Renounce to Receive

I was in New England about eight years ago, speaking to groups of people under the auspices of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship. In every place, I was talking about the baptism of the Spirit and leading people into the baptism.

And in most places, I would get a group of 15 or 20 people. They'd come forward, and practically every person would receive the baptism.

Well, there was one woman who followed me around from place to place, about four times. And every time she came for the baptism, she didn't receive it. So she came up at the end and she said, “What's the matter with me?” She said, “I come up, I say the same prayer as the other people, I don't get it.”

And I'd noticed her. She stood there like wood. When everybody else was being moved by the Spirit, she was unmoved. I said, “Do you acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the only way to God?” She said, “No.” I said, “That's why you don't get it.”

Then she began to tell me what was really a very tragic story. She said, “I read the book, ‘A Gift of Prophecy.’” And she said, “I decided I wanted it.” So she said, “I asked whatever gods there might be for that gift.” And she said, “After that, I began to know things that were going to happen.”

Now, I'm paraphrasing what she said, I'm summing it up. But in essence, everything she foreknew was evil, was disastrous. For instance, she saw in a dream her aunt dying by drowning, and her aunt died by drowning exactly as she dreamed it. But she could do nothing about it. And then she was under a sense of guilt and condemnation that she had done nothing about her aunt, though she knew she was going to drown.

Let me tell you that if God reveals things to you, there's always a practical and a redemptive purpose. And basically, God does not reveal horror to you. The devil is the one who reveals horror. And his revelations will serve no practical purpose; they'll simply enslave you.

Well, I ministered to that woman. In fact, I was due to preach, and I spent about 45 minutes when I was getting ready to preach, trying to help her. I could not get her out of what she was in. And I left that scene with a heavy heart, a sense of almost hopelessness in the face of this evil power that she had submitted to voluntarily, but in ignorance.

I remember a man who's been used in the Lord's service today. He's active in a Christian organization. He has a Catholic background. I was in a meeting with him. I said, “Do you have the baptism of the Holy Spirit?” He said, “Yes.”

“But…” Of course, when you know, when you get “yes, but” to that question, you know what the “but” is, don't you? “But I don't speak in tongues.”

So I call those trunkless elephants. And I find an elephant with its trunk is much happier.

So I said, “Did you pray?” He said, “Yes, but it wouldn't come.” So I said, “Did you ever go to a fortune teller?” “Oh,” he said, “yes, when I was a boy of about 15, but I didn't mean anything by it. I just did it for a joke.” But I said, “You went, didn't you?” He said, “Yes.”

Well, I said, “Would you say a prayer of renunciation after me?” He said, “All right.” I don't think he was convinced. So I led him to confess as a sin that he'd been to a fortune teller, to renounce it and every evil influence that he had come under. And he did so in the name of Jesus. Then I put my hand on him and said, “Now pray,” and he spoke fluently in tongues. He didn't have one moment's hesitation. See, the binding thing was removed.

I was ministering in a church in Chicago about, maybe seven years ago. A woman came in, she said, “Would you pray for me? I need deliverance.” And I said to her, “No, because I believe you're a medium, and I won't pray for you.”

So she went away. About some weeks later, she came back. She said, “What you said was true, but I've repented. Will you pray for me?” Well, I didn't feel really convinced that she had repented, but I thought, “I really can't refuse to pray for her on that basis.”

So I began to pray for her and command evil spirits to leave her, and some of them apparently left. But it was very hard going. And I've learned now by experience, when it's hard going, there's a reason. However, I stopped to kind of rest, and I was leaning against the altar of the church, and she suddenly said to me in a strange voice, she said, “I see you in a car, and it's wrecked against a tree.”

Praise God, I was on my guard. I instantly recognized that that was a divining spirit. I said, “You divining spirit, in the name of Jesus, I refuse that. I will not be in a car that will be wrecked against a tree.”

But I saw something. I saw when a person goes to a fortune teller, and the fortune teller says, “You're going to divorce your husband, marry another man,” and you say, “Oh, am I?” You know what you've done? The fortune teller told you Satan's destiny for your life. And when you said, “Oh,” you submitted to Satan's destiny. You made it possible for that destiny, in many cases, to be actually worked out in your life.