For me, 2006 has been a year filled with both tremendous loss and gain. Yet, I've learned and am learning that, in the end, both will somehow result in blessing, and that the God who causes all things to work together for the good, in time, will turn every ostensible tragedy into triumph. I've also learned and am learning that while in the midst of the ferocity and fog of all-out war, when the enemy is pressing in with full force and vengeance against us, we as spiritual warriors who have already been declared more than conquerors, often don't "feel" like conquerors. In the throes of war, no one feels triumphant. While under vicious attack, until victory is achieved, one never feels victorious.
Personally, this year, I have experienced the extremes of the emotional spectrum, as well as everything in between. At the very apex of the blessings side, on May 3rd of this year, I was reunited with my daughter, Angela Marie, who was suddenly snatched away from me 38 years ago when she was only six months old and I was a mere teenager at the age of 19. I will be writing more on this incredible miracle in the months ahead, to include a book she and I plan to coauthor. Suffice it to say, Christmas came in May for me this year! No gift I could receive at Christmas could possibly top the gift of my daughter and her love for me and my love for her! I am already rich beyond measure!
But then, a little over a month after that emotional high, I experienced the loss of my Dad, who passed away on June 6, 2006. If you knew Dad, or even if you didn't, I invite you to read the Tribute I wrote regarding him and his life at: http://www.slm.org/slm/Tribute.html ... it's quite profound and inspirational. A few days before his homegoing, he and his first grand-daughter, Angela Marie, talked on the phone, and were able to tell each other they loved each other. Of course, they both wept. Angela was privileged to attend the burial service in Trinity, Florida. I wish they had known each other here; each would have enjoyed and been so proud of the other. Mom and Dad, along with me, though independently, had both faithfully prayed for 38 years for the reunion that took place on May 3rd. When Dad got the news the next day, he said to Mom, "Now I can go home to be with the Lord." Thirty-three days later...he did. What an unexpected and unfathomable surprise God gave the Lambert clan before Dad went Home! We are all truly and profoundly blessed and enriched by it!
Also this year, I have been totally meritlessly, mercilessly, and causelessly maligned, falsely accused, persecuted, libeled, slandered, betrayed, exploited, extorted, robbed, afflicted, scorned, ridiculed, and in a nutshell, severely abused in every way possible -- psychologically, emotionally, physically, and financially -- nearly all of which was perpetrated through human agents. It all has brought a lot of pain, but after 30 years in ministry and 58 years of living, frankly, I'm fairly used to having to endure such things.
Notwithstanding, one thing I learned many years ago, but am still learning daily, is that the wars we wage and are waged against us, truly are not against and by flesh and blood alone. Don't get me wrong, I know as much as anyone and more than most, that being spirits, Satan and his diabolical cohorts cannot do anything unless they find and successfully elicit the cooperation and perpetration of human agents through whom to do it. I say I know this more than most people do, one, because of my three decades of laboring to set captives free through deliverance, but, two, because so laboring on the frontlines to liberate people from demonic bondages and training others to do so as well makes me a prime target of demonic attack myself, as anyone who obeys the first tenet of the Great Commission by actually casting out demons can attest to. Begin to do real hand-to-hand warfare against devils, and a red target will suddenly and miraculously appear on your back! Nevertheless, SOMEBODY has to truly be one of those "believers" as Jesus called them in the Great Commission -- "them that believe in my Name," and fearlessly brave the onslaught of the enemy to rescue those who need rescuing from the death-grip of Satan! At the risk of being further misunderstood as being immodest, I can say in all truth, I have been doing the best I can now for thirty years to be one of those believers who will stand up and stand in the gap to stem the torrential tide of filth and evil flooding from the bowels of hell against mankind and especially redeemed mankind, i.e., believers.
The battles have been indescribeably ferocious. Not every one, at least in the temporal realm, appeared to be won. Moreover, there have been many casualties and losses suffered from the fog and hell of war. Nevertheless, within there is not even the flicker of a thought of backing up, backing off, backing down, compromising, or capitulating. Never! It's nothing but, "Damn the torpedoes! Full-steam ahead!" It's CHARGE! CHARGE! CHARGE! Charging the perilous cold crags of Normandy to establish a beach-head for the launching of a mighty counteroffensive! I am planning to do more in the coming years than I have ever done against the strongholds of Satan in the lives of God's people!
When I was in the Army during the Vietnam era, from time to time I was given temporary special assignments for which in addition to my regular pay I was paid additional compensation on what is called a "per diem" (meaning, per day) basis. Well, over the course of my ministry, in order to make a point, I've often joked that if I were paid on a "per demon" basis for every demon I cast out of people, I would be a multimillionaire. The point is: I've cast multitudes of demons out of multitudes of people during my ministry, starting with the very first time when in the middle of my meeting a man suddenly pitched out of his seat onto the floor and began writhing around on the floor like a serpent, making eery hissing sounds and flicking his tongue in and out like a snake.
I was so angry and chagrined that this guy was messing up my meeting and that God let this happen! Silently, after calming myself a bit, I asked the Spirit what in the world was happening and what I was supposed to do. To which He calmly replied within my spirit that this was a demon manifesting through the man, that it was happening because of the anointing that was present that causes demons to manifest just like I had read in the Gospels they did during Jesus' ministry after being Baptized in the Holy Spirit, and that what I was to do was to command that the demon leave the man. In righteous indignation, I did! Then, it did! That is, the demon departed screaming out of the man with a blood-curdling scream, and he got up, totally delivered and in His right mind, just like when Jesus cast them out of demonized people.
Since the moment I was saved there has been three anointings that have operated through me. The strongest anointing has been this anointing that causes demons to manifest. The next strongest is a prophetic anointing. And the third, is an anointing for miracles and healing. In all candor, it is only in the last couple years that I have come to be okay with that order. For years, the first anointing made me mad, because it kept causing the devil to show up in all kinds of places and at times that I had other things I was trying to accomplish that were the furthest from deliverance you could get.
For years I would get so angry that the devil would manifest in my meetings and mess up the meeting. I could never have nice, neat, peaceful, "orderly," meetings like all the other preachers I saw, because the devil would manifest through a bunch of the people in attendance and mess it all up! During the years I was conducting prophetic seminars to instruct about the prophetic gifts and office as well as the coming prophetic and apostolic movements, before they did in earnest, people in attendance, sometimes scores, sometimes a hundred or more, would be lined up to receive personal prophecies, and I would be prophesying over them in a very systematic and orderly manner, one by one. Many times while everyone was being wowed by the profundity and power of the prophecies, all of a sudden an outbreak of demonic manifestations would begin to occur in the meeting room or sanctuary, sometimes concentrated in certain sections, sometimes here and there, sometimes in the line of people awaiting prophetic words. Again, that would make me so mad I wanted to personally "slay" all those people who were manifesting "in the flesh," forget the Spirit! In those moments I didn't care if I became one of those preachers people accuse of knocking people down when they layed hands on them. I really did want to knock them down...and out!
Fortunately for those who need me to minister deliverance to them, I've gradually gotten over my anger about this anointing that God chose to place upon me and operate through me, resigned myself to the fact that it's God's prerogative and election of how He wants to use me, repented for my self-centeredness and the selfish ambition that made me want to do something other than what God wanted to do through me, and learned to just go with it and let God be God through me. Certainly, I've also learned and am still learning that the gifts and callings of God are indeed without repentance or revocation, whether in the negative or positive vein. Once He puts an anointing upon you, you can kick and scream all you want, but an immutable precept of how He operates is that He's not going to take it back or take if off of you. Now we can refuse to yield to and be cooperative with His will in it, but that will only mean that it will become an albatross around our neck rather than a source of blessing to ourselves, those to whom we are related, and those to whom we minister.
At the start of this present year of 2006, we launched a new web portal called DeliveranceNow.Com as a vehicle through which those who need deliverance can find information about deliverance and be connected with deliverance ministers who can minister to them. We felt inspired and called of the Lord to undertake this outreach even though we knew it meant greater expense for which funding would be required in addition to the funding we need for all the other aspects of this ministry. We still believe in that outreach and have no intentions other than to continue it for as long as God provides for it. Multitudes, just in this country, much less around the world, need real, effectual deliverance, but there are few places where it can be found. At the beginning of this year I posted a prophetic word about the matter of deliverance and that it was God's desire to bring deliverance out of the background and into the forefront in the Church. In that article I said,
A vital element in this purification God is bringing forth in 2006 is — deliverance. Until now, the relatively few churches and ministries who claim to recognize the validity of genuine deliverance ministry, wherein demons are actually cast out of people, relegate this absolutely vital aspect of the ongoing ministry of Jesus to a backroom down the hall next to the restrooms and broom closet, metaphorically (but sometimes, literally) speaking. Even those acknowledging the occasional and (to them) aberrational need for deliverance of some "poor soul" — usually only the extreme cases — keep it at arm's distance and treat it as a hush-hush matter not to be discussed openly among the congregants, and regard those individuals who deal in this verboten activity of casting out demons as being somewhat "a bit off-center," unorthodox, and outright "weird." This is how the vast majority of even Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal churches regard the matter of deliverance, despite the fact that casting out demons was the preeminent aspect of Jesus' earthly ministry, the first thing He commissioned the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb to do when He first sent them forth, and it was the first priority of His five-faceted "Great Commission" (cf. Mk. 16:17).
In 2006, God is bringing deliverance out of the back room and into the front room; out of the darkroom and into the Son-room; out of the bathrooms and into our living rooms; out of the broom closets into our prayer closets; out of the out-house and into His house and your house!
The next move (emphasis) of the Spirit in the Church Jesus is building, is an emphasis on deliverance — casting out devils. "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Ecc. 3:1). The season for purification of the Church has come. The time for widescale deliverance of God's people, as an initial step in effecting that purification, has come. God's faithful servants who have, in the face of contempt, scorn, and derision, maintained their passion for deliverance and continued to diligently labor "to set the captives free" — their TIME HAS COME!
Now that we are at the end of the year, I believe this more than ever! People need deliverance! The Church is the only source of deliverance. It's time for leaders to begin to take seriously the Great Commission and its first tenet in particular. As my Dad, Apostle Larry Lambert, would often say, "Somebody needs to cast out some demons!" Who is doing that? Not many! For years when I spoke on this topic in churches I would ask the congregation to raise their hand if they were a believer. Most hands would go up. Then I would ask those who had cast any demons out
today to raise their hand. No hands would go up. Okay, then,
this week? No hands. Okay, how about
this month. No hands.
This year? No hands.
Ever? Once in a while one or two hands, but usually, none. Then I would say, "I thought you all said you were believers? Jesus said that believers would cast out devils. Who lied, Jesus or you?" Of course, that usually did not go over well, but I had their attention to proceed speaking about the absolute necessity for every believer of deliverance.
Eighty-five percent of Jesus' ministry, according to the Gospels, involved casting out demons. In the incident of the Caananite woman's daughter, who kept prevailing upon Jesus concerning her daughter who she said was "curelly demon-possessed" (Mat. 15:21-28), Jesus said deliverance was "the childrens' bread." By extension, this meant spiritual Jews, i.e., believers! Jesus never cast a demon out of anyone who had not first professed a belief in Him as Lord and the Messiah. Jesus said that when demons are cast out of a person, the void must be filled with the Holy Spirit, lest the demons return with seven others each and the person then be seven times worse than he was before. Only believers who have been infused with the Holy Spirit at regeneration, or the New Birth, are valid candidates for deliverance. Deliverance is only for
believers!
The Church, by and large, despite the fact that the same Dunamis-Power of the Holy Spirit that came upon Jesus when the Holy Spirit lighted upon Him in the form of a Dove when He was baptized in water by John The Baptist is available to ever Born Again believer (and there is no other kind), is so impotent that 500 trainloads of spiritual viagra wouldn't phase it. As one preacher said, the entire charismatic-pentecostal church doesn't have enough power combined to blow their nose!
And, no wonder Christendom, as a whole, is powerless! The truth of the matter is that most people who attend church would say they are infused with the Holy Spirit, and many Pentecostals and Neo-Pentecostals would claim they are also baptized in the Holy Spirit, yet many in reality are devoid of the Kingdom of God. Why? Because Jesus said, "If I cast out demons by the (prophetic) finger of God, then the
Kingdom of God has come upon you!" (Lk. 11:20). The
Kingdom of God, which is the
authority of God (Rev. 12:10), cannot come upon people until and as the kingdom of Satan is cast out of them, which only happens when demons are driven out by force, which is the only way they ever leave once they gain entrance.
As a result, people can only manifest the fruits and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in their lives commensurate with the deliverance they have experienced from the influences and bondages from unholy spirits. For example, evil spirits of anger, bitterness, resentment, and so forth, that have a stronghold over a person's life, believer or not, will keep that person from being able to walk in the Spirit so as not to carry out the desires of the flesh as we are instructed to do in Galatians 5. It just can't happen with any consistency! Those evil spirits (demons) that are maintaining a strong hold or influence over that person's soul (Greek, "psuche," the derivative of "psyche"), which is composed of the mind, will, and emotions, will interfere with and powerfully constrain that person from being able to freely walk in the fruit of the Spirit, which are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22). Thus, the Kingdom of God is only manifest in the life of a believer to the degree he or she is delivered from evil spirits. And there are only three kinds of people in this world: 1) those who
need deliverance, 2) those who've
had deliverance, and 3) those who are lying.
We, in this ministry, are going to do all we can possibly do in the coming year and years to bring deliverance to the forefront in the Church and to teach and train other believers how to set captives free, in accordance with the word the Lord gave me for 2006. I believe every Church leader needs to do the same. I hope you personally do what you can to facilitate the fulfillment of this word as well.
One thing you can do to help in that mission is to forward this message to church leaders and other believers; just click on the email link. You can also read the entire prophetic word for 2006 concerning deliverance at:
http://www.slm.org/prophetc/articles/2006.html.
I have also published a book that is a primer on the matter of deliverance, entitled, Deliverance From Demonic Powers, which you can read about and order at:
http://www.slm.org/pubs/dlivrman.html. It is available for immediate download as an Ebook as well.
