Power over the Enemy: Breaking Free from Spiritual Strongholds (10 page)

I thank God that while I was in this situation, He sent a man all the way from Fort Worth to Houston to encourage me. He came before I ever heard from God. He told me, “God sent me by here.”

I had not told anyone about my terrible situation. I really could not find the words to explain what I was going through then. It was a spiritual battle. This man came to me and told me that he had been through a similar experience, which God had brought him out of it. He said to me, “Pastor Osteen, you will be all right. I have been where you are now. God brought me out, and He will bring you out, too.”

It was the sweetest sentence I could ever hear! I never dreamed I would ever be all right again. But God wanted me to know that He would bring me through. “God… is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34
AMP
). What He has done for me, He will do for you! If you are in the midst of a battle, He will bring you through also!

Hope was in my heart, but I was not out yet.

One day as I was weeping before God, I said, “Lord, what in the world is the matter with me? Why don’t You hear me? Why haven’t You rescued me?”

God wanted me to become a minister of faith. He wanted me to take the Word of God and help the children of God rise up against the pressures of the forces of darkness. He wanted me to be able to unfold the truths that I am now sharing. He wanted me to be a helper to the body of Christ. The only way I could do this was to come out of it by the Word of God.

If God had run to my rescue and lifted me up like a baby, I would still be a baby. There comes a time when God says, “You are grown up. I have more confidence in you than you have in yourself. I am going to prove you in the field of battle with the Word of God.”

This is the reason why some of you may have felt your prayers have not been answered. This is why you may still be suffering. This is why you may be wondering why God has not heard you. He is letting you know who you
really
are as a new creature in Christ Jesus.

God is good. He will visit you and speak to your heart to help you. While I was kneeling, praying, and crying, God said, “What about the visitation I gave you many months ago?”

Up to that time, I had never once connected that visitation with my present situation. God says in His Word, “… before they call, I will answer” (Isaiah 65:24
AMP
).

In His mercy and love, God had visited me and prepared me beforehand. Now He reminded me of that visitation. So I reflected on all of those things that God had taken me through. I recalled how I was with Satan in that room and the man who could not escape. I recounted it all aloud to God.

God spoke to me in my spirit and asked, “Where were you in this room?”

I recalled that I was by the door. I had stood up straight like a soldier and said, “I will walk out of here in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” In the vision I had just walked out.

The Lord said to me, “Son, you are there in the third arena right now. You are in the presence of the prince of this world. He is fear. He is torment. You are in that place, enclosed with him tormenting you. You saw yourself rise up like a soldier and march out in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now do it!”

Thank God, I acted on what He told me to do that day. I arose from my knees, wiped the tears away, and set my face like flint toward victory. I did not
feel
victory, but in my heart I accepted it as a fact already realized. Every outward circumstance and symptom remained the same, but in my heart I was healed. I knew I was delivered! My business was to walk out of the situation.

Slowly but surely, I began to come out of it. It may appear that there is no easy way out of a situation like this, but there is! Jesus said, “I am the door” (John 10:7).

What did I do? I turned back to the Word of God and began to get the revelation I needed from the Bible. During those weeks and months of meditating upon the Word of God, I began to learn what Christ Jesus had purchased for me. I began to understand who I was in Christ. I began to comprehend my position of power and authority over the enemy. Faith began to rise up within me because of this revelation. You see, it is the truth that sets you free!

I want to emphasize that you cannot be free and stay permanently free until you know what Jesus has done for you in defeating Satan. You need to know who you are in Christ and your authority and place of power in Christ Jesus. You must act upon this truth and drive Satan away yourself!

I began to fill my spirit and mind full of the Word of God. I began to confess who I was in Christ. I began to say daily what God said about me as a new creature.

I returned to the place where I had acted on the fear of flying. I knew that I had to demonstrate Satan’s defeat in this area where I had let him dominate me. I decided to take a trip by airplane. It was so hard! Fear has torment. The devil told me that the plane would fall and I would never see my wife and children again.

But I was determined to act on my faith just as I had acted on fear. I knew that acting on fear had activated Satan, but that if I would act on faith, it would activate God.

Understand that I did not feel like flying. But it does not matter what you feel like. Just act like God told you the truth.

When you act on fear, you are saying by your actions that Satan is mightier than God. When you act on the Word of God in faith against fear, you are saying God is greater than the devil.
Acting on the Word of God in faith activates the power of God!

As I went to the airport, I thought I would have a four-engine jet that would without doubt safely get me to my destination in spite of the fact that I was feeling so filled with anxiety. When I saw that it was a rickety looking two-engine propeller plane, my knees got weak, and I almost fainted. I managed to get on the plane, sat down, and immediately broke out in a cold sweat.

But I know that Jesus smiled and the angels rejoiced, because they saw my determination to act on God’s Word against Satan’s
lying fear. Jesus had deliberately left me in the arena of battle until I would take the sword of the Spirit and drive Satan away myself! I quoted the promises of God all the way there. I told Satan what God had promised. I resisted him steadfastly with God’s Word. I was bringing a demonstration that Satan was defeated in this area of my life!

And guess what—the plane landed safely! I felt fear all the way to my destination, but thank God we landed safely. Then the devil told me, “You will never get back home unless you walk,” but the devil is a liar.

When I got back on that plane to come home, I did not feel God’s presence. I felt fear. But I acted like God told me the truth. He had said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). He had said in His Word, “No evil shall befall you… for He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways” (Psalm 91:10–11). So I acted on those promises instead of the devil’s lies!

Thank God, we landed safely! Satan’s power over me was broken, and since that time I have flown all over the world so many times I cannot keep count. Now when I get on an airplane, I sit back and go to sleep. I wake up refreshed, for all fear has been driven away. I have demonstrated Satan’s defeat in my own life!

Many of you have had the same battles with fear about cancer, your home, your spouse, your children, your income, and many other things. Fear has torment. But I want you to know you can drive the enemy out by the Word of God and the Name of Jesus.

Rise up and act against the enemy! “
Resist the devil and he will flee from you”
(James 4:7).

You may wonder why you are in such a battle today. Some of you may have even asked the question, “Why doesn’t God rescue me?”

The Word of God says Satan will steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). But I want you to know God has a plan for victory. He has put the Holy Spirit in you to demonstrate that Satan is a defeated foe.

God has left you on the field of battle with Satan to help you grow up. He wants you to learn the Word of God, to wield the sword of the Spirit, and to drive the devil away so that you will know that the Holy Spirit works! He is inside of you, and in the midst of your battle
He will help you demonstrate Satan’s defeat!

As you become knowledgeable of God’s Word, you will find the assurance that Jesus defeated Satan in every area of life. When Jesus went to the cross and performed the redemptive work, it was to utterly conquer Satan for you and me!

The revelation of redemption is given in the epistles of the Bible. You need to read the Bible to find out what God has done for you. In these epistles, you will find the unfolding of all that God, through Jesus Christ, did in that wonderful but terrible hour.

What a tremendous thing happened when Jesus died on the cross! Even the earth refused to let the sun shine on it (Luke 23:44–45). The earth revolted with an earthquake (Matthew 27:54). It was an awful, terrible hour of conflict with spiritual forces.

When Jesus died, He died to conquer Satan for you and me. The disciples did not even understand all about it. They had to have a revelation of it.

Paul gives this revelation in Ephesians 1:19–23, so that you might know and understand “what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

Jesus defeated Satan. He arose and was lifted far above all demonic power. Ephesians 2:6 tells us that God “raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” We are the church, His body. Every demonic force has been placed under His feet and our feet. That is the reason we can trample on serpents and scorpions (Luke 10:19)!

Philippians 2:5–10 states, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth.”