Many of you know that a few weeks ago we were praying for my dearest friend, Michael Babin, who is a bishop and pastor of a church in Oceanside, CA. I saw with my own eyes how a suffocating spirit of divination attacked him. His own son had to carry him into the hospital. For those of you that don’t know him, Michael is almost seven feet tall, and must weigh close to 280 pounds. A few weeks ago, he suffered from three heart attacks.
His heart was working at 10% when he had them and the last one happened when he was trying to get into the emergency room. He turned to his son and said, “I don’t think I am going to make it; goodbye.” I got the call while I was traveling home from our event in Nashville.
While I was ministering that weekend in Nashville, I started having heart pain, chest pain, and shortness of breath. I didn’t worry about it too much because I don’t have a history of that kind of problem. I have a very healthy heart, and in fact, I had just been for my physical checkup where they said my heart and everything else was in incredible condition. But it kept on the whole day while I was in Nashville, even on the stage. That following Monday, when we were flying back from Nashville and while on a stop in Dallas, I discovered that my friend had been rushed to the hospital. He had in fact died and they had resuscitated him three times. He was then put on ice and ended up in a coma. The prediction from the doctors at that time was that he wouldn’t make it. As you know, the prognosis is never positive from the doctors because they’ve seen so many cases.
So this negative prognosis was surrounding the entire family and telling them that even if he did come back, he would not be able to walk. They said he had probably had a few strokes and he was most likely brain dead. While they were telling me this, I said, “The best thing that I can do is ask the Lord to show me what the outcome will be.” He does provide information from the future, so that we can pray effectively. I thought about the few prophecies that Michael had received through me and I began to use these to wage a good warfare. 1 Timothy 1:18 says, “This charge I commit unto you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which were given to you, that you by them might wage a good warfare.”
Michael Babin had traveled with me so many times, when I was working in Detroit and during those years, he received several prophecies about his future. I recalled one specific prophecy about him ministering to a famous basketball player (Michael Babin is a former professional basketball player). I began to pray for him, recalling these prophecies, and I began to wage a good warfare.
What does a “good” warfare mean? The Greek word they use for good is “agathos,” which means an “honest, virtuous” warfare. I believe that this means that your fight must be conducted with the right weapons. This specific weapon that Paul is referring to is the spoken word of prophecy. In the next verse, 1 Timothy 1:19, Paul continues by saying, “…holding faith, and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith.” To fight for someone’s life means that you have to approach this battlefield with weapons fit for this enemy.
What many people don’t understand is that our adversary knows whether you have a sword that is sharp enough to destroy him. To simply run into a battle without a revelation from God could place you in jeopardy and result in shipwrecking your faith. I had a weapon that I believed would assist my friend back to life and a full recovery.
God spoke to me at that point and told me to tell his family that within twenty-four hours he would start moving and he would come around. Well, within twenty four hours that’s exactly what he did! They started asking him questions, trying to ascertain his mental state. Michael, being a professional basketball player in his early days, was asked questions about various teams and players and he responded to each question not only positively, but in his usual sassy fashion. They knew he was responding positively. He had been on life support for five days at that point, and the doctors were suggesting removing him from life support.
Over the next forty-eight hours, I sent words (revelations) to his son, Gabriel, who in turn combated every negative report by speaking these words into Michael’s ear. At one stage, Gabriel shouted what we had heard from God – “YOU WILL COME BACK!”
I was dealing with a spirit of pythos/divination and that spirit is suffocating many nations, families, relationships and industries at this very hour. I’m not a big “looking for demon spirits” person; I don’t do that. There is a real enemy that’s out there and he’s seeking to devour those whom he can, and the only ones he can devour are those that he gets close to.
Within twenty-four hours, Michael started talking and of course there was a huge celebration. The doctors were stunned. In fact they began to call him “Miracle Babin” because he had negated every prognosis they had given. My family and I went to San Diego to visit him and after hugs and tears, his family told the entire story and I have to honor their faith. They said that each time I would send a word it would break the power of every prognosis that was surrounding his deathbed.
You need to understand that during these times, the prophetic word is vital, because it supplies FAITH. The key is knowing what action you should take, and recalling any promise that God had given in the past. The word divination is “pythos” which is derived from the word python. Python is a non-venomous snake that kills its victim by squeezing, causing suffocation and removing the breath from its prey. It literally squeezes its victim to death. The python has bad eyesight and limited hearing, just like the devil. It uses its forked tongue to detect odors. The tongue flicks in and out to collect airborne chemicals and dust. The more dust, the easier it can detect the victim. Dust speaks of flesh. What does the python do? The python swallows its meal starting with the victim’s head.
These are all important things to understand. This is the nature of divination. When Paul and his team were approached by a woman who had a “spirit of divination,” they were unaware of this spirit. She followed them for many days declaring, “These are servants of the most high God who have come to show us the way of salvation!” What she was saying was correct – the words were accurate – but the spirit (or breath) was evil. It was only after many days of this complimenting and flattering them with words that sounded good to their ears, that a deep irritation set inside of Paul and he finally dealt with this spirit.
2 Peter 2:18-19 states, “For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption: for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.” The spirit has to get close to you to suffocate you; so it does that by getting familiar with you. It’s also called a familiar spirit. This spirit is a very serious thing and it operates because people are caught unaware and they don’t really know how it operates. Once you do know, you are able to detect it and you are able to get rid of it.
It’s important that you understand that. There is a pattern of divination:
1. Familiarize
2. Equalize
3. Neutralize
A “familiar” spirit is exactly that; it desires to be seen as kin or family. Why couldn’t Jesus do many miracles in his hometown? Familiarity. Literally, this familiar spirit in Nazareth suffocated the gift in Jesus. That’s as serious as it is. Once this spirit is upon a person, community, church or a nation, it will begin to suffocate the gifts through unbelief, which comes from familiarity. One of the ways that a familiar spirit attaches itself to a nation is when evil is legalized and it is pronounced as good. Let’s move that to a human being.
Once a man convinces himself that adultery or sexual sin is justified, for whatever reason, this spirit attaches itself to that person because it has been embraced and allowed to be “family.” The same goes for lying, drunkenness, etc. We make mistakes and it is important to understand that I am not referring to times when people stumble, but I’m referring to what Paul calls “practicing” sin. I believe that a person has to “follow after the flesh” to get to the place of practicing sin. We are not perfect and will stumble and sin, but this does not mean that you are “following after the flesh.”
Galatians 5:21 speaks of the “works of the flesh” and defines a few things that will help you with this. Paul deals with these “works of the flesh” and names them. After defining them he says, “…They which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.” The word for “do” in the Greek is prasso and it means practice, to perform repeatedly or habitually. A doctor practices medicine. What does that mean? It means he affects other lives by his practice of medicine. Not for one second am I suggesting that sin is to be taken lightly, but I am aware of the fact that no matter how powerful a Christian you may claim to be, you will sin, and the joy of salvation is that you can and will be forgiven. However, the continual transgression will eventually become habitual and certainly affect other lives. I’ve watched ministers preach from holy pulpits with anger in their hearts, countenance and speech, condemning and damning sin and sinners, and it is quite obvious that they are deep in private sin. I read a saying once, “Because I am evil...you are evil.” This basically means, because I am practicing evil, I see everyone else doing the same thing…even if they aren’t. Their sin is affecting others because they are ministering to these precious people with anger and bitterness. If the Holy Spirit is not ministering and breathing on the people, something else is. The breath of God that should flow through a servant of God is (Greek) Psoo-kho –“Spirit breath” and Zoe-Pneuo – “To make alive.”
There are many churches that are under the spell of divination and because there is familiarity, the people are fooled into believing that because the sermons sound good and right, that all is well. It is not. This means that you may not necessarily have drawn that spirit to yourself because of your own fleshliness or carnality, but you could be under the influence from someone else that you feel safe with. Bob Mumford once said, “If I have measles, but I tell you that I have mumps, what will you catch?” If you are part of a church and you are not “made alive” – get out! So does this mean that you have to be suspicious and walk around judging everyone? Absolutely not! But be aware, watch and pray. Sometimes, family members can neutralize your gift by familiarity.
Necromancy is a method of divination through alleged communication with the dead. It’s called black art. This has nothing to do with the color of a person’s skin but rather the blackness as in darkness. Necro – mancy. Mancy originates from “mantic” which is derived from the word “mantis,” as in praying mantis – one of the several predaceous insects of the order Mantidae having a long prothorax and typically holding forelegs in an upraised position as if in prayer. So the spirit of familiarity, kin to divination, approaches you in a false, religious, pious stance in order to trap you.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Stay tuned for my next article, Pythos Part 2
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