangerous. Besides the pride and arrogance that that can bring. you need to say, OK, Lord, is this the 19th? And I'm not against parachurch organizations or ministries. But historically, what I see is in the 70s, the Lord used a lot of parachurch organizations to wake the church up and to fill in the holes that the church had. But what I've seen, especially in the era of Christian counseling now, the Lord is calling people to be involved within the church. And I'm not saying that everybody has to have the same look to that. But if the reason that you're holding the church at arm's length is because you're mad at them, because they messed up so much, or damaged people, or whatever the issue is, and you're going to be the knight in shining armor, because you know now you've got your cookie cutter that you got from ICBC or wherever stamping on that person's life, that's real dangerous. That's very dangerous. Not only because you're outside of the church boundaries, but because the rebellion that feels that is as witchcraft. That's a good point. 1 Peter 5.8, there's about three more verses here. Oh, by the way, you know what you might want to do when you go home is say, Lord, I know I can't change people's hearts or wills, but as part of a member of the body of Christ, and then name your church, I ask your forgiveness for us as a body being ignorant of the schemes of faith. and they ask you to bring healing to my church. And then saying, as you know, we were talking yesterday about making bridges into the church with the reality of spiritual warfare and the reality of some of these other issues. As you're doing that, the best, the first thing that I found that I had to do is to get rid of my defensiveness. Because I usually go in armed to the teeth, you know. And I mix my flesh with the spiritual word that the Lord wants me to bring my brothers and sisters. And they touch my flesh and it gives them an excuse to back away. They touch my defensiveness. And they start butting heads with me. But if I can leave my weapons at the door before I go in. And I've already wept in prayer about what damage has been done in the lives of my fellow brothers and sisters. because they've not made room in their theology for a balanced spiritual warfare. My heart's broken for their sake. Then I can go and talk to them about it. And they may not receive me, but they won't be rebuffed by the dirtiness of the vessel that the message is coming. Oh, we have a question in the back or a comment. We've always got some troublemakers in the group. Can you please repeat what you said before the rebellion, that being rebellious is witchcraft? Can you say that, what you said before that? Or not? I'll give it a shot. Thank you. It was in the context of saying, if you find that you're ministering outside the church as a maverick because you're mad at the church and what you perceive are weaknesses or things that are missing and you're upset about them damaging people. You can be upset about the damage that's done. Like we said, the pastor that said the reason the lady wasn't free was because she didn't lift her arms high enough. So that proved she wasn't authentic in her desire for freedom. Those kind of comments. You can be very angry. That's what's said. But if you find in your heart that you want to take, like, for example, the stuff you learned about spiritual warfare here and go bang it and pound it into their heads. That's a good clue that there may be some preliminary work that the Lord wants to do with you. I mentioned for myself, my flesh wants to get involved. And I do know, as I pray to the Lord, do you want me to share any of this with the head of women's ministries? And the Lord says, yeah. So I know he wants me to share some stuff. And I say, well, what do you want me to share? And he makes it clear. But I go with that attitude. There's a defensiveness in me and a hardness that person senses and it gives them every excuse in the world, they bounce off of my flashly attitude and they reject the message. And so I was saying that by, before going, I use this as an example before when I said, when I asked the Lord, when can I say something to someone, you know, in the church or in my sphere of influence of something that I perceive is wrong in their approach or their attitude or whatever. And my answer to that would have been the motive of going would be because it bothered me. Your attitude bothers me, so I'm going to tell you about it. And the Lord gave a higher standard. He said, you can go and you've wept in prayer over what that belief is doing in their life and is causing in theirs. And from that platform, you can go in humility and say, you know, can we pray about this one issue? Because we seem to be on opposite sides about it. And I know our heart, both our heart is to know the will of the Lord. This is how I see it. If you leave your weapons at the door before you go in, chances are much better that the message that the Lord has given you in your basket to carry to that person will be received. And then I use that verse in the Old Testament. Remember the context where Saul was doing something very religious. He had asked Samuel to come and offer sacrifice and Samuel as a priest was supposed to be the only one to do that. Well Saul got nervous because Samuel was dilly-dallying apparently in his opinion and he had to go out and fight somebody. Saul did with his army and he wanted this blessing thing, this sacrifice going on before he went out there. So Saul doesn't and Samuel doesn't come in the appointed time and what that means is when Saul expected him to. And so he went ahead and said, well, we can't wait forever. So he went and did the sacrifice. And we wasn't supposed to. He was the king. He wasn't the priest. So when Satan, ah, now I'm getting two things mixed up. My apologies. It was the issue where Satan, where that is an issue of disobedience for Samuel, for Saul. But the other issue was Samuel said, when you conquer those people, destroy everything. They are so dedicated to this demonic, to the darkness. Just like Jericho, the moon city. Did you ever wonder why? That's why the Lord said, don't take anything. Later, they were allowed to take the spoils of war, but not from Jericho. Another name for Jericho was the Moon City. They were very involved in worshiping of the moon, which of course is done in sacred worship. The moon is revered. Instead of the ceremony of the new moon, like the Israelites were encouraged to celebrate the counterfeiting and the mimicking of the satanic realm, they worship the full moon. They have ceremonies every time there's a full moon. Well, the moon city, the Lord said, don't even touch, don't take anything from it. But back, as I was saying, Saul decided from this one escapade militarily that, well, I know Samuel said don't take anything, but if we kept the really good livestock, we could sacrifice those to our God. Makes sense to me, doesn't it to you? And Alice General said, yeah, that makes sense to me. Talk about that accountability thing when you have a strong personality leading. There's a fear of appearing stupid or maybe I'm wrong. I think the Lord has clarified this for me, but I hesitate to say anything because he's such a powerful leader. Well, when Samuel comes to meet with him, he says, well, Saul, did you do what I told you to do? And Saul says, yeah. And Samuel says, well, Saul, I'm not deaf. I hear some bleeding of sheep in the background here. What is that? Well, yeah, so we thought we'd save the best, you know, because we knew you were coming. We knew you liked to sacrifice. You can only sacrifice to unblind yourself. We thought we'd give you a head start, and we collected lions. And that's where Samuel says to him, you know, why have you disobeyed the Lord? Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, he says. in Psalms it says, a broken and contrite heart and let them do what the Lord desires, not sacrifice. And I think they all fit together so that if we find ourselves in that maverick role and that anger against our brothers and sisters of certain denominations or whatever that we consider to be way out there or not one of us, quote-unquote, the Lord has a real good word for us. Because it's the issue of spiritual warfare, remember? When the disciples come to him, who started to have a problem of being the elite, because they were found, the guy that could walk on water after all. So they said, well we have a question for you Jesus. There's this group, now they haven't been to ICBC, but they're casting out wicked spirits anyway. I mean, can you believe that? But it says in Scripture, I'm paraphrasing, but it says that they were involved in spiritual warfare. It says they're casting out demons, and they're not one of us. What should we do? God says, leave them alone. If they're not against me, they're for me. And I've had to check, have a check in my own spirit sometimes. I say, well, they don't do it exactly the way we do. Well, pray for them. Leave them to the Lord. He told Peter, what is that to you? You follow me. Well, if you say it on the announcer. Otherwise... Sometimes us pastors do get narrow-minded, and it doesn't fit into our box. And good people can use good things, and they can become divisive in the congregation. And if it is brought about in the right way through prayer with a humble spirit, that is the key. And I was introduced to spiritual warfare through Richard Fannin from here in Indianapolis. and it's changed my ministry. Initially, it changed my life, but I've tried to introduce it to some of the other preachers that I'm familiar with in Indiana, and they're very resistant against it. It doesn't become my place to push it upon them, but it does become my place to be ready, to have the tools available, and to always remind them that there is some truth to this. And maybe that might help some of the folks who find a pastor being a little resistant to that, is that many times it's not the person that the pastor looks at, but maybe it is the technique, maybe it is the new tool. He sees it as the divisive issue. And many times it could be the person and the way they're presenting it to the congregation. Good. Thank you for that. Very helpful. You could probably know for sure if a person comes with that cookie cutter thing. You've got to do this for everybody in your congregation or whatever. That's going to be a problem in being received. The other thing that I've been concerned about lately is when I come to these RCBC meetings, I hear so many people say, well, I couldn't talk about this in my church because they're not ready to accept it. And I'm thinking, are there some bridge materials that are needed, not going to your pastor and thumping down in front of him this wonderful manual and suggesting he read it. But very basic, very artfully done, tastefully done things that don't say, we learned the reality of Satan's involvement in Christianity. Oh, by the way, there's S-R-A-N-D-I-D, and they just go into the most intense things. Is there a way that we can develop bridge material Just small things that can be used as an opening, rather than just boggling their mind with so much. Comment. There's two comments. When you mentioned the materials, some of the materials, like Brother Bubeck's books, when issues arise in the church and you have the resource maybe that can help your pastor, it begins making him more and more aware of those things. And there are some materials that maybe we are familiar with that are a little more extreme. And there are some statements maybe that are made inside of those books that do click off some theological issues that the pastor says, I don't agree with that. The idea you're saying of maybe some smaller level or some lower level issues that are arising in the congregation, maybe issues of discipline problems with children. Maybe issues of at this point in time. It seems like they're cycles in a church. There's some struggles in marriages at those opportune times to write materials and the right resources making them available to your pastor and your church leadership are so crucial and I would say that that brother Bubeck's books are some of the best Some of Neil Anderson books victory over the darkness is a good entry-level thing for your pastor just simply making yourself aware of the fact that I can be a help with those proper resources. And in my office, I keep all those resources. And when someone comes in and I know they need help, one of the very first things I do is I give them a book. And I have them read through and make themselves aware with this. And when they become more aware of what the need might be, then they're willing to become open. Right. I think there was a question or comment in the back there. Just thinking through this issue we've had in our own church, there's some things, I don't want this to sound too simple, but I think if we, if our life is engaged in the church already, and we're doing what God has called us in that midst, whatever that looks like, we already have a reputation of not being a heretic. And so when we come up with something new that's new to us, we can kind of present that in a gentle way and maybe go to your leadership and say, hey, I just want you to know what we're kind of encountering here. And it's new for us. We're not know-it-alls about this, but we want you to know what's going on. When we came to the conference here, I actually emailed our elder board. We've been in touch with them, and they kind of know what's going on. I just emailed them and told them what we're doing. gave them the website to ICBC, copied some stuff and tested from that. So they know what the deal is. So if they have any problem, I basically was asking their permission to go to the conference. You know, I was saying, if you have any problems with this, you let me know. So just keeping them informed, I think they feel less threatened and like, okay. You haven't done something stupid so far, so... You know what I mean? Well, some of us have trouble with that. We have. That's a good point. Very good point. You know, I think one of the things that... the very first things that we can do is to define our terminology, because a lot of times that's what the problem is. We see people in our office who come and say, well, I went through this spiritual deliverance, or I went through a spiritual warfare, I think, And it is the most bizarre thing that you have ever heard of. So when we talk about spiritual warfare, we can't assume that our pastor is thinking balanced view within the context of what might be necessary and understanding of biblical... He may be thinking we are just out there, and believe me, things are way out there. I won't even go into them, but they're bizarre. So you may need to be sure that you're Defining what you mean by spiritual warfare And I think even taking it back to a more basic step even than those introductions I think in most churches there is unless they're a very healthy church spiritually there are undercurrents there's unforgiveness and bitterness and those things that you can hand and and then most churches what I've what I've worked with is They don't even preach about it. I'm the one who ends up going in preaching about this need and having people coming to repent. But they don't. And I think that's a very basic one that any pastor will listen to that. And that's like an open door to begin to get them to see. And then I think that leads to the fact, well, why is there a problem here? What is it? Are there deeper issues? And then more can happen. So I don't want us to lose sight of some very simple things. Sure. That's important. I was really afraid of Fred Dickinson until this evening. He's a scary guy. I'm from a different class than what I came from. And I was scared to death of him. But him listening to me and understanding his whole explanation made me aware of the fact that this is a different kind of deal for him. You can speak into people's lives if you have a foundation of a committed relationship. The more you know the person, and they know that you certainly aren't coming in and trying to run their life, you're not exuding this I-know-everything-and-you're-a-dummy kind of a thing. You can speak into that relationship. Some of you don't have a relationship at all with speaking into that. is hardly ever received. That's just basic human nature. Let's go on here. We won't read the last couple of verses, but another thing that people need to believe in order to absorb the reality of SRA, believe that there is evidence in the Bible for occult activity, Satan worship, and ritual abuse. There's an interesting verse in 1 Corinthians 10, 20 where Paul says, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice They sacrificed to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to become sheriffs and demons. In other words, what were they sacrificing? They were sacrificing to idols. They stoned things and all this God of the trees and all this stuff. A lot like the paganism which is sweeping our country. Again, the counterfeiting of everything Christian. We have the Lamb of God, the Lamb's Book of Life, the pagan, they call themselves pagan, They worship, they go up into the mountains and worship, and they have the goat book of death, and they worship the goat demon. Well, people say, oh, this is terrible. Our country's getting to be such a wreck. Well, my perspective is, what a wonderful opportunity, because the blinders are off now. People don't say, oh, yeah, I grew up in a Christian home, and so I can, yeah, I think it's okay. They say, well, I'm serving Satan. And there's a black and whiteness to it that we can take advantage of. I have a friend who used to go, he was a youth minister, and he'd take tracks, and he'd follow around some of the major rock groups, and he'd pass out tracks outside. And groups like KISS, you know, years ago, K-I-S-S, which was their abbreviation, they said, for Knights in Satanic Service. or Twisted Sister or some of these others. It shows how old I am on this thing. But anyway, I don't even know any of these new guys. But he used to just go and pass out tracts. And when he gave them to people, they'd say, oh, okay, and they'd just take it and whatever. And he said as the years went by, in the last five or eight years, when he goes to many of the concerts and tries to pass out tracts, they hand it back to him and say, well, no, I serve Satan. I don't want to know anything about God. So that the covering, especially in the young, is very off. What a wonderful opportunity to say, well, you know, you might think that taking a look at the real God, the God you're serving isn't the most powerful God. That group that I mentioned, the cult, the vampire cult in Colorado Springs, about two months ago, two of the vampires showed up in our church service. I go to a really big church and I looked in the aisle before I started, and here's a guy who looks like Dracula. He's got the cape, the black cape, and it's sticking up in the back, the collar and the black hair. He's got a lady with him, and she's black, and she's got, I don't know how she stood it, she has a huge tattoo right around her eye, and I thought, ooh, that had to hurt when you did that. I saw somebody with a little tattoo, and they said it took six hours for them to do it, and I kept thinking of this girl with that tattoo. Well, her name was Angel, of all things. But I thought, well, I wonder if there's people in the church that are going to go and welcome these folks. So before they went and sat in the front row, right in front of the worship team, I went over and started talking to them. Well, so then they came. Turns out the angel is a new believer. She brought her warlock friend so he could hear the truth. Well, the people, the vampire dress and all that, often you'll see them around near Acacia Park. see the youth and I saw one guy coming to me and he was all geeked up with the fans. And I didn't think till later what I could say to him, but I have it ready now. Because the Lord willing, the next time I cross paths with someone, even in an instant, I'd like to say to them, you know, if you ever get tired of serving your God and want to choose Jesus Christ, it's never too late. And just leave it go at that. So the opportunities for reminding folks that Our God, I mean, that's all it comes down to. Our God is the greater God. He's the only true God. But when the Gentiles were sacrificing to the statues and the stone statues here in the Old Testament and New Testament, Paul says they were sacrificing to the demons behind that idol, the religious spirit that was behind it. If you look at the next page, when we take a look at some of the Old and New Testament practices, There's child sacrifice, there's animal sacrifice, the use of psychic powers, there's torture, self-mutilation, all those things. Remember when Elijah said to the people, look, if God is God, serve him. If Baal is God, serve him. And they went up to that mountain, and they had the Baal worshipers first, and they called on their God. Remember what they did? They cut themselves as part of their worship to get their God's attention. in satanic ritual abuse, now that's done. People say, what's the difference between spiritism and the use of psychic stuff and the occult and satanic worship? Well, they're both motivated by the same power, but there are many people who are involved knowingly and unknowingly in spiritism. By that, they may use psychic powers of astral projection or clairvoyance or, you know, talking to the dead, necronomy or any of these other things. like Fred Dickinson may have mentioned. The occult, and those are actually in league with Satan. But in the occult, the people, the blinders are off, the covering is up, they know they're worshiping Satan. They choose to worship Satan. They're not tricked into thinking, well, this is just a power that I have. And the things that are in the Old Testament are still being done today. in the worship of Satan. He hasn't changed. Our God desires certain ways for us to come before him and worship him. Satan desires certain ways for his followers to come before him. And then you look at the next paragraph. Why would there be the reality of God's warning? to His people, to stay away from the occult practices of the people around them. There in Deuteronomy, when you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire. We won't get more vivid than that, but I'm sure some of you know of what was done to children in the Old Testament in worship to Satan. one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, one who interprets omens or a sorcerer, one who casts a spell or a medium or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord. For those nations which you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do so. I once had a lady in the beauty shop saying, Do you, you know, I went to a seance, you know, have you ever been to a seance? And it was a wonderful opportunity. I just said briefly, I said, No, I said, I'm a Christian. And so as a follower of Christ, I use the Bible as my standard of what to do and not do. And it says right in there, that I'm not supposed to get involved in it. And just left it at that. I said, Oh, you sinner. Okay. The last point, child sacrifices were part of idol worship. Three of the central gods in the lives of the people around the Israelites were Malak, Baal, and Chemoth, sometimes called Asherah. All these required child sacrifices as a part of their worship. Malak was the national god of the Ammonites. I think it's pronounced Topheth, was the major site that He was worshiped, and there was an altar there for child sacrifice. You know, it's really amazing to me. Well, let's go through the other two. Baal, of course, we know, and he required, the Canaanites, he required infant sacrifice. Chemosh was the national god of the Moabites, and that was, he was connected with more heavenly bodies and astrology and that kind of stuff. But I had a friend who went to the Holy Land, and she said it was really interesting. Because they went to the Valley of Armageddon, or Harmageddon as it's pronounced, or whatever it is. And as they were standing there, the guide pointed out that they had just started an archaeological dig over on that end of the valley, within sight of where the Lord's feet, or where the Lord's armies are going to fight and where he's going to return. They have uncovered an altar to Malik, a child sacrifice altar. isn't that justice? That God is going to bring his wrath against the demonic forces that for centuries on that very place atrocities were done that God has appointed a day when they're going to be brought to justice. I don't think it's coincidental. The summary and closing thoughts In order to believe in the reality of SRA today, we need to acknowledge the biblical evidence for the reality of Satan. the reality of the global battle between Satan and Christ, the existence of wicked spirits, the belief that Satan can oppress Christians, and that belief that there is evidence in the Bible for occult activity, satanic worship, and ritual abuse. We can conclude from these sample verses that the same occult practices which we find today in ritual abuse situations were prevalent in Bible times. We have a video, if you're interested in it, we can make you make it available to you. We don't necessarily recommend it except in situations where someone is just dead set against the idea that ritual abuse can be going on. It's a video that a policeman has done and it's a law enforcement's training guide to go to sites and see is this a satanic ritual abuse site. Has this homicide been done as part of a satanic... We're talking about the non-Christians. They train their policemen. There's a task force in many big cities that investigates ritual abuse, homicides, or crime scenes. So this training video tells what to look for, what's here, what's there, where do these groups usually meet, what would be the evidence of it. The Jeffrey Dahmer situation was a satanic thing. In your own mind, any time you hear about dismemberment or beheading, it's a heads up that probably there was something there that was done as a satanic ritual. But anyway, the reason I don't recommend it is the first half is fine. The second half is very graphic because it's for the policeman. So they have lots of pictures and I wouldn't recommend you watching the last half. But sometimes it's helpful when you're trying to convince maybe your pastor or somebody about the reality of this that, you know, well, you know, even the law enforcement people do training. And if they want, they can follow us and get the video. But it's interesting. I make the point. The last point, well, let's go through the last couple and we'll get down to that. Even the unbelievable, quote unquote, and sensational atrocity of child sacrifice, which is often used to refute the legitimacy of SRA in today's culture, is repeatedly mentioned in the Bible as part of the wickedness of the Satan worshipers. Unfortunately, these same kinds of events are being reported today. Perhaps we should challenge those who say that it's not going on today with the question, when did it stop? If it was going on in the Old Testament, what, when they invented cars or something, did it suddenly stop? Or when we got the internet going? I mean, what would stop Satan from wanting to be worshiped? And he demands certain things as part of his worship. The non-Christians understand its reality, but they don't know what to do. The church knows what to do, but denies its reality. Whose fingerprints do you see on that? In Chicago, I don't know if it's anymore, but at the Presbyterian Hospital, I think it's that, in their psychiatric ward they had an entire wing that was dedicated to the victims of satanic ritual abuse. Other hospitals have done the same. Isn't it a tragedy that we know there's a way to get people free from that? that mostly the church has denied the reality of it, whereas those who don't know what to do, they don't have any problem. Satan hasn't blinded their eyes because they don't know what to do with it. Right before lunch, I'd like to mention something that's not in your manual, and that's not because Jim slipped up. Jim's always good at getting us getting our papers in in time to put in the manual. But I wasn't going to include it, but I think I will. It's sort of a lead-in into what we're talking about after lunch, which is ministering to the most shattered, which is the DID situations. I should mention on that some people think, well, I don't know if I should come to that. Maybe I'll go home early, because I don't know that I've come up to any DID situations. Some of you here have been involved in that. But I think it might be helpful, even if you haven't currently been involved in that, not just because you may come up to it later or may know someone who bumps into it, but because of the fact that the same principles that you would use in discipling and encouraging a person who's shattered with the DID, the emotional shattering from ritual abuse, they're on one side of the Richter scale. in terms of devastation. But their needs are not that much different from the other people at other places on the Richter scale. Just the intensity of those needs is there. It is what's different. So for example, how the church needs to function toward anybody who comes in and is working to get past their past. If you have a heads up on how to deal with some of the most intense and most devastated people, you can extrapolate that out to maybe be ministers as well. So I'd encourage you, even if you're not currently involved in ministering deities, there may be some things you can glean as well. The question I'd like to address just for about 12 minutes before we go to lunch is, how do we know if the memories are true? How do we know if these SRA memories are true? You have to admit that some of these memories are just so bizarre you wonder how in the world could those things ever go on. Well hopefully theologically we've made room in our heart for it because we've seen the pattern in the Old Testament that Satan requires all those things to worship of himself. I'd like to preface it by talking about how we forget. Like, can you remember the name of the person that sat in the front row in your first grade class? You know, I'm lucky if I can remember my teacher's name. Of course, I do remember Tommy Rowe. Tommy Rowe in first grade used to get those little cups of ice cream, you know, just when you take off the top. He decided at lunch he wanted to save his for after school, so I put it in his desk. So I remember Tommy Rowe as we were going home and he saw the soggy papers. But, you know, there was something that struck me that made me remember that. Well, most people, the way they forget, let's take non-DID situations. Non-DID situations, People talk about repressed memories. Say that a dog bit you when you were three years old, or you went to the dentist and the drill was, you know, you just hear a drill and your teeth ache, you know. You gradually forget. That's the normal way of forgetting. Parts of your brain decide, actually what happens is, and I'm not by any means a brain specialist, but I've heard enough to know that The reason sleep is really important to not get confused is not just so that you have enough energy and enough oxygen. When you fall asleep, there's a flush of cortisol in your system. It just flushes your system. And part of what its functions is, it takes all the events of the day and it's the office manager, the librarian. It says, okay now, okay, Tommy Rowe melted his ice cream. Well, that's not too important. Let's put that way back in the file way in the back. Now, this doesn't need to be remembered. So-and-so wore a blue dress. That's not important. Now, this, we do need to remember this. Now, put this in the file and be sure you label it. It functions as taking all the events of the day and storing them in your memory. Remember that diagram that I gave you, the librarian up in the corner, the person that collects all the information? It's stored. And now they have enough tests to show that when a person has a certain memory, like if they're doing brain surgery and they touch a certain area of the brain, personally have a smell maybe that reminds them of their second grade classroom or something. They can actually, you know, touch places where those memories are apparently stored. Well, most people forget gradually. so that if they went to the dentist and their teeth hurt, well, by the next day, they don't remember the same level of pain. They put it in context. I survived, you know, and there's no need for me to keep thinking about it. Like I said, when they hear that, you know, that drill, they may, you know, think, oh, yeah, Dr. Brown, oh, yeah, teeth, boy, that really hurt. Well, 10 years from now, chances are the vividness of that experience at the dentist isn't going to be that strong. Because it gradually fades. They still remember it, but it's not a big deal. Also, there's not only gradual forgetting in the normal way, but gradual remembering. If somebody said, well, what's your dentist's name? I need a new dentist. Say, well, oh, yeah, yeah, Dr. Brown. Yeah, well, see a good dentist? Well, yeah, and you're thinking while you're talking to him, you're accessing some of that information. And gradually, you get more of a full picture. If somebody said, describe his office, it probably would be gradually that you'd remember. Oh, yeah, he's got that coffee table. Oh, yeah, there's those books on the coffee table. And gradually, you'd sort of get into it, sort of like a crescendo for the musician. But there may be distortion, and that's the third point. There may be distortions. I remember as a kid, my brother lifting me up in the barn to look on the ledge where the swallows had made a nest. Now when I was a kid, I didn't know that most birds are covered with fleas or bugs or ticks. I don't know what they're called, but little feces. So when he lifted me up and I reached, I pulled on the board and the nest fell on us. So then we had a problem. I went back and looked at that where that nest was when I was an adult and it was like way down here. But to me as a three-year-old, I had distorted it and I thought it was like way up there. Just the distortion was based on the circumstances and the age and my perception of it just then. So when I remembered something, I would say, oh, that was, I mean, I don't know where it was, but it was out in the rafters somewhere. And there would be an element of distortion. I wasn't purposely trying to distort it. It had been imprinted on my mind that way. But there's another kind of forgetting, and Dr. Rumburger talked about it, is dissociative forgetting. For those that haven't had enough coffee yet, it's D-I-S-S-O-C-I-A-T-I-O-N, dissociation. If you think of the word association, you've heard of that game where they say, okay, tell me the first thing that comes to your mind, you know, and they say blue and green and, you know, typewriters, and you can see my aging, computers, you know, and you're supposed to say what do you associate, what does your brain immediately go to? Well, dissociation is not dis-association, but it could very well be pronounced that way, or written that way, because this memory is totally isolated and encapsulized. It is not in association with anything else. How is that memory laid down differently? Well, for one thing, it's instantly forgotten, even before the event has finished. It's forgotten, totally. Well, where is it put? It's put in a different place in your memory system in your brain, a different filing system. It's the secretary in the back office who keeps the window blinds drawn so nobody can go in and see what's in her files. She's very protective of those files. Often amnesia is the word that's used in relation to these memories because you don't remember it. You absolutely do not remember it. Remember I was talking about how I had just a terrible lust for suicide for about four years. If I walked by the window, I'd have to consciously say, okay, I'm not going to jump through the glass. I'm not going to jump. Lord, help me not to jump through the glass. They sent me, obviously I was at college at the time, a Christian college, and there was a bit of a problem because they were always rescuing me from the tops of buildings or balconies. I sort of came to, you know, I had few states or places where I had blank times. So they thought maybe something's wrong with this dear lady. So they sent me to a psychologist and he said, well, tell me about your life. I had a good life. Grew up on a farm, we worked hard, but my father was a Sunday school superintendent, can't think of anything else. But my problem was I was so driven to suicide, what was that about? But then memories began to come. Now if he had said, you know, well, just try to remember what happened, I couldn't. Because I didn't have access to that part of my brain. You know, I mentioned Jim Wilder yesterday, but for those who weren't here, very quickly, he's talked with some brain surgeons and others that say that when they do tests on people, the front of the brain has to do with a sense of identity. And if you hook a person who has DID up to that, and say there's a part that split off when they were a teenager, 14 years old, and if you said, would you mind if I talk to the place in your mind, the part that's 14 years old, and there comes that part real aggressive and strong, That there's one part of the brain that I was lights up for those parts. There's a specific area of activity in the brain for the different places of thinking Besides instantly instantaneously forgetting these memories come back suddenly they come back with a rush of flood They come back in vivid color It's not the gradual, oh, let me try to think about that. I mean, you are suddenly there, like the PTSD of the Vietnam veterans. They're suddenly on the battlefield. They're no longer sitting there. I mentioned the friend who was wrestling in the water with some of the other brothers at church, and suddenly he flipped, and he was wrestling for his life. He was no longer at the church picnic. He was in his mind back at that event. The other thing is there are lots of details. Lots of details. I remember the dirt underneath Uncle John's fingernails, for example. I remember the kind of buttons he wore on his shirt. And also, there's very little distortion with this. Very little distortion. It's an entirely different kind of memory. The brain does something entirely different. Having said this, I'll point you to page 205. We won't read through it because we're running out of time. But it's what are the external and internal evidences that the memories are true? I'm not going to go through this because you can read it, but please do read it. Only don't read it while I'm making this last comment. Some of you have mentioned the false memory syndrome. Some of you are aware of its origins, but others aren't so I'll close with this. The false memory syndrome, or false memory society, which has taken up legal causes against people who say they've been abused, ritual abuse, and then they take them to court and prove, quote unquote, that they weren't ritually abused. People think, well, that must have been a group of counselors or psychiatrists or psychologists who started that because they had a concern about this. It was started by a man and his wife in, I think it was Massachusetts, and they were the lead, at the time, they weren't clinicians, they weren't anything, they were people. Two things were true about them. They were the leading purveyors and sellers of child pornography on the internet. of their time and secondly their daughter who was an engineer at the University of Michigan was accusing them of incest for years and years. So as a protection for themselves they came up with this false memory syndrome. Gathered to them people likewise who were perpetrators who had been involved in trying to cover this up and people don't know that he's no longer they're no longer the head of it now that it's got running up and running but it's not a legitimate Society it's not a legitimate thing. Are there false memories? There may be in third years of working. I've never seen any and You can tell by some of my comments people that have been through this don't go around bragging about it So that's right away a heads up. Maybe it's a false thing that they're kind of Paul. I Met a lady. She said guess what? I have 110 parts. I have D&D Well, you know I don't know why you're telling me this, but people that wear it on their sleeve as a thing to get attention, that's not the true folks that come with the idea. Everything in their mind says, don't believe it's true. It can't be true. The pervasiveness of that thought that I'm making it up, I must be making it up, is there right through to the end of their healing. When you were talking about the, you know, the cortisol flushing through, you know, getting everything out with our filing systems, everything that goes through our minds and everything. Dr. Romberger stated earlier, you know, when things come in, he used, you know, the submarine as a, you know, when torpedoes hit, you know, he closed off that part and everything. When, you know, with DID and you only, you know, closing off those areas and everything, you only have like so much room to store all that data. Wouldn't that kind of look like ADD? You know, because you can only absorb so much because you don't have much more space to put it in. So it's like you just kind of leave everything out and then the other things just kind of keep coming in that aren't as big. Right. There are some similarities in the ADD. Your mind tries to make sense and organize the stimuli that's coming into you like we all do. With the ADD, chemically, there are some problems with doing that, as most people do. But there's a major difference in that you have an entire inner world. You either have strange events happening, or you hear voices. A large percentage hear voices right from the beginning. Others, until there's a certain time in their healing, they don't hear voices. Let me mention one more thing with that, and that is that cortisol flush that I talked about, the role of nightmares. People that come back from Vietnam often have nightmares and the DID folks have nightmares. Some people believe that the role, what is happening in your brain when a nightmare happens, I mean the enemy can bring nightmares and make you very terrified, but what the brain, when I was talking about that cortisol flush and the brain categorizing an event of the day or a memory, it can only do that with memories that are completed. So if you started being abused and you broke off, put it over, that's not completed. In Vietnam, if they saw things, they just blanked it out. They don't have DID necessarily, but they dissociate it to a very large degree at that point. That memory is not completed. So their brain, in essence, in the night, is trying to finish the memory. It's trying, because often the same elements will go over and over again. I've experienced that myself when I finally remembered a certain event from that day on. I'd had nightmares on that for 30 years. On that day, I have never had a memory of that, a nightmare of that afterwards, because my brain finished it. And I could deal with it, physiologically even. I don't know about everyone's nightmares, I think. I'd make more of a category of those who have had major trauma. I think it's lunchtime.
Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA)
Series Freedom
Website: http://www.brministry.org | Website: http://www.lydiadm.org
The enemy wants to be worshiped, and the horrible reality of life is that satanic rituals do take place. How can we help people who have been forced to participate in a ritual come to freedom in Jesus? As the darkness of the world increases the worship of the enemy increases. Our churches need help to see and help people who are deeply wounded to meet with Jesus.
Sermon ID | 326241716463877 |
Duration | 1:26:41 |
Date | |
Category | Conference |
Language | English |
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