Many seers use their gift to reveal the activity of dark spiritual forces around them. Some reveal specific demonic spirits assigned to churches, allowing church leaders to take action against them – often through prayer, fasting, repentence and reconciliation.
In other cases, seers are invited to house cleansing operations, and reveal what spirits are at work. This equips the family with how to get rid of them.
Similarly, some seers can see exactly what kind of spirit is tormenting a person or family, and with this knowledge, equip spiritual leaders to bring aid.
Demonic Oppression, drawn in a Bible, circa 1375.
But using this gift comes with a cost. The enemy does not like to be seen. He works best in the shadows, in the dark, and away from the revealing light. Therefore, seers are persistently and brutally attacked by demonic forces.
Demon chasing someone, circa 1375.
The enemy spirits want to blunt the gift and to sow fear in the seer, so that the seer stops using the gift for Jesus. Spiritual attacks can take the form of nightmares or night terrors; a swarm of demonic energy assaulting the seer’s eyes, mind, and emotions; and even financial calamity, poor health, or things just going wrong.
These intense spiritual attacks on seers cause some to believe that the seeing gift isn’t really “from God”, but from the enemy, because “God will never allow a true seer to be tormented after revealing secrets.”
This is false.
Think hard about this: a seer who serves God reveals an enemy secret, so God will never allow the seer to be tormented. Right?
Wrong.
Let’s look at some Seers in the Bible for guidance. Here are 4 examples.
1. Joseph, son of Jacob.
Joseph dreamed that his family would bow before him. This dream was from God. The entire family understood the interpretation, which was also from God. Immediately, his brothers, consumed with irrational jealously, hate, and rage, conspired to kill him. Ultimately, they were persuaded to throw him in a pit, sell him into slavery, and fake his death. He was tormented for years. See Genesis 37 through 47.
2. Asaph the Seer
Asaph was a seer and a worship leader, and he wrote perhaps the most depressing and unsettling psalms. He was clearly tormented, and yet, he was a worship leader who used his seeing and musical skills for God. See 2 Chron 29:30 and Psalms 77.
3. Micaiah the Seer
The prophet Micaiah saw something incredible in the spirit realm and, upon King Ahab’s demands, revealed what he saw to the king, who immediately punished him for it. See 2 Chronicles 18.
4. Jeremiah the Seer
The prophet Jeremiah received numerous visions from God, and as a reward, the king threw him in a deep, dark, and wet pit. See Jeremiah 38.
Actually, Jesus lamented that God’s people tended to respond to God’s prophets by killing them. See Matthew 23:37.
Spiritual revelation will always result in spiritual attacks, and these attacks can manifest in physical ways.
Guardian Angel from the Book of Hours of the Holy Spirit, late 15th Century, Oxford
Protective Measures
So what can we do about this? How can we protect our seers from spiritual attacks, so they can safely use their gifts for the Kingdom of God?
Here are three ideas. The first two rely on biblical examples.
1. Horses and Chariots of Fire
The prophet Elisha saw the exact movements of an invading Syrian army. He informed his king of the enemy movements. The king listened and effectively parried the invasion with his smaller force. The king of Syria grew frustrated and dispatched a military force to kill Elisha.
But God dispatched an army of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. The army, responding to Elisha’s prayer to God, struck the enemy with blindness, so they couldn’t attack. Elisha showed them mercy and led the blind army out of the country, securing peace for the land. See 2 Kings 6:8-23.
Angel attacking a demon, circa 1375
Action Item: Ask the Father to release angels to surround the seer in your family or church; angels that will blind the enemy so they cannot attack, and then to lead the enemy out of the area.
2. Hedge of Protection
One day, God convened his council of spirits. One of the accusing spirits complained that he could not attack a man named Job because God had put a “hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side.” See Job 1:6-10.
This is a very good thing to have.
Action Item: Ask the Father to raise a hedge of protection around the seer, the house, and all he or she has on every side. For that matter, ask this same hedge around you and your things as well.
3. A Stealth Prayer.
Modern military forces have invented stealth technology, which blinds enemy radar from seeing planes and ships. This is a great concept for a prayer, which is basically a modern adaptation to Elisha’s account above.
Action Item: Ask the Father to hide the seer from the enemy with a stealth (or prayer) shield.
Hedge of Protection
Conclusion
We don’t have to just take spiritual attacks from the enemy. Jesus instructed us to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it already is in heaven, and then he delegated to his disciples the authority to release it through prayer. See Matthew 6:5-13, 16:19, and 18:18. Take these actions to protect the seers – and others – in your life.
Thank you for post !!!
But wait so what’s the difference between things just going wrong, and someone being under spiritual attack?
Conflicts in our lives basically originate from three areas: 1. spiritual forces, 2. chaotic forces, 3. free will
Chaotic forces can be the cascading micro effects made by people’s decisions, weather, entropy, or other things in what we call nature, which lead to things like car crashes, or pipes bursting in a home, or the washing machine breaking, or getting fired at work, or developing cancer, or having your house bombed by an errant American drone.
Spiritual forces can and do piggyback on these things, constraining decisions we and other make, influencing our responses to these things. Spiritual protection in these situations, so we can deal with them in a mindset focused on the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.
I once had a prophetic word that a missile was coming to strike me. 2 weeks later, all hell broke lose. I know it was a spiritual attack, that piggybacked on certain choices made by me and others, intensifying what should have been an easily resolved conflict, turning it into a year long nightmare. We realized we were exposed spiritually by a cascading series of events. Some of what you pick up on this site is a result of the wisdom we developed coming out of that nightmare.
The other cause of things just going wrong is the free-will decisions of beings, some of whom are lost in sin, others not, but who sometimes just make bad choices, or other times make good choices, but due to chaotic forces, end up inadvertently hurting others. Sometimes someone just changes lanes erratically and causes an accident not because he’s texting and driving or is distracted or under spiritual attack, but just because he’s less skilled than other drivers.
I like to say that about 1 in 5 things I do is kinda dumb or stupid. For instance, this morning, while taking the kids to school, I didn’t notice a car at a stop sign who had the right of way. Luckily (as its called), he noted me and let me go. Didn’t even honk or cuss at me. That was dumb of me, but not rooted in a spiritual attack. If that ratio holds true then at any given moment, 20% of people around me at any given time are doing something dumb, so I should extend the same amount of grace to them as I hope people do to me when I do something dumb 20% of the time. Of course, that’s axiomatic, but my point is dumb actions aren’t rooted in necessarily in sin or chaos or demons. They’re just dumb decisions.
If the other driver hadn’t noticed me, and we had wrecked, well that’s a tragedy, and that strikes sometimes for no good or spiritual reasons, but spirits can and will latch onto them if our responses to these tragedies is rooted in sin, rather than rooted in an identity centered in Christ.
Nonetheless, spiritual activity can and do influence the physical, and there’s no sense in giving them an opening, so I recommend cutting off that line of attack through the practices of protecting seers (and others) through exercising our authority through prayer.
Rolo – to continue with my thought above… in the other thread, regarding your friend… is he experiencing a chemical imbalance leading to really bad thinking? I believe so. Is sin playing a role, intensifying the bad effects? Yep. Are demons piggybacking on all of that to intensify the delusions? You bet.
The solution? Well, you can start with the spiritual thing, but that may not address the bad thinking and the chemical imbalance (unless, of course, God releases physical healing and changes his brain chemistry, which is always a possibility). Will fixing the bad thinking address the chemical imbalance? Probably eventually. But fixing the chemical balance will likely make it easier to address the bad thinking, which will make the spiritual deliverance easier.
I’m going to release my thoughts on what I mean when I say (in the peeranomral podcast and in recent other interviews) that we are complicated integrated beings, and what that means for healing and deliverance, sometime in the first quarter of 2017. Understanding what that means will be key to understanding the seer gift and many other mysteries in the Kingdom. (It doesn’t originate with me, of course, but has been buried by many Christian denominational thinking and traditions).
Thanks again for your comment and wise words. As you’ve already probably figured out I’ve been really exploring your site and trying to piece together how the supernatural fits with the natural. No doubt there’s a lot more to talk about on this issue and I really looking forward to hearing more about what you have to say on this issue as someone who’s had more contact and interaction with the supernatural than I have.
Thank you Doug for this information. Excellent words, prayers and advice.
Lord help me to walk by the Spirt so I will not carry out the desires of my flesh.