Breaking the Power of Familiar Spirits: How to Deal with Demonic Conspiracies

NKJV).

PART I

HOW FAMILIAR SPIRITS OPERATE

CHAPTER 1

SOUL TIES

(THE MENTAL REALM)

AS YOU READ this book, the words in it can literally save your soul! What do I mean by that? There are many motives, agendas, and purposes in the world today, but the ultimate bottom line agenda of the devil and his forces is to possess the soul eternally. Familiar spirits are assigned against the souls of men to get them off the track of heaven’s course. That’s why it is pertinent to understand the three realms in which they operate:

• The mental realm—soul ties

• The flesh realm—thorns of the flesh

• The earth realm—territorial warfare

I’ll get into more about the flesh realm and the earth realm in the coming chapters. The purpose of this chapter is to explain how familiar spirits operate in the mental realm, also known as the soul. As I have taught many times, we are spirits who live in bodies and possess souls. Our physical bodies ground us to the earth. Without bodies our spirits would float around in the air like balloons. For the purpose of this book, I will refer to the human spirit as the spirit man.

Ecclesiastes 12:7 says that when we die the dust (the body) returns to the earth and the spirit returns to God, who gave it. This does not necessarily mean to heaven but to God. The spirit returns to God for judgment, which determines whether eternity will be spent in heaven or hell. The triune makeup of man will one day be broken up. The body will go back to the dust, and the spirit with the soul (mind) will spend eternity somewhere.

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

—1 THESSALONIANS 5:23, KJV, EMPHASIS ADDED

Paul made it clear that he prayed for God to wholly sanctify the people he was praying for—in spirit, soul, and body. This means God wants us to be whole throughout our entire constitution. A major demonic assignment against people is soul ties, which I always say relate to old ties.

WHAT ARE SOUL TIES?

A soul tie is a link between two people in the spirit realm. Intimate relationships such as marriage, close friendships, and sexual encounters create soul ties. The bond, or soul tie, created through these relationships can live on long after the relationship is over and can have either positive or negative effects.

Some do not believe that men can be tied at the soul, but the proof is in 1 Samuel 18:1. The Bible says that Jonathan was bonded to the soul of David. It says that Jonathan loved David as himself. The Bible does not reference this as being a good or bad thing, only a fact. This particular word translated as soul is nephesh, and it relates to passions, appetites, or the seat of a man’s emotions.

You can have soul ties to people—but you can also have soul ties to churches and ministries. This is what happens in cults, but it can also happen in seemingly healthy churches that are actually abusive. Spiritual abuse is the strongest type of abuse you can have. People cannot move on spiritually because they want to be back at that old ministry even though they know it’s ungodly or unhealthy. They’ve experienced so much abuse that it’s hard to move on.

You can even have soul ties to past addictions. For years after I was saved, God would not allow me to go to Tallahassee and Fort Lauderdale, even when I started preaching, because of my addiction to cocaine at the time I had lived there. I couldn’t go there because of all of the residue of the strongholds in those areas. As a new Christian who had just been delivered from that addiction, I would see pipes floating in the air and hear a voice whispering, Don’t you want it? And I had to say, No. I am a new creature in Christ Jesus.

Whether it is a person, a group, a ministry, or an addiction, a soul tie is a stronghold.

SIGNS OF AN UNHEALTHY SOUL TIE

Here are a few telltale signs that you have an unhealthy soul tie with another person. This list isn’t exhaustive. It was created to give you a few common examples.

• You can’t stop thinking about someone or checking that person out on social media—even if you have moved on to a new relationship.

• You stay with someone even if that person is abusive or the relationship is unhealthy.

• You feel sorry for the other person and make excuses for him or her.

• You can’t stay broken up with that person, and you keep going back to him or her.

• You have problems moving on to someone else.

• You often dream about the person; he or she is subliminally in your life through dreams and meditation.

• You are always basing new relationships on what happened in the past; the new person in your life has to deal with the baggage that the old person left.

• You are always comparing any new person to the former person.

To put it simply, soul ties will always make you want to look back, just like Lot’s wife when they were leaving Sodom. (See Genesis 19.) Scripture doesn’t give us very many details about Lot’s wife, but what it does tell us is of great importance. In fact, it’s so important that Jesus Himself gives us an exhortation to remember Lot’s wife (Luke 17:32, NKJV). He wants us to understand that the power of a soul tie can bring death.

If you recall from Scripture, God sent two angels to deliver Lot and his family from the judgment that was about to fall on the wicked city of Sodom. Yet even as the angels of God were leading them to safety, the power of soul ties caused Lot’s wife to look back with longing for the sinful and wicked pleasures of the city of Sodom. When she ignored the words of the angels who said, Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed (Gen. 19:17, NKJV), she turned to a pillar of salt. She became an eternal monument to those who look back because of soul ties instead of heeding the voice of God. Looking back is the opposite of moving forward. The only way to move forward is to look ahead with faith in what God has promised you.

Personally I would not want to be joined at the soul with anyone. I reserve the seat of my emotions for God. Mark 10:8 says even in marriage the two will become one flesh (not one soul). When we get saved, we give our souls to God alone, but soul ties do exist. Soul ties and old ties must be broken.

HOW TO BREAK A SOUL TIE

1. Physical separation. You have to remove yourself from that person (or that church, that addiction, etc.). You have to physically get out of the situation before you can be healed and delivered. Make up your mind that you will not return to places and do things that you associate with that stronghold. Disconnect yourself from people, places, and things connected to that person. That may include the person’s friends or things that person has given to you. If certain people are always talking about that person, you may need to find some new friends. If something reminds you of that person, God may lead you to get rid of it. You may need to move if that is what God leads you to do. Beware of the places of your stronghold until God makes you stronger through deliverance and inner healing.

2. Seek inner healing and deliverance ministry. This process may include asking for forgiveness, forgiving others, and renouncing the past. I don’t recommend going it alone. You need a good deliverance and inner healing minister to guide you on the path to healing as the Lord leads.

3. Fill that vacuum on the inside with God. Only He can fill that empty place. Don’t try to fill it with another boyfriend, husband, relationship, pastor, or church. Let that hole be filled up with God—with the Word of God and fellowship with God.

Those three steps are the way to break free from soul ties. But let me add two things to remember after your breakthrough.

1. Be aware of sympathetic magic, a tool of the enemy to get you to go back to that stronghold after you’ve been delivered. Sympathetic magic is when the enemy reminds you of the good times or gets you to feel sorry for that person. The enemy won’t bring up the dark side of things. He will play on your emotions and your sympathies. He wants you to focus on what you miss about that thing or person, but you have to remember how bad it was. You have to remember what it cost you. Rehearse it in your mind. Speak it out loud: I remember the cost. I’m glad I have money in my pockets now because I haven’t spent it all on drugs or alcohol. Tell yourself: No, I don’t miss him. I remember the ugly parts. Continue to confess your liberty. That’s the way to counter the enemy. He’ll get you to remember the times that person brought you flowers. But you have to remember that before those flowers withered, he was already cussing you out, calling you names, and threatening you.

2. Wait until you are healed and filled up with God before you move on to a new relationship. Otherwise you’ll go from one soul tie to another soul tie, trying to fill with someone else the place that only God can fill. It’s very dangerous to fill up God’s space with a relationship that creates a soul tie. To avoid this, take time to truly heal and be made whole in Him. Then you can connect with others and have healthy relationships.

When you have a soul tie to someone in your past, that person is still filling up space in your soul and there is no room for someone else. It’s like trying to put new furniture in the house without moving out the old furniture first. You need to lay aside the old ties and soul ties and then refuse to go back to the things that cleverly entangle you. Take a look at Hebrews 12:1 in the Amplified Classic Bible:

Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us.

There are several important instructions in this verse for breaking soul ties and maintaining your deliverance from them: 1) your testimony is important in your deliverance; 2) you must strip away anything that causes you to fall; 3) you must guard your heart from becoming entangled again in things that you’ve been delivered from; and 4) you must walk out your deliverance with patience, endurance, consistency, steadfastness, and persistence.

AN UNEQUAL YOKE

The worst kind of soul tie is an unequal yoke. An unequal yoke is being connected with people who are nonbelievers—even if they profess to be believers. They operate under a spirit of religion instead of the Holy Spirit. In fact, the biggest familiar spirit is the spirit of religion. The church is full of people operating under a spirit of religion. They walk around doing things in the name of Jesus when they are not actually yoked with Him. You can even be equally yoked with someone, and the enemy can still come in like a flood. I’ve experienced this in my own life.

We discern an unequal yoke soul tie by being Spirit-filled and Spirit-led. The Bible says we know one another by the fruit we bear (Matt. 7:16). That’s how you know whether someone is of God. That’s how you know whether you are equally yoked. What kind of fruit is being produced by the relationship?

When we are in church, we tend to think we’re safe, so we let our guard down. We set our purses down and don’t watch our wallets. We get sucked in to all kinds of stuff that’s not of God. Just because someone has a church doesn’t mean you are to be in that church. You can have an unequal yoke with a church. It’s important to know that God has a place called there for each one of us. We have to let God lead our steps and guide us so we don’t get into wrong relationships.

God is calling us to be Spirit-led. We want to be Spirit-filled and get fat like ticks. But being Spirit-filled without being Spirit-led is dangerous. It’s all about a relationship with Him and knowing His voice and being led by His Spirit.

God is adamantly opposed to believers being unequally yoked (2 Cor. 6:14). He hates it even more than divorce. Don’t get me wrong; God hates divorce, but the first principle to marriage is that He hates when we are unequally yoked.

Being equally yoked doesn’t mean you have a perfect marriage. There will always be problems in marriages; there are no perfect marriages. But the formula of God for holy matrimony is one man and one woman being equally yoked with godly order in the house and ordained roles in proper place in their relationship.

If you are unequally yoked in your marriage, I’m not telling you divorce is your only option. On the contrary, I want to encourage you that it is never too late. I have seen God save marriages that seemed hopeless. Only He can make a way when there is no way and work a miracle. But apart from divine intervention, an unequal yoke is devastating for believers. That’s why God warns us against it.

Being unequally yoked with people, places, and things hinders our walk with Him. When I think of a yoke, I relate it to a yoke of oxen. The yoke is meant to take the team in the same direction. An unequal yoke is burdensome because two people are connected but are traveling in different directions. The outcome is inevitable; neither will progress because they are yoked in vain, getting no work done, and stuck in a rut.

FOUR STATES OF THE SOUL

Following is a list of the states of the soul (mind) that relate to the point I am making:

1. Dipsuchos—double-minded

2. Oligopsuchos—small-minded

3. Sumpsuchos—to be joined at the soul

4. Isopsuchos—like-minded

All of these states will have a negative effect on a person except isopsuchos. It is acceptable to be like-minded, but the others will present a problem. Let me explain.

Ephesians 3:20 says that God can do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us (NKJV). That power is faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6, MEV). Oligopsuchos (small-minded) is the enemy of thinking big. We serve a big God who does big