Every time about this year, the spirit of witchcraft gets so thick you’d have to cut it with a power saw. It never fails. Here we are again… another October and new battles against this spiritual force that cause you to feel like you want to give up and quit.

Spiritual witchcraft (I’m not talking about witches brewing up spells, OK, so please don’t send me a bunch of e-mail defending your religion) can cause you to grow weary in well doing and even faint — if you don’t know what you are dealing with.

During this season, I am going to write a series of posts about witchcraft. As prophets and prophetic people, we need to war against this or it will cover us with is cloud. Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Jesus listed a number of signs that would follow believers. One of them is this: In His name we shall cast out devils. Of course, we first have to discern which devils need to be cast out. That’s what the Apostle Paul did when he cast out a spirit of divination from a slave girl in Acts 16.

We see a contrast between two women. There was Lydia from Thyatira whose heart the Holy Spirit opened to receive the message of salvation. On the other hand, we see a young slave girl who was prophesying over Paul and his fellow laborers:

“As we were on our way to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who was possessed by a spirit of divination [claiming to foretell future events and to discover hidden knowledge], and she brought her owners much gain by her fortunetelling.

She kept following Paul and [the rest of] us, shouting loudly, These men are the servants of the Most High God! They announce to you the way of salvation!

And she did this for many days” (Acts 16:16-18 AMP). Keep Reading »

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 7 of my new book, “The Heart of the Prophetic.”

Now bear with me for a moment while we compare love, edification, comfort and exhortation to control, one of the devil’s ways of perverting the purpose of prophetic ministry. To control is to exercise restraining or directing influence over, or to have power over another person. Prophets need to exercise self-control through the power of the Holy Ghost, but have no business seeking to control anyone else. Yet, I’ve seen a few too many prophets’ ministries sidetracked by this spirit, which is commonly called Jezebel. Keep Reading »

My kid says the funniest things. She’s a little prophet in the making, and has a keen sensitivity to the things of the spirit, but needs a lot of teaching. (Don’t we all!)

Here’s an example: I couldn’t find my cell phone this morning. She said she saw it one minute and not the next. She basically misplaced it and I wanted to see if she’d take responsibility for it. I asked her, “Do you think the devil came and got it?”

She considered the question, then she said, “Well, it couldn’t be the devil because the house isn’t on fire.”

Hmm. I couldn’t quite figure that one out. “What do you mean the house isn’t on fire? What does that have to do with the devil stealing my cell phone?” Keep Reading »

So many of the “prophetic” blogs out there deal with the so-called Prophet Muhammed. That’s troublesome to me. I’d much rather see true apostolic and prophetic believers sharing about the five-fold ministry, the gifts of the Spirit and other edifying topics.

Anyway, today I saw a post on one of those Muslim boards asking “Who is the Queen of Heaven?”

I have a short answer: Jezebel.

If anyone wants me to expound on that, I’d be glad to. The spirit of Jezebel is alive and perpetuating her evil deeds through the unsaved and saved alike. The spirit of Jezebel is an enemy to the true prophetic.

I’d better stop before I get started…

I ran across an interesting headline that instructed me, “Don’t Read This Article!” Of course, a headline like that dares defiance, doesn’t it? And that was the author’s point exactly. Joel Hilliker asks, “Are there ever times when you have thoughts you don’t like, or don’t understand—or, even worse, emotions you can’t explain? Do you ever feel disappointed because you keep doing things you’ve “promised” yourself you’d overcome? In your relationships, do you find yourself dealing with the same problems, making the same mistakes, time and time again?”

His answer, in a nutshell, to this conundrum? “The heart [that is, the seat of intellect—the human mind] is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

What say you? Is Hilliker right? Is this why so many folks run to self-help books and false prophets rather than walking in the Spirit and being a doer of the Word?

We all know that the Apostle Judas was a traitor, a betrayer, a backstabber. We all know Satan entered him. But some are now saying Judas was an actual demon. Indeed, a new translation of the recently revealed Gospel of Judas suggests that Judas Iscariot was not only a traitor but as a demon also.

Let’s just skip the controversy over the so-called Gospel of Judas. I don’t want to touch that. But what are your thoughts on this “new revelation” of Judas Iscariot? Did he have a demon or was he actually a devil himself?

My personal opinion is that Judas was influenced by religious spirits and Jezebel spirits. He was controlling, manipulative and greedy. If the Prophet Jonah was a mess, the Apostle Judas made him look like an obedient servant by comparison. These same spirits — religion and Jezebel — are still trying to get those who follow Jesus to betray him today.

We’ve been reading a lot in the news about the threat of the “nuclear nation” of Pakistan. The unrest there has made headlines on every major broadcast news station and daily paper in the U.S. and many other countries. Now, prophetic words are surfacing warning America of a nuclear attack.

I’d read such prophecies with a word of caution and here’s why: We are jars of clay, imperfect vessels. Our souls are interesting, too.

If we start too much at any one thing, we begin to see it everywhere. Have you ever noticed how when you read about a new kind of car, you start seeing that make and model everywhere? You see it on TV, you hear the radio ad announcing it, you see it on the road, maybe your friend decides it the car from him?

Some of the prophecies I’ve been reading are laced with soulish fear about nuclear bombs dropping. We have to judge all prophecy, and prophecies that rehash media stories about the danger of our times are no exception. I believe when the Lord gives a warning, He also gives encouragement,  or some sort of prayer strategy to thwart the attack. He tells you something good to go along with the bad.

So as we enter evermore perilous times, let’s be just as careful to judge prophetic words as we are to judge those media headlines…

The Global Cause Network is putting on a conference called Let the Awakening Begin. It’s an apostolic-prophetic believer’s summit in Hallandale Beach, Florida, November 15-18, 2007 hosted by Apostle Jonas Clark and Pastor Rhonda Clark.

Prophets have announced it by the Spirit of God. A Great Awakening is coming that will stir His Church. God wants to use you as a mighty revolutionary to invade the land with the Gospel of the Kingdom. Catch the fire of the glory of God in this Great Awakening. Keep Reading »

We’ve all heard of seeker-friendly churches, but what about a seeker-friendly mosque? Hmm.

The Washington Post reports on Islam’s “Up-to-Date Televangelist,” an Egyptian preacher with large TV screens that project his image to the crowd, sort of like Joel Osteen’s services. The Post’s Robin Wright writes,

“‘My goal is that you leave happy,’ Amr Khaled began softly, once he finally got to the lectern. “My goal is to fulfill the hadith of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, that says, ‘Whoever puts joy in the hearts of the believers, his reward is not less than Paradise.’ ‘The crowd ate it up. For the next 90 minutes, they laughed at his witticisms, smiled at his stories, nodded at his exhortations and clapped again — spontaneously and often. But most of all, they listened intently. Keep Reading »