Breaking the Power of Evil: Winning the Battle for the Soul of Man

208 Pages·2002·0.46 MB·English

by  Rick Joyner

B R E A K I N G
THE P O W E R
E V I L
O F
Winning the Battle for the Soul of Man

B R E A K I N G
THE P O W E R
E V I L
O F
Winning the Battle for the Soul of Man
RICK JOYNER
© Copyright 2002 — Rick Joyner
All rights reserved. This book is protected by the copyright laws
of the United States of America. This book may not be copied or
reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations
or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted
and encouraged. Permission will be granted upon request. Unless
otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the New
American Standard Bible. Scriptures marked NKJV are taken from
the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson,
Inc. Used by permission. Scriptures marked KJV are taken from the
King James Version. Emphasis within Scripture quotes is the
author’s own. Please note that Destiny Image’s publishing style capitalizes
certain pronouns in Scripture that refer to the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, and may differ from some Bible publishers’ styles.
Take note that the name satan and related names
are not capitalized. We choose not to acknowledge him,
even to the point of violating grammatical rules.
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C ONTEN TS
Part I The Battle for the Soul of Man. . . . . . . . . . 7
Chapter One The Freedom Fighters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Chapter Two The Reason for the Battle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Chapter Three Fighting the Right War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter Four From Demons to World Rulers . . . . . . . . . . 33
Part II The Roots of Our Bondage;
the Source of Our Freedom. . . . . . . . . . 43
Chapter Five Good Fear. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Chapter Six Idols and Fears. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Chapter Seven Building on the High Ground. . . . . . . . . . . 63
Chapter Eight The Ultimate Idol and the Ultimate
Freedom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Chapter Nine Social Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Chapter Ten The Weapons of God’s Army. . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Chapter Eleven The Ultimate Trap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Chapter Twelve The Road to the Kingdom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Chapter Thirteen Peace and Prophecy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Part III Defeating the Thief of Human Potential . . 111
Chapter Fourteen Overcoming the Spirit of Poverty . . . . . . . . 113
Chapter Fifteen Receiving the Wealth of the Nations. . . . . . 125
Chapter Sixteen Christian Economics 101: Stewardship . . . . 131
Chapter Seventeen Tithing in the Kingdom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Part IV Spiritual Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Chapter Eighteen Truth or Consequences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Chapter Nineteen Spiritual Authority. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Chapter Twenty The Battle for Life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Chapter Twenty-one The Battle for Moral Authority . . . . . . . . . . 185
Chapter Twenty-two Where Do We Go From Here?. . . . . . . . . . . 195
PART I
THE B ATTL E F O R
THE SOUL OF MAN
7

CHAPTER ONE
THE FREEDOM
FI G HTE R S
THere Is a battle ragINg for
the soul of every human being. It is a battle between life and
death, and we are the territory that is being fought over. Un-
derstanding this conflict will mean nothing less than our own
life and death—for eternity. Every day we are either taking
ground or losing it in this fight. There is no demilitarized zone
that we can flee to on this earth. Therefore, the only reason-
able course that we have is to understand the battle, fight it,
and win.
This battle is not being fought because there is a question
of who is the most powerful in the universe, God or satan. With-
out question God could end the battle at any time and dispense
with satan. The reason that He has not done this yet is because
of His fundamental commitment to freedom for His creation.
Without understanding His commitment to freedom, we can-
not fully understand the conflict in the world, the conflict in
our own soul, or even in a real sense the nature of God.
9
BREAKING THE POWER OF EVIL
WE MUST BE FREE
God created man to be free. We cannot be who we were
created to be without freedom. If all that the Lord wanted was
perfect, harmonious worship, He would have done better to
create computers instead of man so He could just program
them to worship Him in perfect harmony. Certainly our God is
worthy of more than that, but in order to have more than that
there must be freedom.
The Scriptures state in Second Corinthians 3:17, “Now the
Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is
liberty.” This could have been translated as, “Where the Spirit
is Lord, there is liberty.” This reflects one of the most basic dif-
ferences between the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of
God. In the domain of darkness there is fear, oppression, and
bondage. In the Kingdom of God there is faith and freedom.
It is for this reason that the Lord put the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden. This was not done
to cause our first parents to sin; rather, there could be no true
obedience without the freedom to disobey. This tree was placed
in the Garden to give Adam and Eve a way to prove their obe-
dience and love for God. Every temptation allowed in our life
has the same purpose.
Fundamental to understanding the truth is understanding
that man was created to be a free moral agent. This does not in
any way infringe on the sovereignty of God; rather, it illumi-
nates His sovereignty. The greatest, most noble authority is al-
ways demonstrated by the freedom it allows its subjects. The
Lord wants us to worship Him and reject evil because we love
Him and love His truth, not just because we are afraid of punish-
ment. There are consequences for disobedience that we cannot
10