Spiritual Warfare 101Sample

Permission - How We Open Doors to the Enemy

There are two essential principles for understanding spiritual warfare: permission and authority. If you think of this from a legal perspective, demons need permission to do what they do. Governments can give demons permission to greater activity in their territory when those governments worship pagan gods or endorse sin. Institutions (like schools, businesses, and churches) can give permission to demons to have access to what they do when they enter into agreements with them. For example, I read an article from the BBC that reported hundreds of cases of businesses in Africa paying to have human sacrifices performed on their property as a means of calling down curses on their competitors and granting them power for victory in their competition for money. Do we really think a business can do something like this without any spiritual consequences?

We open doors to demonic activity when we do not deal with sin. I often use the acronym SOUL-L to teach a simple model for identifying some of the most common ways this happens.

S—Sin: When we sin but fail to repent of that sin, we open a door to the enemy. Too often, instead of repenting, we justify our sin or simply hide it. This opens a door to demonic activity by giving permission for demons to occupy a place in our lives.

O—Occult: When we sin by direct participation with demons (perhaps by attending a seance or joining a coven), it opens an even bigger door to demonic activity in my life. Whether I am a Christian or not, there are consequences to activity like this. It gives access to demons they wouldn’t have if I had not participated in occult experiences.

U—Unforgiveness: When we sin by holding on to our bitterness instead of forgiving those who wrong us, it gives permission to the enemy to torment us at some level. More than one spiritual warfare leader has suggested that unforgiveness is the most common cause of demonization in the church.

L—Lies We Believe: Since the devil is the father of lies, whenever we agree with his lies, we are entering into a kind of pact with him. In a sense, we are saying, “Satan, you are right. God, You are wrong.” This type of agreement gives permission to the enemy to a place in our lives. I have seen this quite a bit with self-hatred, fear rooted in lies about the future, and shame.

One of the fastest growing problems in the world today is fear. In most cases, this fear is related to lies we believe. Dealing with oppressive fear often requires renouncing the lies involved and evicting the demons who are using the fear to torment us.

L—Lineage: If our family opened a door to demons in the past and no one ever made them leave, they still have permission to impact the family in future generations. The idea of sin having consequences for future generations is actually a fairly common biblical theme. For example, the Torah forbids Ammonites and Moabites from entering the tabernacle for ten generations (Deut. 23:3). Jesus said His generation would bear the consequences of prior generations (Luke 11:50). The Bible has many examples like this. Clearly, there are generational consequences for sin. One of those consequences is greater access to family members.