Part 1
Part 2

Part 3...Today when I look back, I am simply humbled and awed with how longsuffering God was toward me throughout the years when I prayed for forgiveness and returned to the sin. My personal experience should not imply that a sinner can continue to live a life of willful and knowing sin. God is a jealous God (Ex. 34:14), and He
does not want us to place another god before Him. Porn was my god. For others, drugs can be a god, alcohol is a god, gossip is a god, cursing is a god, uncontrolled greed, hate, unforgiveness, fear, doubtâ€"all are gods if they serve to keep us from being able to serve him effectively.

Whatever sin of preference has latched its chain around a person, and holds him back from serving and following Jesus will eventually gain control of that person’s heart and soul. Though it is often a lifelong fight, with the Lord’s help, the sinner can regain control or sobriety over sin and its tormenting and oppressing spirits (demons). This is why the truly repentant sinner will have to learn to live life one day at a time after coming out from under the corruption of physical and emotional sin. To this date, I have not rid myself of the spirit of porn. It continues to roam around me like a hungry lion waiting to devour me. Rather, through the grace of God, I have learned to take control over the temptation, the tempter, and, most importantly, the part of me that was once ruled by sexual sin. One day at a time I am doing much better. But that doesn’t mean I’m free from the possibility of a relapse, for which I must always be prayerfully on guard. Because I am now able to recognize that my flesh is vulnerable, I am much wiser when it comes to the world around me. Praise God, because in Christ, I am more than a conqueror . . . and no weapon(s) formed against me shall prosper 29 . . . because in Christ, all things are possible.

When it comes to sin, believers should never become so complacent that they believe they can visit the land of sin whenever they choose and be able to return unscathed. Spiritual complacency will always lead the child of God down an endless road of destruction. The eventual costs for taking this road are heavy and always mock the cost of His death on Calvary through which we are marvelously purchased back from the sin we were born into through Adam’s sin. No true believer, claiming to walk in holiness, can honestly straddle the fence of righteousness. To try and walk with God while flirting with the Devil is spiritually reckless. It demonstrates a lack of true remorse. I once straddled that fence. I once tried to juggle a life of holiness and a life of secret sin. God called me to live a life of holiness, so every sexual sin I committed was a “sin of willful commission.� I felt the weight of the spiritual guilt because He did not call me to dabble in a life of impurities, mingling with unclean spirits. Jesus told His followers to enter the narrow gate, for the gate to hell is wide and many will enter that gate 30.

Some Christians do not believe that demons exist or that demons can in any way influence or oppress a born-again believer. At one time I also believed that. Because of my spiritually naïve way of thinking, I got into serious trouble. My battles with porn were fought in the trenches, and the enemy was Satan. However, had I known who the Enemy was, and the power and authority I had over the Enemy, I may have very well spared myself the emotional tears, and lost years. My personal belief about the demonic possession of believers is that it can’t happen. I believe that if demons could simultaneously dwell in the same physical body in which the temple of God has
been erected, then someone needs to explain to me why demons turn and run at the very presence of Christ, or why demons tremble at the mere mention of the name of Jesus. Satan and God cannot dwell together. If demons could possess true believers, just think about the immense internal/emotional battles within that poor individual. The war going on around us is bad enough. Therefore, my personal theology leads me to believe that demons cannot inhabit the temple of God in a born-again believer’s spiritual and physical being 31.

What I believe about the demonic influence on believers is simply that we can willingly join ourselves to sin, which results in our being oppressed and tormented by demonic spirits. I personally experienced what it was like to be oppressed and tormented, and it wasn’t worth the few moments of physical relief I gave myself when I sinned.
In the Lord’s Prayer, we are told to ask God to deliver us from evil, which comes immediately after we are told to pray that we not be led into temptation. There is a world of difference between being tempted and being possessed. Every believer can expect to be tempted in his or her lifetime. In fact, we will be tempted, probably
many times each day. If this was not true, then the Lord misled us in the only prayer He ever taught us to pray. With each temptation comes an opportunity to make a choice, and that choice is to follow God in an act of obedience and holiness. Or we can choose to sin, which places the onus for our sin squarely upon our spiritual shoulders. Succumbing to the temptation and subsequently committing a sin does not mean that we are possessed by
demons. But it does permit the tempter to torment us, sometimes for the remainder of our days on earth.
Committing a sin and repenting from that sin does not exclude us from ever being tempted by that sin again. The sin that once ruled a life will try to revisit the believer in many different forms. Once the Devil finds a weakness in our armor, he will attempt to exploit that weakness in the future. Believers need to realize that Satan is not only sly and crafty, he is the master of deception, which coincides with his being referred to as the world’s biggest liar. He will not stop his attempts to exploit our weaknesses until the day we are called home to the Lord.

That is why I can confidently say that while a believer cannot be possessed by a demon, he can be exploited and tormented by the tempter once the door is opened to a particular sin. As for my unique situation, I found it increasingly impossible to stand behind the pulpit without experiencing severe guilt for my sins, both past and present. Each ministry date became more difficult than the last, because I knew in my heart of hearts that God had to be fed up with the empty confessions and promises that became just a ritualistic chant following my intentional encounters with sin. My confessions truly lacked any sense of heartfelt remorse. Unfortunately, the necessary change of spiritual direction in my life didn’t come until I reached the point where I was so totally disgusted with myself, that I thought the only way out was suicide. God allowed me to reach that point. He allowed me to hit the bottom of my spiritual and emotional life.

God allowed the mountains of lies and personal corruption to grow so high that I could no longer see the beauty of His world that lay just beyond my line of sight. The frustration of my continued failure to overcome sin primed me for the day when I would attempt to end my life. All of the sin, guilt, and shame finally took its toll on my psyche.

The week following my decision to close Praise Fellowship was one of the most stressful that I can ever remember having. For five straight days I was spiritually bombarded by personal guilt, as I kept reminding myself that my insidious hunger for pornography had led to the sudden demise of the church. Satan had finally backed me into a spiritual corner, and I had no where to turn. Satan had finally convinced me that God couldn’t and wouldn’t bless me so long as I was deliberately dabbling with sin. I had no answer to the sin, as it seemed to have an eternal hold on my life. I felt like a tired swimmer caught in the ocean’s riptide of death. No matter how hard I struggled to break loose and flee, I was continually being pulled further down. I was being slowly suffocated as the vicious crosscurrents tightly held me and tossed me to and fro. There was so much guilt and shame, not only from being a failure but from having deceived so many loved ones for so many years. Within my heart of hearts I felt that I would never be used by God again. Never again!

This thought permitted the riptides of demonic influence to pull me down for the last time. Guilt had finally won. Years of empty confessions and promises to change my direction had finally overwhelmed me with an emotional storm too fierce to overcome. I was ship-wrecked. Life as I knew it was about to come to a halt.
Throughout those five days, the wrong advice that I had been given when my first marriage ended echoed throughout my mind. I finally believed that those men were right. For years I had discounted their words and continued to try and live for God. But now their words of knowledge came back to haunt me. What if I was spiritually washed up because of my divorce? Maybe they were right and God couldn’t bless me any longer because of the divorce.

I wasn’t divorced just once, but twice. Maybe all of my marital errors had led me down this road of self destruction. What if that special calling, and my subsequent visit to heaven, had ended because of my divorces, the sexual indiscretions, and my insatiable hunger and love for pornography? If I really couldn’t serve God and move beyond the pit of lust I had fallen into, then I had no choice or no reason to live another day. The personal conflict of wanting to serve God versus my love for pornography had reached a point of demonic torment that I could no longer take.

(this article is #3 of a 4 part series, the final part will be published in Issue 38)
Part 1
Part 2

28 Gal 6:7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he
sows. (NIV)

29 Isa 54:17 But no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall show to be in the wrong. This [peace, righteousness, security, triumph over opposition] is the heritage of the servants of the Lord [those in whom the ideal Servant of the Lord is reproduced]; this is the righteousness or the vindication which they obtain from Me [this is that which I impart to them as their justification], says the Lord. Jer 49:35 Thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will break the bow of Elam, the chief [weapon and part] of their strength. (Amplified Bible)

30 Mt 7:13 Enter through the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and spacious and
broad is the way that leads away to destruction, and many are those who are entering through it. (NIV)

31 Mt 16:23 But Jesus turned away from Peter and said to him, Get behind Me,
Satan! You are in My way [an offense and a hindrance and a snare to Me]; for you are minding what partakes not of the nature and quality of God, but of men. (Amplified Bible)

2Co 6:16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.� (NIV) 2Co 6:16 What agreement [can there be between] a temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in and with and among them and will walk in and with and among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. [Exod. 25:8; 29:45; Lev. 26:12; Jer. 31:1; Ezek. 37:27] (Amplified Bible)

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