CONQUERING BITTERNESS, WITCHCRAFT, AND PRIDE
Bitterness is one of the most pervasive and destructive emotions in the world today. Just go on Facebook, and you will see people spewing out hostility like vomit through their posts and comments. It’s like a free-for-all. People are expressing uncontrolled rage and animosity everywhere they go in cyberspace, in public places, and even on the highway. Little do they realize that by letting themselves cut loose, they are literally inviting death to visit them and even take them out.
Bitterness is behind almost every negative emotion. The Bible calls it a root (Heb. 12:15). It lives in the soul, then causes death to rob your quality of life in the most insidious manner. Just look at this passage in Job:
One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet; his pails are full of milk [his veins are filled with nourishment], and the marrow of his bones is fresh and moist, whereas another man dies in bitterness of soul and never tastes of pleasure or good fortune. Job 21:23–25 AMPC
Notice the comparison Job made between these two men. The first had no bitterness, thus his veins, blood, and entire circulatory system were in perfect health. Even his bones and bone marrow were fresh and disease free. Because this man was not bitter, he was so healthy that to his dying day he was full of strength and vigor.
However, the second man was not so fortunate. Because of the bitterness in his soul, his body was not running at optimum levels like the first man. In fact he died miserably, never tasting the pleasure and good fortune God had planned for his life.
With the previous story as a gauge, you can see how bitterness can steal your youth and invite death to attack your bodily organs. Think about how important bone marrow is to your health. It strengthens the immune system by producing the red blood cells that “carry oxygen to tissues in the body,” the platelets that “stop bleeding by helping blood clot,” and white blood cells that “fight infections.”1 Our veins carry those bone marrow healing cells to every part of our body, and our blood contains the life-giving nutrients our bodies need to run at peak performance. Blood has the power to kill infection, repair the body, carry nutrition to the organs, muscles, and skin, and perform other vital health tasks.
However, when you allow the sin of bitterness to take hold of your soul, you are allowing death to attack the systems in your body that God created to keep you in tip-top shape. As the root of bitterness grows deeper in your soul, your vital bodily functions will break down, and you will develop rottenness of the bones, disease in the marrow, and a decrease in the life-giving power of your blood. As these body functions fail, you will age faster, and disorders of every kind will pervade your bodily organs.
It’s vitally important that you be healed of all bitterness. In the rest of this chapter I am going to show you how bitterness of soul can even give evil spirits the legal right to steal your youth and put death on your body.
WITCHCRAFT AND YOUTHFULNESS
The witches who come to our meetings to sabotage us never seem to age as the years go by. I’ve heard many other mature, trusted ministers say the same thing. But how do these witches do it? They execute spells and perform blood sacrifices that give them supernatural power to stay young. Blood has long been considered a life-force by occult members who use it to extend their life spans and promote their own health. Witches can also put hexes and curses on other people to steal their youth, good looks, and vitality and even bring death and aging upon them. (See the curse of the “firstborn of death” in Job 18:13.)
Jezebel was the evilest queen in the Bible, and her witchcrafts were many (2 Kings 9:22). Scripture says she tore down the altar of the Lord, killed His prophets, threatened to take Elijah’s life, served the god Baal through child sacrifices, and worshipped the fertility goddess Asherah, who was believed to make women’s bodies fruitful and lush.
Physical beauty was of the utmost importance to Jezebel, and she used hers to manipulate and control kings, prophets, the population, and her reluctant servants. This was one of many reasons she worshipped false deities. To stay youthful looking, she used the life force within the blood of the children she sacrificed to Baal, and she relied on Asherah’s demonic power to keep her body fertile, young, and fresh. Beauty was power to Jezebel. She was so reliant on her attractive features to get what she wanted that she even flaunted herself to an enemy just minutes before her death. I
n the Book of 2 Kings Jehu was on his way to finally dispatch Jezebel. When she heard that he was coming, “she made herself up—put on eyeshadow and arranged her hair—and posed seductively at the window” (2 Kings 9:30, MSG). The good news is that Jehu was on a mission from God and was unaffected by her charms. Minutes later, at his command, Jezebel was thrown out that window by her own eunuchs. She was then trampled under the hooves of Jehu’s horse, and her body was eaten by dogs. The point is that to her very last second, Jezebel was so confident in the power of her beauty that she even tried using it to prevent her own demise.
The ability of witches to perform spells and sacrifices to stave off death hit home for me not long ago. One night, I woke up hearing the name Mary Worth. I immediately remembered that as children we played a game called “Mary Worth,” or “Bloody Mary.” In a dark room each of us would stand in front of a mirror holding a candle. Then we would summon Mary, who was a witch. The game was meant to scare us, and it did, for sure! Some of us claimed that we actually saw Mary’s face in the glass.
After I awakened that night, I immediately searched “Mary Worth” on the internet and found some eye-opening information. She was believed to be a real person, an alleged witch who kidnapped children, killed them, and drank their blood, which caused her to have power over death and remain young looking! When they finally caught her, they burned her alive at the stake. While dying, she swore that if anyone dared to say her name while looking in a mirror, she would come back and rip that person’s soul to pieces.
It’s alarming how many people tell me they played the Mary Worth game during childhood. The problem is that the seemingly innocent game gives the enemy a legal right to steal your youth. For me the story went even deeper. Right before this discovery I noticed that my aging process seemed to kick into high gear. Every morning when I looked in the mirror, I saw visible signs of aging on my face and body in the form of excessive sagging, lines, wrinkles, and even unusual muscle atrophy and weight gain.
Then a month or so later I ran into a woman I had known since childhood. When she walked into the room, I was totally shocked. I knew she was pushing sixty, yet she looked like she was in her early thirties! She didn’t have a wrinkle on her face or neck, yet it appeared that she’d never had any cosmetic work done. Though she looked amazing, I was taken aback by a strange supernatural light emanating from her skin. It was so luminescent that even her hair glowed. When I commented on how great she looked, she said, “No one in my house ever gets old.”
As our conversation continued, it was clear that she had a mixture in her, meaning that though she spoke of God, she also let slip some comments that didn’t line up with the Bible or the character of Christ. (Later I went on her Facebook page and saw comments she had posted about spells, lighting candles, and healing energy.) Unfortunately she and I had a very harsh confrontation that night. She told me that I had done something years before that severely hurt her. I was taken by surprise, as I remembered having profusely praised her skills during that discussion, even offering to help her professionally. However, I had also offered some suggestions on how to improve her chances of success. At the time, I didn’t realize that my advice had hurt her badly. Sadly she became extremely offended but never told me so. If she had, I would have apologized. But now no amount of repenting and asking her forgiveness was sufficient.
The night didn’t end well. To be honest, I didn’t handle her fierce verbal assault well either, and I finally lost my cool. Shocked at the direction the evening had taken and brokenhearted at my own reaction, I wept for an hour. Then I went to bed. Suddenly, a door opened in the spirit realm, and a dark “spirit guide” walked in. It took the form of a celebrity who has since passed on but was well known for his refusal to grow old. Immediately, I knew he was there to steal my youth and had been doing so for years without my knowledge. Startled, I immediately began decreeing the Word while commanding him to leave, in Jesus’ name. He was followed by dozens of other demons, including many witchcraft spirits that came to curse me.
I don’t scare easily and have dealt with countless high-level demons, but for some reason I was terrified that night. The battle continued until daybreak at five in the morning and then finally broke. That’s when I remembered she and I used to play Mary Worth together as children. Apparently, over the passing years, she had let herself become extremely bitter toward me, which released curses that were stealing my youth and aging my body.
