David Diga Hernandez - Demonic Doors

Just a few years ago, I had a dream that I recognized as spiritual by its content and by the way the Lord had spoken through it. In my dream, I was in my bed, and I sat up in the middle of the night. As soon as I sat up, I sensed that there was an evil presence in the air. I know we can identify the presence of the Holy Spirit when we stand in places of worship where His power and presence are manifested in a special way. In the same way that we can sense the Holy Spirit’s presence, we can also discern when there is something demonic around us. When I sat up in my bed in the dream, I immediately knew there was a demonic power in my room. I began scanning the room, looking for anything that could identify the source of this demonic feeling. Then, before my eyes, a silhouette formed—this shadow that was constantly shifting and changing. The longer I stared at this shadow, which resembled a billow of smoke or a cloud in the middle of the room, I noticed it was very dark—a very dark cloud. As it began to take shape, I saw within it two eyes and teeth, and this thing hovering in the center of my room smiled back at me in a taunting manner. So, I began to rebuke this demonic power in my dream, raising my voice as I said, «In the name of Jesus, you have no right to be here; I command you to go in Jesus' name.» To my shock, when I prayed that prayer, this demonic power did not move; it didn’t even respond to what I was saying. It just stood there, floating in my room and smiling at me. In my mind, I thought, «This is odd; why isn’t this demonic power obeying the commands I’m giving it in the name of Jesus?» I was led by the Lord in my dream to ask this entity, «Why won’t you go? You have no right to be here.» As soon as I said, «You have no right to be here, ” it laughed and spoke very clearly, saying, „Yes, I do.“ This startled me because, in my life, I could identify no place I had left open to the enemy. So I asked, „What makes you think you have the right to be here?“ It replied, „Ask the one in your family who communicates with the dead.“ Then I woke up, and when I did, that demonic sense that had filled the room was gone; instead, I felt the peace of God. I called my aunt, whom I’ve spoken about before. She trained me in spiritual warfare and prayer, teaching me through Scripture how to intercede for people and find those deep places of prayer. Long story short, we identified a member of our family who was practicing the sin of necromancy, which is the attempt to communicate with the dead. Through prayer, we closed that door and rebuked that demonic power. God had indeed warned me and showed me something in our family; He exposed it through a dream. Job 33:14–15 says, „For God speaks again and again, though people do not recognize it. He speaks in dreams and visions of the night when deep sleep falls on people as they lie in their beds.“ Now, I want to go to our main text, Matthew 12:43. The Scripture says this—this is Jesus talking about a demonic power—and He says, „When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he walks through dry places seeking rest and finds none. Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came out.’ When he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and garnished. Then he goes and takes with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.“ Today, I am talking about demonic doors. „Demonic doors“ is a term that many in Pentecostalism use to describe areas of vulnerability to the enemy. I want to reiterate that I do not believe demons can possess believers; I do not believe demons can oppress believers if by oppression you mean a Christian form of possession. However, demons can attack believers, as I detailed in the past two lessons in this series. While I talked about demonic attacks—which were, if you’ll remember, temptation and accusation in part one, and then part two was depression, discouragement, or anxiety and distraction—those five areas of attack were detailed in the last two lessons. While those are the attacks of the enemy based upon deception, demonic doors are not the attacks themselves; instead, they are the vulnerabilities to those attacks. There are actions you can take, thoughts you can think, and feelings you can feel that make you more susceptible, more vulnerable to those attacks. So, while the attacks themselves based on deception are the assaults on you, the open door is the enemy’s position to carry out those assaults successfully. For example, if someone is going to be attacked with depression, it would help if the enemy could use the open door of tiredness, which usually makes you emotional, to give…