The Baptist church teaches that a Christian cannot have a devil. We teach that a devil cannot have a Christian, but the Christian can have as many devils as he wants. I will tell you why. When a devil has a person, that person is under total obedience to this devil. The devil says, “Jump,” and he has to jump. The devil says, “Do this,” and he has to do it. He is totally under the control of the devil. The Christian, however, has broken the control of the devil and is no longer under it. He only sometimes does what the devil wants him to do, but the devil doesn’t have a complete control. In other words, the devil cannot depend on him. If you had a servant, you would want one that you could depend on, wouldn’t you? You would say to him, “Go,” and he would go. You would say to him, “Come,” and he would come. But when the devil comes to a Christian and says to him, “Go,” and the Christian hears the voice of God, he goes in the opposite direction. So, the devil cannot trust a Christian. A Christian then sometimes lets the devil down. However, we want to let him down permanently. We don’t want to obey him any time at all.
Many Christians have devils in them, because there are ancestral spirits that take them as children. They have been offered up to the devil from their childhood without them even knowing it. You should see how they do it in Africa. When a baby is born, he/she is supposed to be dedicated to one of the familiar spirits. The chiefs gather around and go through a ritual to choose a name for the child. He/she must be named according to the spirit that is to take him/her. They lay out different things on the table – salt, pepper, sugar, and others. Each one of the things represent a spirit and these spirits are vying for the child. When you name the child after a spirit, that spirit takes him/her.
We had a very exciting experiment one time in Africa. This baby was born and the elders of the city, which are called the chiefs, were to come together with the parents and have a day to name the baby. They wanted the parents to put out several little things on the table, but they didn’t tell them that each one represented a spirit. They were going to have a lot cast and whichever spirit would win, the baby would get that particular name. A young Nigerian brother from our fellowships went to this family and told them what the chiefs were going to do. He told them that they wanted to give their child to a demon. They said, “No, no, no. You are crazy. It can’t be that.” He said, “All right. Let us do an experiment and prove it. They will give you explicit instructions as to where to put the sugar, where to put the salt, where to put the rice, where to put this, and where to put that. Don’t put it where they tell you, but mismatch it up. And then, let us watch and see what happens.” When the chiefs came, they asked, “Wait, where’s the sugar?” “Oh, I forgot to put it there!” “How come this is here? Why is this here?” “Oh, I put it in a wrong place.” And so on, and so on. The chiefs got so mad that they finally said, “We won’t do it at all!” and walked away. The brother just nodded his head, “See, there you are. They couldn’t function, because you resisted them.”
In our American society we think we are more sophisticated. We would not do what the Africans do! However, when your children are born, you just pick a name out of the hat without even knowing the meaning of it. You choose a name you like. For example, Appolyan. Or, maybe Napoleon, it sounds more French. Call him “an evil wind,” as this is what Napoleon really means. Or, somebody says, “The name just came to me.” Every name you call the child, a spirit claims the child and says, “This one is mine!” In other words, the spirits have been vying for names. One of the members of my family was in the hospital having a baby and a woman beside her said to her, “Why don’t you call him XYZ?” She called him the name she was told, but when we looked it up, we found out it was a Korean god! A Korean woman got her to call the child by the name of a Korean god and the poor boy has that burden for the rest of his life.
Many of us, actually all of us, have been chosen by the various devils that rule in our families and it happened not only by getting their name. All these devils want to possess you, but if they cannot possess, they will at least oppress. Therefore, they are in you, but you don’t even know it and you believe it is just the nature of your family. You, therefore, must overcome all the spirits of your fathers. One thing you can be sure about: God is always there to help you!
Sonlight Devotional 