I only need three minutes of your time.

There’s a serious issue plaguing the local congregations. Because of this issue inside the church walls, we’ve become ineffective outside of them. Many of our communities are dying around us, and we in the local congregations are failing to do anything about it. Why? Because we’re too busy trying to kill one another inside the walls of the church.

This past weekend, our Sunday School lesson was on spiritual deliverance (Luke 8:26-39). When giving the minister’s remarks on the lesson, I stated that we in fact have many demonic spirits within the congregation that keep us from ministering outside of it. But they aren’t just spirits that are only in what we perceive as “hell raisers” in our local churches.

They’re also spirits in anyone that would seek to push hell raisers out of the church into the wilderness, rather than try and rid ourselves of the spirit that’s infected our church, while at the same time looking to save a brother or sister that may be under the influence (James 5:19-20).

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Here’s what we need to know: Hell raisers are always in attendance because demonic spirits transfer (study that Sunday School text I gave). They’re dedicated to their cause because the one that influences them never takes a day, hour, or minute off.

They’re always on time, they’re always together, they’re always loud, and they always state their position. And as members of the congregation, they have the right to do so. They’re at every meeting, every get together, and every function, and they make their presence known. Even if they don’t win, you will know that they were there. It’s their opposition that’s having the trouble.

Those that oppose this spirit are too meek, too passive, too quiet, and too afraid to speak in hostile situations. They’re living their lives on hope, but not a hope that produces action. They’re being pushed, but they’re unwilling to push back.

Now understand that being “holy spirit filled” is having the ability to give the benefit of the doubt. You’ll never convince me that you’re spirit filled if you can’t do two things:

1. Not be so ready to believe the worst that you hear about people with no real proof.
2. Even if you know that the worst is true about the individual, you believe that God can change them.

If we really and truly want to come together, at some point, we’ve got to be more willing to trust God for real change, and less willing to base all that we are on what we feel and past events. Because that’s what spirit filled people do. They accept the fact that the worst of us can be redeemed. But that requires activity. It requires prayer. It requires forgiveness. It requires restoration. And it requires resistance to those spirits that can cause us to believe that unity can only happen on our terms.

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So what is the benefit of a Holy Ghost push back? When we push back spiritually, we let the enemy know that we value unity more than we do confusion, and we show that by speaking out against what’s dividing us. We let the enemy know that we care for one another more than we do our position in the argument. We let the enemy know that we care more about being right with God than we do about winning an argument. We let the devil know that we need healing inside the congregation before we can go out into a sick world and show them what healed us.

Isaiah 54:17 tells us that no weapon formed against us shall prosper, and every tongue that rises against us in judgement, WE shall condemn. This not only means that the attacks of the enemy will fail, but it also means that we have the right to speak against the attacks. We can no longer keep silent about the dangers in the world, but we can’t help any of that if we refuse to speak against the dangers right at home.

I challenge anyone that’s being overrun by demonic spirits within your local congregation to spiritually push back. Not against the individuals that may be affected, but against the behavior. Push back against opposition that exists for the sake of opposition, and not for a defined principle or ideal, backed by Scripture. Push back against that spirit because that’s your true enemy, not the person you’re focusing on. Meek doesn’t have to mean weak. Find your push back!