The Confessionals - RELOADED | 831: Spiritual Warfare Backfires Without Authority

Episode Date: October 26, 2026

In this episode, Tony sits down with Dr. Laura Sanger and Vicki Joy Anderson for a grounded and challenging conversation on spiritual warfare, authority, and preparation. They break down where a believer’s authority actually comes from, why Scripture never treats spiritual warfare as optional, and how misunderstanding time, identity, and lineage can leave people exposed. The discussion addresses generational iniquity, deliverance versus exorcism, and the danger of engaging spiritual conflict without proper preparation. Drawing from biblical examples, personal testimony, and practical theology, the conversation reframes warfare as participation in Christ’s already-won victory. If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re prepared for the fight, or where authority in Christ begins, this episode will challenge you to engage in the fight.If you’re able, consider helping the Merkel family with medical expenses by donating to Lindsay’s GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/b8f76890📕 Order Tony's Book: https://a.co/d/0bJS3SaV🎥 Tony Merkel YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@tony.merkel🌐 Visit: tonymerkel.com📰 Subscribe to Our Newsletter: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/newsletterBecome a member for ad-free listening, extra shows, and exclusive access to our social media app: theconfessionalspodcast.com/joinThe Confessionals Social Network App:Apple Store: https://apple.co/3UxhPrhGoogle Play: https://bit.ly/43mk8kZThe CounterS2 EP1 (Witchcraft): WATCH HERETony's Recommended Reads: slingshotlibrary.comIf you want to learn about Jesus and what it means to be saved: Click HereMerkel Media Apparel: merkmerch.comSPONSORSGHOSTBED: GhostBed.com/tonyQUINCE: quince.com/tonyRUMBLE WALLET: https://rumblewallet.onelink.me/bJsX/ConfessionalsCONNECT WITH USWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail] ADDRESS:Merkel Media6726 Morganton RdP.O. Box #08Greenback, TN 37742SOCIAL MEDIASubscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaIShow Instagram: theconfessionalspodcastTony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficialFacebook: facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcastTwitter: @TConfessionalsTony's Twitter: @tony_merkelReddit: reddit.com/r/theconfessionals/Discord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7hProduced by: @jyorkofficialOUTRO MUSICTony Merkel - Down The Rabbit HoleAvailable on Spotify

Merkel Media I guess it's time To go back in time Are you telling me you built a time machine Kind of a Dolorean Time Is but a stubborn

Illusion I have a lot of memories Of the past People are time traveling Within themselves Time travel Is possible Hey everyone

Before we get to this week's show This is just your weekly reminder to please continue to pray for my wife, Lindsay. She is battling breast cancer right now, and we're praying for complete healing in Jesus' name. Thank you. Merkel. Media. This was all circulating around the base that a giant had been killed, but no one was supposed to talk about it. I saw three long, boning fingers, reach up underneath the door, curl up to grab it, and then disappear.

When he came over to me, dude, he slithered over to me. Out of the cave and they're all frozen. And he starts running and firing at this giant. With a giant move, he's got a spear in one hand. And spears, Dan holds him up like this. Somebody else, shoot him in the face, shoot him in the face. They basically decapitated. Got closer, got closer, got closer, got closer, got closer,

when he got about 15 yards away from me, I've raised that 12 days, and I blow this head off. I feel something pulling at my leg, and I look over and there are two small. Literally, I'm getting pulled off the bed. I reached my hand into this bush, and I touch air. Couldn't breathe, and I couldn't move, because I know I'm seeing a monster. Okay, I reload. Welcome to the show, everybody.

You are listening to The Confessionals podcast. I am Jack Merkel, and I'm glad to be here. And I'm back in control of the rains again. taking them away from Tony from last week. For those of you who don't know, because I just realized that I don't think I've ever really introduced who I am. I'm Jack Merkel, Tony's brother, the host of the show is Tony. I'm Jack.

And I also produce the show. So I have control over what goes in and what doesn't. Not full control. Tony still tells me what to do. But anyway, so I'm here to produce the show for you and give you the intro. Back at it again, back on the reins. So anyway, if you have a story or an encounter you'd like to share on the show, go ahead and shoot us an email.

Our email address is contact at the confessionalspodcast.com. That's contact at the confessionalspodcast.com. Or go to the website, hit the contact section, and you can reach us that way as well. Either way works for us, just get a hold of us. And if you want more shows on a weekly basis, we put out an extra episode every Thursday, as well as a whole bunch of other bonus content

that we've been putting out over the past several months. If you want the back catalog of all of the episodes that are members' episodes, I think there's over like 350 extra members episodes that you'll get access to once you become a member. Go ahead and become a member. Hit the join button on the website. And there you'll go ahead and fill out all the information and become a member. You'll have access to the app and the website.

Tons of stuff. So go ahead and become a member today. Also, we have Merck Merch and Merkle Films. So if you want content galore, go to Merklefilms.com. Go ahead and check out all the docu-series and documentaries there. have more coming out this year as well. And if you want some new apparel, and like I've said before, we're working on a whole bunch of new stuff coming to that store very soon. Go ahead and check out Merkmerch.com. There you can get anything you want. That's the Confessionals theme.

And yeah, get your 2026 going on the right track. Now, today we have an incredible episode. I know I say that every week. This one's just fire in a different way. We had Dr. Loris Sanger and Vicki Joy Anderson in studio together. I know, I'll wait for the applause here. Together. This conversation goes deep into where our authority really comes from when we're talking about spiritual warfare and why so many Christians are unprepared for spiritual battle and how ignorance, not demons, is often the real danger.

They also went into generational curses, demonization versus possession, and a whole lot of other things. It was just so filled with the Holy Spirit and a very impactful conversation. They answered a lot of questions and it really was like a masterclass of discernment just listening to these two women of God talk about these topics that are heavy hitters. So without further ado, let's get to Vicki Joy Anderson and Dr. Laura Sanger right now. All right, today we have Vicki Joy Anderson and Dr. Laura Sanger in studio. How are you? Wonderful. Yes. So excited about what today is going to bring. Yeah, me too. It's going to be a great day. And this is a topic that I've been wanting to talk about a lot. Obviously, it's been on the show pretty much nonstop for the last year and a half, I'd say. It's just it's something that I think when you, when you wake up to the realization of how spiritual a lot of this stuff. is and you wake up to the realization that you're in a war and that you already chose a side.

And so because you chose aside, every morning you wake up, you put your feet on the ground and the enemy's there to attack, you know, I started shifting and I'm like, you know what? When I put my feet on the ground, what I want is the enemy go, oh, no, he's awake, you know? Like, here it goes again, you know? And so with that mindset, I'm thinking, okay, how does that work? You know, how do I become more of a threat, you know? if we're actually in a war and these things are trying to come after me, my family, loved ones, Christians all alike, people in our churches, people in our community, generational curses,

all this stuff. Like, how do we become more active in participating on this? And it was probably about a year ago is when I really started zeroing in on this. and Daniel 10 came across the study, and I actually preached on a little bit. It was just like, it was something that, that morning, that Sunday morning, I was getting ready to preach,

and the Holy Spirit spoke to me. I had to run in here to the studio, because I forgot, I think, my glasses or something. And I was driving home, frantic, and I was supposed to be preaching to him, and running the office. And the Holy Spirit just, and I was thinking about everything,

and he just said, I designed it that way. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay. And it just redefined so much stuff for me. Like, it was no longer, oh, spiritual warfare, we're in a war because, you know, the enemy's attacking and please, Daddy God shield me. And I'm helpless, which I'm not downplaying because I think he is the only reason why we can even have the authority that we have. But the fact that God designed spiritual warfare for our participation was a wild concept to me.

And so I was very nervous for the first time I ever preached to talk about that in front of the church. I'm like, I just got this download today. So hopefully it makes sense. And, Pastor, if I'm saying anything sacrilegious, just correct me next week. It's fine. But let's start off on what the basis of our authority for spiritual warfare is, because that is something that comes up a lot, like, whether you're Christian or not, like, where do you get off thinking that you have the authority to do any of this, right?

So I'll hand it over to you, Laura, and take it away. Yeah, I think, you know, we were talking beforehand that there's so many Christians that are even nervous to think about doing spiritual warfare. And I think one of the things we have to realize, you know, not only is the serpent and the seed, you know, crafty, intelligent, conniving, deceptive, but also, you know, there's a large number of the body of Christ that is afraid to even talk about the schemes of the enemy because they don't want to glorify his kingdom. And I'm sure you guys have heard, like the Christian plowded to, we should only focus on Jesus and not talk about the enemy. Well, it's true. Yes, our primary focus is always on King Jesus, our living hope.

But that doesn't require us to ignore what the enemy's camp is doing. And so I think it's so important that we open our eyes and see, okay, what is happening around us? What are the spiritual dynamics in our communities, in our relationships, in our churches even, you know, so that we understand what's going on because, you know, so many believers have been hoodwinked to believe that Satan and the Holy Spirit aren't even real. Right. And I came across a barn, the Barnag Group put out a report in 2009. So it's a bit older.

But for me, it was surprising. And that was that six out of ten Christians agree or somewhat agree that Satan isn't real, that he's just merely a symbol of evil. And then similarly, 58% of Christians either strongly agree or agree that the Holy Spirit isn't a living entity, but more just a symbol of God's power. And so for me, that grieves my heart, that first of all, people don't even know have relationship with the Holy Spirit. But then also they think Satan is just a symbol of evil. So can I ask a question? And I don't want to derail this early, but I'm going to just a little bit here.

because of that, if say six out of ten people who say they're Christians, say they don't believe that Satan is an actual real entity, that's what you said, right? Right, right. Then my line of thinking is this, where do you, why then, for them, why would they say that Jesus even needed to come to be sacrificed? because the whole point was that we're falling man and the reason why we're falling is because of deception that happened with Avon Eve. So, and if that, if they don't believe Satan's real, then is it possible that for them to

even, to really truly believe in the sacrifice of Christ? I mean, that's a great question. I mean, I think they, I don't know what they're thinking is when they choose that in the survey, but to me, what it symbolizes is that they don't understand the nature of evil and the source of evil. They probably believe in good versus evil. And Jesus came because we sinned and the sacrifice, the atonement that we needed because of our sin.

But as far as like actively understanding the nature of the enemy and his kingdom, they're woefully hoodwinked, you know, woefully ignorant. And that is tragic in so many ways because, you know, first of all, what that means is they don't understand the seed war that, you know, the three of us talk about a lot. But even beyond that, they don't realize the spiritual warfare that's being waged in their own lives. And so, you know, they're on the verge of living out, Josea 4-6. You know, my people are destroyed from a lack of knowledge. And, you know, I have plenty of friends. Well, they're friends of my husband that are experiencing all sorts of health issues, like one thing after another after another in their family line. And when Tom was sharing with me what was going on, you know, what I understand from, you know, the spiritual realm and understanding what's behind not all health issues, but certainly a lot of them is that there can be these generational cursory.

that I'll talk more about in a few minutes. But, you know, people don't understand that they could be facing health issues because of open doors, because the enemy is real. Satan is real. And, man, he is a legalist. I'm sure you'll touch a little bit on that too. But he looks for those open doors. And so I think it's just so important that we understand, just like Apostle Paul talked about, Our battle is not against flesh and blood. You know, it's against the principalities, the powers, the authorities, the spiritual forces of darkness. And we don't want to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that dark entities don't exist.

Instead, we want to walk in the truth of 1st John 4-4. And that says, you, dear children, are from God and have overcome them because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. And so there's no reason for us to fear. you know, agents of darkness, especially when we realize the power of God inside of us. Like the Holy Spirit is inside of us. And that's the same power that resurrected Jesus from the dead. And so no matter what power these agents of darkness try and muster up, it can't stand against the power of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. And I love that, you know, what Paul does

in his writings is he shows us how victorious Jesus is. I mean, Jesus publicly shamed Satan, and he exposed the weakness in the enemy's camp. And this is Colossians 215. It says, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. And one of the things I love to do, I'm sure you do as well, being both teachers gifts-wise. I love to dig into the etymology of the words in scripture, like, let's go deep. Let's see what's going on here. And so the Greek word for disarmed is APEC duomai. And it means to wholly strip off for one's own advantage. And so it means to despoil. And then if you look at the Greek word for public spectacle in this passage, it's Diagmatizzo.

Can't necessarily pronounce them very good. And this means to display or expose something. And so that particular word was used in Greek writing really to denote like the display of captives or trophies or weapons that they were able. It was like the spoils of war. Well, for me, this points to how victorious Jesus is in the seed war. And of course, you know, we know the seed war from Genesis 315. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. And so we know that, you know, Jesus' heel was bruised by what he suffered on the cross, but his resurrection dealt the winning blow to Satan's head.

And so our Redeemer conquered the enemy by overcoming death. He faced death and he overcame it. And I love that because this is such incredible news. it means that Satan's kingdom has already been conquered. And you know, you think about the public shame that Jesus, when he went to the cross, he faced death, overcame it. Now, no king goes into battle and dies in the midst of war and is still victorious. And that's because he took that victory and he walked.

in that. And I think about first in 1 Corinthians 1558 or 54 through 57. It says, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your sting? Oh, Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And so here we have, you know, Jesus crown of thorns became a crown of laurels because he was victorious. And we can walk in that victory. And I'm so grateful because, you know, for us, death does not separate us from Jesus. And we see this in Romans 8, 37 through 39. It says, no, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,

neither the present nor their future nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And so for me, I'm thinking, okay, so this is an incredible truth, but why aren't we living this? It's like we're walking into the camp of a defeated enemy. We're handing ourselves over to be handcuffed and tied up in chains. I mean, it makes no sense, right? And we are victorious. We have to remember that.

2. Corinthians 2, 14 through 15, says, but thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ. And through us spreads everywhere, the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God, the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. And I love this imagery. not only thinking about the aroma of Christ, like wherever we go, like what we did yesterday with prayer reconnaissance in Knoxville, wherever we went, we were bringing the aroma of Christ. And oftentimes my prayer is like, Lord, allow your fragrance to be so saturated in me that

when I walk into a place and then I leave that smell lingers. You know how if somebody puts on a bunch of cologne or a bunch of perfun. or a bunch of perfume, and you can smell it, you know, for a few minutes afterwards. That's what I want my life to reflect that when I walk into a room, people are like, something shifted. And it's not because of me. It's because of the fragrance. I carry that aroma of Christ.

That's so beautiful. That's so beautiful because I can honestly say, from my own personal experience, I've experienced that with you. 100%. And I remember where I was standing. It was at Blurie Khan two years ago and you were talking to me and you were you were actually speaking life into me about how much I've changed. And I just felt the presence of God. And I was like, that's why when you were saying that, because I was like, I remember saying to myself, I want that. I want that. When I'm interacting with people, want them to feel you like that. And so it's, it's beautiful. I'm sorry. That really kind of clicked

on my mind there because I think that should be our goal, you know, in all of this. It's all this stuff, all the teachings that you guys do, all the podcast episodes that I do, it's, it's all secondary to the magnification of his name, you know? And, and, and you guys can attack test of this is there's nothing more fulfilling than that. Yeah. I mean, like, death, where is your sting? Right. And it, like, I don't, like, it doesn't, it doesn't even phase me. Yeah. You know. Well, and if I can flip the script a little bit, too, when you talk about the fragrance, we have such a human interpretation of that. And this kind of plays into one of your recent episodes. We, as believers, we're the Walking Dead. That fragrance just might be frankincense.

in myrr. It might be embalming senses. And so it's not that when necessarily that when we walk into a room, everyone's going to think it smells so beautiful. I want because Christ is offensive to people. And so are we. So that that fragrance might be offensive to people. You smell like a corpse. Yeah, because we died to self. That's good. And so when we think about that, that fragrance, it is beautiful. It is in. incense rising into the nostrils of God. But it might not be attractive to the world. We just recognize it within our community. And it's a reminder that we've died to self. And that's what it means when we're supposed to encourage one another daily. That doesn't mean flatter each other.

It means we preach the gospel of the kingdom to one another. Life's tough. It's full of the warfare that we're going to talk about. It's we have enemies on every side. But when we encourage one another, like, hey, remember, we died to this world. We've conquered. And we have this waiting for us. We're a royal priesthood, you know, a people of his own possession. That's what it means when we encourage one another daily. And this is why we can go into the spiritual war with offensive weapons, rather than cowering behind our shield, like David, like you cited Tony at the beginning. Are we going to be like, David's brothers who are sitting on the hill biting our nails, or are we going to collect stones and run at it? Yeah, yeah, that's good. Right, rock. Well, I think about, too, back to, you know, Colossians 215 or 2 Corinthians 214, you know, this imagery of this triumphal procession.

So I think Paul may have been thinking about Roman generals when they returned from war because they would lead their soldiers down the streets of Rome in a procession. And among that procession would be the captives of the enemy soldiers. And so the Roman soldiers or the Roman citizens would come out from their businesses and their homes. And they would cheer. And then they would light, they would burn spices. And that became known as the sweet smell of victory. So that's where we get that term.

I love that too. And it creates such an imagery. And so the magnitude of Jesus, you know, putting to shame, disarming the powers and authorities, I mean, that simply cannot be overstated because he disarmed the kingdom of darkness. And he leads us in that triumphal procession. And so that means there's no foe too strong because the power of God in us is stronger than anything that they can muster. And for me, that just that is the basis of what we do spiritual warfare from. And then I also think about a passage I often go back to as Colossians 2, 9 and 10, for in Christ,

all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. And you have been given the fullness of Christ, who has head over every power and authority. So if we walk in the fullness of Christ, it means that we are his ambassadors, we are his representatives. And we need to execute the finality of his victory in the seed war. We need to stop handing ourselves over to captivity. Instead, we need to rise up as the sons of God and prepare for battle. Because we don't want to just walk in unprepared. It's time that we prepare for battle. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's the, I've said this, I don't know why it's been on my mind a lot, but I've been saying it a lot, like the deputization that we've been given.

And it's just that authority. So if we have this, if we've been given this authority and we're supposed to and we're designed to walk in that, like how do we do that? Like how do we start walking in that authority to act on these principles? Because these principalities, I mean, they're just, they got, they, got humanity tricked. Right. Like they've been handcuffed. And they're just the loudest person in the room that when you walk in ignorantly, you're like, oh, that's somebody to be feared. The whole time they're

wearing handcuffs. They've been handcuffed. And so like, how do we start preparing for this? Yeah. Great question. I think what's so important is standing on the Word of God and and understanding the truth about who we are in Christ. And that gives us the authority to walk, you know, in his footsteps. And I think, you know, what's so important is we have to prepare to go into battle. You think about, you know, every good warrior prepares by armoring up. And, you know, that looks different depending on what era of time we're thinking about. But, you know, you think about during biblical times what the Roman soldiers were.

And, you know, we have to put on our armor so that we can stand strong in the midst of the fight. And Scripture tells us to prepare for battle. You know, Joel 3, 9, and 10 says, proclaim this among the nations. Prepare for war. Wake up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plow shares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears.

Let the weak say I am strong. And I like this passage because it helps us understand that there are moments where we are, you know, in the fields, taking in the harvest. But then the Lord of Host says, okay, now it's time for war. Beat those plowshares. You know, those plows, is that what it is? Yeah, plowshares into swords. Well, knowing that we're in the midst of the seed war, the longest standing consecutive war in history, we have to understand that we have to understand that we're, we have to be prepared at all times. Now, that doesn't mean that we are engaged in battle at every moment because Ecclesiastes 3-8 tells us there's a time for war and there's a time for peace. But what that suggests is that we need to walk with our timeline in alignment with God's times and seasons so that we are not out of alignment. So we know when we're in a season of peace and when the Lord of hosts is calling us into war,

Because, you know, we don't want to be lounging on the couch thinking we're in a time of peace when we're actually called to war. And so it's so critical to be able to understand, you know, what season am I in? Well, to effectively engage in spiritual warfare, like I said, we have to armor up. And of course, Paul understood this. And you think about how many times Paul was right there next to Roman soldiers because of his imprisonment. So he had plenty of time to check out the armor that the Roman soldiers were wearing and the Holy Spirit giving him revelation. And so Ephesians 6 12 through 18 says, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. So if I were to stop right there, that is our basis for why we do spiritual warfare.

Yes. Paul says it right here. But then we go on and he says, therefore, put on the full armor of God. So that when the day of evil comes, so we have to be prepared and aligned with the Lord so we know, okay, I'm ready. Whenever you call me in, coach, I'm ready to go. So when that day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you've done everything to stand, stand firm then. We know this well, right? With a belt of truth buckled around your waist, with a breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers. and request, with this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. So there's seven pieces to the armor. Oftentimes, we just think about the six. So the belt of truth, and I've learned it's important to put them on in the order that scripture says. And I don't, that's a whole other teaching. But there's a reason why Paul orders them this way. I used to just put them on from top down. It was just easy for me to remember.

And then I realized, wait a second, there is a specific protocol, specific order. So we put on the belts of truth first. And then we put on the breastplate of righteousness. We strap on those shoes, those sandals of peace. And we take up that shield of faith. And putting on the helmet of salvation, I often think about how critical 2 Corinthians 10-5 is, that we take every thought captive. That's a game changer.

And then we want to use that sword of the spirit, but we also want to pray in the spirit on all occasions. That's the seventh piece of the armor. And so often we forget that piece. But prayer is so critical because it's ongoing communication with the Lord of Host that is going to be the one to give us the strategy to face the battle we're currently in. And so when I put on my armor each day, I'll pray the order in scripture. but then I also bind my mind to the mind of Christ because Matthew 1619 says that we can bind

and loose. So I am binding my mind to the mind of Christ. I want my thoughts to be surrendered because I know from Isaiah 55, 8, 9, that my thought or his thoughts are higher than my thoughts. So he can see the big picture. So I just want to bring my thoughts into alignment with his. And then the other thing the Lord has taught me is just to ask him to order my day. and this is big. Like I'm right in the middle of this lesson right now because so often I've been caught saying, caught meaning, I catch myself, my time.

My time is valuable or that was a waste of my time. And the Lord's like, whose time is it? He's the creator of time. He's time belongs to the ancient of days. And so I have had to repent for how I have taken ownership. See, he knows how to manage time so much better than I do. And I recognize that time is a gift every day from the Father. We don't know when we're going to breathe our last.

And so every day that we have is a gift. And so I've been called, we've all been called to students. the gifts well, right? And so the way that I steward this gift is I give time right back to the father. And I say, okay, you order my day. My calendar is not going to order my day. You're going to order it because you know what I need more than I do. That's been a huge lesson. I mean, just this last week, something got canceled on me at the last moment. And I was about to say that, well, that was a waste of because it took a lot of preparation. It was a big podcast interview that literally canceled when it was time to go.

And I was about to say out of my mouth, that was a waste of time. And the Holy Spirit said, now what? And I realized, wait a second, if I'm living my life, according to Colossians 3, 23 and 24, whatever I do, I'm working out of it with all my heart as working to the Lord, not for men, then nothing is a waste of my time. And so I was like, okay, Lord, all that preparation was for you. And so I sacrifice it. Not one single person, and it was a new podcast for me, so it was going to be a new audience.

Not one single person in that audience is going to hear the scroll that you gave me, but it's yours. And that was a huge lesson for me. And in that split second, it just reordered my thoughts. And so I think that's that's one way that we can prepare for war. Can I contradict or not contradict interject? Yes. I speak for a living but I use the wrong words all the time.

Jack can attest to that. And just judging by how you're reacting, Vicki, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this too because what you're saying with time, it's hitting me hard. Yeah. And I want to start with saying what you just painted is so deeply fulfilling. The idea that I lay my time before God and say, you orchestrate it, like, that sounds way more fulfilling than the hustle that I'm going through every day, you know? And I often say very similar things about finances.

So I'll say, I learned this from, I'll give me a shout out, Kristen and Paul Matthias. They never listened to my show, I guarantee it. But they mentored me and Lindsay when we first got married. We were still in college. I had just dropped out. But they were professors at the Christian College. And they talked to us about finances. And they were the first ones, my life, whoever said that your money's not yours,

it's gods. It's there for you to steward. And I always viewed money that way. And it's just like, it's not mine. It's God's, he's blessed me with it, or it's coming or whatever. It doesn't matter. Whatever I have, it's his, and it's my job to steward it well. I don't know if I've ever considered the idea that my time is not mine.

It's God's and it's my job to steward it well. And like, you really, like, I'm going to go home thinking about that today. And thankfully, because I think the, Lord's schedule could get magnified and what I experienced through it could be so much greater than anything that I could muster up with my own energy. Right. It's wild. Yeah. I think, go ahead. That was so powerful and I'm so glad you articulated it the way that you did because there's such a fine line between organization and control. And I think a lot of people, whether it's anxiety or it's trauma.

I think that people who have been through trauma, which is a large portion of the people that I work with, you know, the people that have night terrors and sleep paralysis and who have come out of abuse and ritual abuse, one of the side effects of unresolved trauma and is this sense that once we kind of get out of that situation, we're going to control every moment of our life so that we're not hurt again.

Right, yeah. And so a lot of us can be neat freaks and obsessive, compulsive about everything in the house being an order. And I'm obsessed with a to-do list. And part of that was hereditary. My mom was a to-do list person. And so there's always lists. And I rue the day Excel got invented because, I mean, my whole life can be plotted on Excel. And then I was a project manager in the business world for years.

So that just exacerbated the problem. My whole life became a workflow to the point where I started, I realized if I get my to-do list done, I feel in control, which makes me feel safe, which mitigates my anxiety. But then when the to-do list became the priority, people became secondary. And one of my life lessons was that my mom, who was much the same way, on her deathbed, was, you know, on medication and the last things that were on her mind, the last week of her life, did we get the mail? I didn't pay the, I didn't pay the bill. Has the trash been taken out? I need to do that. She was rehearsing this to-do list. And that was a life lesson for me. And so you've just put the final piece in place for me because I'm constantly feeling guilt and anxiety over the

to-do list and trying to set those boundaries. But when you frame that as everything I do all day long, even if there's things on the to-do list that did not get done. And let's face it, there's a lot of stuff on that to-do list that life would go on if it didn't get done. Absolutely right. I mean, ridiculous stuff on my to-do list, you know. And so the fact that all of that can be put on an altar and lit and be as incense to Jesus, a sacrifice of praise. Because we know worship, it can be a sacrifice of praise or an active service or serving someone else. But to put the time and the finances on the altar as well is incredibly convicting. Yeah. You know, what the Lord has been teaching me in all of this is that when I surrender time back to him, he teaches me how to

operate outside of time. Because he operates outside of time. And so when we're in his presence, like I kind of joke that, you know, I can get lost in the Lord's presence. And sometimes that's not a great thing because I have to be like present with the people in front of me or if I'm paddleboarding or driving or something like that. But it literally, like, when I come into his presence sometimes, it's like time is of no consequence because he operates outside of time. And so just like you were saying, I used to be very controlling at a schedule. I mean, I still have a schedule.

Don't get me wrong. Sure. But it doesn't rule my life. It's like, all right, it's yours. Like, surprise me. what are we doing today? I know what my calendar says, but oftentimes the Lord will be like, and it's crazy, he is canceled like five podcast interviews. And that has not happened to me. So I'm sitting back going, okay, Lord, what are you showing me right now with my time? But the other

thing that happens is he stretches my capacity. So things where I think, okay, like I only have a certain amount of time to get things done and that could create stress in me. When I'm when I'm giving him time back, he's like, no problem. I'm going to multiply it for you. I'm going to like give you a scroll. Like sometimes, sometimes it takes me weeks where I'll be praying and asking the Lord for a scroll for an audience. But sometimes in the midst of rolling over in bed between dreams, I'll get a scroll. It's not me. It's not anything coming out of my own strength. It's just the Holy Spirit's like here. And that's how I'm starting to learn how to operate outside of time. And I'm so grateful for that because when we align with his times and seasons, then we're in his rhythm. Like things flow. Things just line up the way he wants them to line up. Because we never know like when we're in his rhythm. Like things flow. things just line up the way he wants them to line up because we never know like when we need to be in the store

to run into somebody who absolutely needs a word of encouragement. But if we would have been following our own schedule, we would have missed that moment. And the Lord's like, I got something else for you. Are you open to this? Yeah, that's so good. And I, there's a lot of times that I feel it's like in the past,

it's like past tense, I'll replace something whether I'm at a store. And, and like the next day or whatever, you just start thinking about things. You're like, you know,

I don't even make a habit of looking around me when I'm at the store. And get my stuff, get out. Like, I got to go. I got to go. I got to go.

And I don't make time to even consider, is there somebody around me right now that I'm actually here for, you know? And so just kind of handing that and submitting that over to God the time and the schedule. I think that's going to open up so many doors for so many people. I mean, just sitting at this table, I feel like it has for me. And so, like, how do we prepare for spiritual warfare? Yielding your time back over to the Lord and say,

it's yours to begin with, and I'm going to stop stealing this from you. You know? And just kind of, you do. And just give me the orders, father. Yeah. So, that's so. It's so. It's So time is, I'm so glad you brought that up. So thank you. I think the other thing to prepare for spiritual battle is we have to examine ourselves. We have to go before the Holy Spirit and say, Lord, show me. What is in me? What mixture do I have in my own life with the world's systems?

What doors do I have open? You know, whether that's sin or iniquity in our own lives or in our bloodline. Because, you know, we don't want to have those open doors. when we go into battle. Because the enemy is a legalist. He will look down our bloodline and he'll go, ah, yes, this happened in my life with Zachariah, our youngest child. We, there was something in my bloodline eight generations ago that when, or can I go here?

You want take a second to pray about it? I think I can. So Zachariah has been overcoming kidney disease. We believe he's healed. But when he was an infant, I was a youth minister at our church doing spiritual mapping. We went to the call D.C., which is a 12-hour prayer and fasting event. And this was back in 2008. And I took the youth ministry,

whole family came as well. And I was nursing Zachary. He was eight months old at the time. And we, the day before the call, we went to the steps of the Supreme Court. And we did what was called a silent siege. We put red duck, or no, black duct tape on her mouth and wrote life with a red sharpie. And, and we didn't, we were just silently praying. But when I set foot on the Supreme Court steps and started praying for the life of the unborn, the enemy looked. I didn't know this at the time. This just came out in deliverance I was doing recently. But the enemy looked down my bloodline. Eight generations ago, my ancestors sacrificed a child. And the enemy saw that. I had not dealt with that. And the enemy called it on Zachariah's life. And we nearly lost him on that trip. He nearly died. He went, we didn't know it at the time, but he went into kidney failure. And we were, we weren't hospitalized in D.C.

We went to the hospital. It was a horrible experience. But we were hospitalized when we got back emergency hospitalization for 10 days. And so this is one of the reasons why it is so important, like I've shared with you back at BlurieCon, the first BlurieCon, I'm like, before you jump into that portal, you got to make sure that the Lord is, first of all, giving you permission, but that you've prepared. I cringe every time you bring that up, just remembering how obsessed I was. Yeah, we all do things, and I'll share in a minute, well, in a little bit, mistakes that I've made.

But it's so important because once we understand, first of all, I'll just talk about generational iniquity. You know the old proverb like father like son? Well, that is speaking to the influence that epigenetics has on our generations. And so epigenetics just like simply stated is the impact our thoughts, our behaviors, and our lifestyle choices have on our body, soul, and spirit as well as future generations. And so when you think about that prefix epigenetics epi, it means on top of. So epigenetics is a set of instructions that sits on top of the genome. Well, so our thoughts, our behaviors, our lifestyle choices, what it does is it sends signals to ourselves, and that can change, it can alter the expression of our genes. So there's these things called epigenetic signals that

act like light switches that turn on or off a gene. Well, what that means is that the sins of the parents create a predisposition in the children and grandchildren to walk in their same footsteps, like father like son. Well, this principle, was established by Yahweh, and this comes out of Exodus 20, verse 5 through 6. It says, do not bow and worship to them. He's talking about idols, and do not serve them. For I the Lord your God am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the father's iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. So the choices are, do we allow curses in our bloodline to go unchecked?

Or do we cleanse our bloodline? Do we repent? Do we break those curses so that the blessings in the generations can flow for a thousand generations? And, you know, when we talk about curses, I'll just go a little bit deeper here for your audience's sake. What curses are is essentially they are. are a pronouncement of harm or evil from either God or another person. And so a curse means to

devote for destruction. It's calling down evil on someone or something. And I think Derek Prince describes what a curse feels like really well. It says a curse could also be likened to a long evil arm stretched out from the past. It rests upon you with a dark, oppressive force that inhibits the full expression of your personality. You never feel completely free to be yourself. You sense that you have potential within you that is never fully developed. You always expect more of yourself than you're able to actually achieve. So when a person comes under a curse from God, what happens is their bloodline feels the consequences of that. And we see number of examples. You know, we think about Cain. Cain was cursed for murdering Abel. The curse was that he would

labor in the land and it would yield no crops. Well, so his bloodline was marked by iniquity and that intensified throughout the generations. Well, you get to the seventh generation and now you have Lamek. Lamek was the first polygamist. So not only, now Lamek walked in the same murderous spirit as king because he killed a young man just for injuring him. So not only did he have the iniquity of bloodshed, but now he added the iniquity of sexual perversion to it as well. And so it intensified. Then you think about King Saul. You know, King Saul was divided in his devotion to the Lord. His heart was divided. And one of the many examples, because he provided a lot, is that he walked in partial obedience when God commanded him to completely annihilate the Amalekites.

And Saul killed all of them except for King Agag, who was a giant. And Josephus, the famous Jewish historian, tells us why. And it was because Saul looked at King Agag and found the beauty and tallness of his body worthy of preservation. So he's lesting after somebody with a defiled genome. And that's why he keeps King Agagal alive. So he did not have a heart of worship. His heart was filled with idolatry. And subsequently, he lost his kingship and his bloodline. So no one in his bloodline stepped into that kingship. So then you think about Michael, Saul's daughter, you know, she was, she also did not develop a heart of worship. Because when she saw David display this extravagant worship, she despised him. And God cursed her and said, you'll be barren the rest of your days.

And so the principles of blessing and curses is not just an old covenant principle that the new covenant abolished. No, this is something established by Yahweh that we see both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, the power of our tongue. Proverbs 1821 says death and life are in the power of the tongue and those who love it will eat its fruit. I don't know about you, but I want to eat the fruit of blessing, not the fruit of cursing. So when I say back to when I say, well, that was a waste of my time, I'm speaking a curse over time. So I've got to repent for that and say, oh, Lord, forgive me. James 3, 6, and verse 8 through 10 says, And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.

The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature. And it is set on fire by hell, but no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it, we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men. Right there, that's a divided heart. that's mixture. With it we curse men who have been made

in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Powerful. It's real powerful.

So curses that stem back generations absolutely need to be dealt with. Yes. And if we're just being honest, who does that not apply to? Right. I mean...

Cannot stick our heads in the sand. And that's... This is accomplishing so many goals right now because that's exactly what I wanted this conversation to do for people is to connect dots. And it's something that, you know, just this year for me and my family, we're waking up to.

And we're also waking up to the, the beauty of God's lineage as well. So, you know, you have, so I'll use me as an example. I'm, where do I start? It's a long story. How did I get here? So my mom had me when she was 18.

And my biological father, I think, was like 15. He wasn't even willing to tell his mom that he ever had sex. You know, he's like, mom. don't ground me, you know, like he's a kid. So like I never, growing up, never had any animosity. You know, it's like I wouldn't have been ready to be a dad at 15. So she was going to raise me on her own. She didn't want to give me his last name, which would have been Diaz.

She didn't want to give me her last name, which would have been Olinger because she hadn't talked to her father since she was 12 because he abused her. And so she gave me my great-grandmother's maiden name, which is Frickert. And I know we talked about this a little bit yesterday. And I'm okay to say this because it's actually, I told you guys, I'm writing a book myself, and this is actually in the book, and my mom's cleared it. So it's fine. I'm allowed to say it, you know, because I asked her if I was a lot to talk about. But she was engaged to another guy who, before my adopted father,

Jack's dad. And that engagement broke off. Thank God. My grandfather who was heavily involved in the church, a big tent preacher back in the late 60s through the 70s, the guy my mom broke off with came to my grandparents' house and basically said to them that he's going to be getting arrested because the woman he married, he wound up abusing her sons. And he said that if he would have married my mom, I would have been the first one ago because he hated me. And he said that, he's saying that

about, you know, a kid who's not even two yet. And so his last name was Blatnik. And then and then my mom married my dad, who's a Merkel. So I've gone through essentially five last names of my life. And I think in one way or another, there's probably iniquity throughout all that, right? Like my mom, her biological father, she never met. So I don't know what runs through my blood, let alone my ancestry at all. I just don't know. I don't know where I come from.

And I've always wandered the world lost in that sense. I didn't know who I was because I don't know where I come from. I try not to get emotional about it because there's redemption in this. Right. Absolutely. I was such a confused person, even into this show, from the majority of the show. Like, I don't know who I am. You know, I carry a German last name.

I'm brown. I don't look like anybody that carries the same last name as me, you know? And it was just like I was always confused until recently. And I got to share this part because I feel like it's the ying and yang of this. That might be the wrong words. Yes. We don't come in alignment with that. No, we don't.

I don't even come along. I just say things, okay? But it's the counter force to this. So. we don't know what runs through my lineage and that needs to be dealt with. However, in all that, in the storm of that, there's redemption because as I was writing this book, I was stuck on the very second chapter. I was just stuck on it because I was trying to write about the impact my grandfather had in my life. And I had the hardest time with it.

And it's like, I could talk about this. Why can't I write this down? And I think it's because I didn't have the whole story yet. My aunt contacted my mom and said, can I, can I get a hold of Tony? And I need to talk to Tony. Okay, so I don't talk to my aunt much. You know, I love her, but she lives in Massachusetts. I haven't talked to her in years.

She contacted me and said that she talked to me about a sleep paralysis experience for like the first two minutes of conversation. It was like, that was like her open door to talk to me, but it's not what she wanted to talked to me about. I was like, oh, well, yeah, that happens. You know, like, I was like, she handled it properly. She's Christian. I was like, oh, good job. I didn't know whatever this is going. I was out with my chickens. And I was like, okay. And she, she then just shifts gears. And she said, your grandfather, when he died, left a mantle behind. And she said, she said, she went into telling me how a prophetess years ago spoke over her and confirmed

her, that she's a seer. And she said that the lady told her that when you see things, you need to stop holding back from telling the person because you're holding back their blessing. Oh, that's good. And so she said, under that, I'm coming to you to tell you that your grandfather left a mantle behind when he died, and it's time for you to pick it up. And it was a long two-hour conversation. And it went late into the night. I was out there with my chickens. They were already and their chicken coop, and I'm just standing there, standing there just like, fill a little chicken poop. And I go inside and I go to bed and I wake up the next day and I tell Lindsay about the conversation we had. And I was so confused because, again, I'm carrying this of, I don't know who I am.

I don't know where I come from. So why me? He has like 18 grandkids. Why is it that I, why do I have to be the one carrying that mantle? Because I'm the only one that's not his blood. Like, I was adopted into Merkel. Like, why is it that I'm the one doing this? Why is it?

Why do I have to do this, right? And Lindsay just asked an instant question. She just said, well, what's the last name mean? And I was always told by my mom that it meant merchant. And I just always thought that was dumb. I just was like, that's just uneventful. You know? And, and I got you beat.

My maiden name means swamp dweller. Really? Mm-hmm. That's a whole episode. We should go on a night height sometime. Bring the swamp dweller with me. That's wild. And so she starts looking it up.

And she says to me that I don't see merchant anywhere. And I think she did later find it loosely tied to it. But she said, when you dig the root word that Merkel comes from means guardian of the frontier. And I was like, it was like, so when I, when I was in a,

in a church in 2014, March 29, 2014 is when my whole life changed. I was in a church and my whole world just zeroed in. It was just like, the Holy Spirit just singled me out. And it was the first time of my life, I was like,

whoa, like everybody else in the room disappeared. Not really, but like that, it was just single focus. That happened in my kitchen when she said that. Because I was like,

oh, this is not an accident. I'm not a Merkel because my mom decided that she was going to marry my dad, not because she fell in love with my dad. I was designed to be a Merkel before my mom even knew my dad. And so Diaz, no. God said no. Onlyer, God said no. Frickert's God said, eh, that's a nice placeholder.

I don't agree. because when I was growing up I was freaking fricker. And then Blatnik, thank God, God said no. It was Merkel that he said, yep, that's the one. And so with everything that I do and my aunt speaking into me, it's time for me to pick up that mantle, everything just went, it lined up. And it gave this whole idea of being great.

grafted into a family tree, just a whole other understanding that I couldn't have possibly understood if those things didn't happen, those conversations didn't happen. And so that's the redemptive side that I wanted to share. But even in the redemption that I'm walking in, there is, I mean, you just shared eight generations back. I mean, And there's no way I could have known that, but by the Holy Spirit. So back to where we start in the beginning, Christians who don't even believe the Holy Spirit as a living entity are at such a disadvantage. Yeah. You know, it's interesting and at risk of going down a rabbit trail, just on the heels of what you were talking about, Tony, we know from antiquity and we know from the Bible that names were incredibly important.

that's why so many of them were changed. And one thing that I've observed in my lifetime is a couple of things that pertain to this topic of conversation. First of all, by way of the bloodline and generations going all the way back, I mean, we barely, we know very little other than the names of our great grandparents. Like some people do genealogy, but most of us don't know. Right, right. And what I have found is when I talk with people who have, have had lifelong sleep paralysis and astral abductions and are tormented by demons and the paranormal activity where it started around three years old and it hounded them, you know,

multiple times a week for decades. One of the questions I always ask is, do you know anything about your bloodline? Are, is there any royal, is there any ties to like royalty or elites or famous people or secret society, high-ranking military. And sometimes people don't know, but for the most part, one of the things on the MO for people that are targeted their whole life is there's something in the bloodline, which means you don't, not only do you have to worry about shutting all the doors that you open through sin or ignorance or whatever, it's crucial to figure out that bloodline. And if you can't figure it out to at least pray over it, even if you don't have the dots. But Tony, by way, what you're saying with your last name, another thing that I have

noticed is that whether our parents had any intentionality in choosing our names or not, I feel that whatever our names mean is the one thing that Satan is going to attack. Like there's a calling and in that. And so I was supposed to be Kelly when I was born. I was supposed to be a Kelly. And when I was born, based upon being born with this birth defect, my mom very intentionally named me Vicky Joy, because Vicki means spirit. Joy obviously means joyful. And she knew that I would need to have an overcoming spirit. And what's interesting is I went by Vic my whole life. And I did it on purpose because it was sort of tomboyish because I felt ugly and unfeminine. So I kind of was a slouch and I would walk around in my black t-shirts and I really didn't attempt to try to be real feminine because I was afraid. it would lead to more rejection if I was trying to compete sort of thing. So I was just Vic. I was one of the guys, Vic, you know. And I recognized at one point in my life that the two things that I never, ever had in this Christian walk was victory or joy. It was the two things I was fighting for. And, you know, know, the reason I made a very conscious choice to call myself Vicky Joy and to go by my first and

my middle name was because I felt like it took me over four decades to wrestle this out of the white knuckle grip of the enemy. And Jesus finally was able to come in through healing and give me victory and joy. And I am going by that name. I've come into my calling. And so, I absolutely think that this rolodex of last names that you went through was very intentional. And I just think that once we come into our calling, those names means so much more. And not just to me, because like it means something to me, but I choose to believe that when I went from Vic to Vick to Vicky Joy, there was some trembling in the spirit realm. That's good. That's good. That's so good.

So let's talk about deliverance then, because that's the next thing with this. We're talking about the generational curses and the things that are the enemy is a legalist and wants to hold against you. And I want to say this because this is a thought that came in my mind as you were talking. And I tied it down because I think this is something I want to be a model for myself. but we're talking eight generations back in what you were saying. These are people, and you mentioned about how, like, these are people that we don't know. And fast forward in time now, I want my life to be a rock in the waters of time that gets thrown in, and nobody remembers me.

They don't remember what caused the waves, but they see the rippling of those waves throughout, time. And that's what I want my life to be. I just, I wanted to be something that like eight generations later, people have no idea why there's this blessing on the family. But it's because of the things that we walked in today that just has timeless ripples throughout eternity. Yeah. And so going back in time, we have things we got to deal with. And one of the things that, that as Christians, I mean, I heard it growing up consistently. And I wasn't even in these topics growing up, really. You know, like, I just thought big was cool. And that Christians cannot be demonically possessed. But there's this idea of oppression. And I just hear different word camps all

over a place. Some say Christians can't be demonically possessed. Some say Christians can. some say Christians can't, but they can be oppressed. Some say Christians can't even be oppressed by demonic entities. So, like, what is, where do we go when it comes to oppression versus demonically oppression? What's the word I'm looking for? What's the next? Possession. Possession. Thank you. What needs deliverance versus exorcism? Yeah. This is great. So here's where we define terms. And like Dr. Laura, I love etymology. I was an English major. I'm a word nerd. I love the grammar. I can geek out over semicolins and where the different things are in scripture placed and the Greek and the Hebrew. So anytime I try to have a discussion with a Christian or not

a Christian, because of the way my brain works, I immediately have to say, well, we have to define some terms first because we're not even on the same playing field if we don't have the same terms. And so let's start with the can a Christian be demon possess? There's two massively vague potential for misinterpretation phrases in that sentence. First of all, what do you mean when you say you're a Christian? Okay. Biblically, you know, if we go into the Greek, I think Christian has used three times in scripture, twice an ax and one other time. And originally, it was a derogatory slur.

That's how it started. Oh, those Christ followers, you know, it was derogatory. And like a lot of things, eventually Christians sort of adopted it and it became more of a identity than it was originally a slur. Much like Jesus freak used to be an insult, but a lot of Christians like being called that. You know, they take pride in that same thing. So the only time we see the word Christian in the Greek is when Christians were being mocked. right so if we go into the covenant language of scripture both the old and new testament what it meant to be a follower of jesus christ meant you were set apart you were not like the 70 nations you had a different life a different god a different religion you dressed different you talked different you ate different Your hair looked different.

Your clothing was different. Everything was different. If you stuck an Old Testament Jew into the middle of Babylon in a shopping mall, you'd pick him out immediately. We can go to a shopping mall now. Pick out the Christians. Good luck. You know. So the first thing I would want to know, if we're talking about being shielded from demonic possession,

then I want to know what is a Christian. And so I always go to Psalm 91, because Psalm 91 is, this is all the stuff we're going to be protected from. You know, the plagues, the terror by night, the peccad, that the, you know, the noonday spirit and all of the, you know, opposition that's going to come against us with these various demons in the first eight verses. And then the lion and the cobra and the angels are lifting us up. Everybody wants that. That's the kind of protection from the spirit world that they want. And I think a lot of people sort of default to, I go to church, I profess to be a believer, I pray to prayer, everything in Psalm 91 belongs to me. But if you read verse 9, I think that that is the cipher. This is who is going to have the benefit of all of this spiritual protection. Those who make, Jehovah, their dwelling place. So this isn't just, I prayed a prayer, I sang kumbaya around the fire, I, you know, I got baptized as an infant. I sit in church and think about the game the whole time. These are people who have died to the old self and been put in the grave and are alive with Christ.

They're holy, which doesn't mean perfect or sinless. It means set apart for special use. these are the people that are betrothed to Jesus as the coming bridegroom. And when you hear an arcane phrase like those who make Jehovah their dwelling place, this to me, when someone says I'm a Christian, this is what I think they should be referring to. I died. Therefore, every betrothal covenant I was. ever a part of, with my flesh, with the demon world, with the world, all of those vows were broken because it's till death do we part. And when I became alive again and married my bridegroom, Jesus, when I made him my dwelling place, what it means is my bridegroom carried me over the

threshold into his tent. I took his last name. And as long as I'm under his protection in his tent, I'm not five miles down the road at the bar tent, you know, doing what I want. As long as I am in his tent over his threshold, I'm in covenant with him, and he's going to protect me. So this idea that a Christian can't be demon possessed, we have to have our definition of Christianity align with the Bible. So that's the first term that needs to be defined. But now, when we talk about demon possession, most people are going to go to the exorcist and Linda Blair and head spinning and pea soup spitting all over. And, you know, Hollywood has done a great job of making demons look extremely powerful and the priesthood looking like scared little wimps

with their shaking hands and their little crucifixes. And what an absolute blast. attack on the biblical narrative, it's the opposite. If you have, if you know your authority and you know who you are, you know, what you were talking about, Tony, with your name, that all applies with preparation for spiritual warfare. We have to know who we are. And the only place we're going to find that is in scripture. If we know who we are and where we are, now seated outside of time, we're not going to be afraid of the riff-wrath. Because the demons aren't Satan. These are disembodied little half-human mutants that they have zero, they are scared to death of someone who calls on the name of Jesus and knows their authority. So when we talk

about demon possession, first of all, it's important to note that the Greek never uses that phrase. Now, you can find an English translation that says, all the demon possessed. Like, you can find an English translation. But the Greek understanding of demon possession was, let me see if I can get this right, demonizomi. Sounds about right to me. Demoni zomai. It means demonization more in English. And so when you think about demon possession, which is possible,

it is a full control. They have full control over you. Well, as a believer, as a true in the tent of Jehovah believer, covenant keeping believer. And when I say covenant listeners, don't confuse this with Torah keeping and keeping every letter of the law in Hebraic roots. What I mean is we're walking in covenant. okay, we're in a betrothal covenant. We're faithful, monogamous followers of Jesus. Our sin bothers us because we understand that it's a break in our intimacy, and we miss that fellowship when we're out of alignment. I'm just talking straight.

All I'm talking when I say covenant keeper is 1-8-3-9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just for. forgive us our sins and purify us from all in righteousness. When we are out of covenant, we are desperate to come back to him and be back in his presence, right? So with demonization, there's a spectrum. And there's mild demonization, which means our thoughts, the vain imaginations, what you were talking about, Dr. Laura, about taking every thought captive, of having that helmet of salvation on. Because every believer, because we're fallen,

we can hear those vain imaginations and we can go into a downward spiral. Or we can all of a sudden wreak havoc amongst our friend group or at work because we act upon these vain imaginations that are not true. And then there's moderate demonization, which some people might be surprised. The night tears and the sleep paralysis,

all the stuff that Christians think is way, way out there, that's actually only moderate demonization. And then you've got the extreme demonization. And this can go into, you know, physical diseases and addictions and bondages and things like that we actually really need more of a deliverance for, we need assistance for. And so there is a difference between full on demon possessing, where a demon has taken over your will and is controlling you, and you sort of aren't even in control of your thoughts and your actions, and demonization. So what I have found is that this adage that many Christians have a lot of false comfort in,

well, I'm a Christian so I can never be demon possessed. Now that has sort of been conflated with, I'm a Christian, so I, I can't ever be harassed. I can't have spiritual war. I can't get sick. I can't get in the car wreck. If I tick off the neighbor who's a witch and they do a bunch of spellcraft against me, it'll have no effect. There still has to be some participation on our end in this. And so I guess I'll leave it at that. there's so much more to the conversation and Ephesion 612 comes into it. What's a demon? Is it the same thing as those higher authorities that we're talking about in Ephesion 612? But I'll let the conversation go in another direction. But I do want to say that a lot of people, we go right to Ephesion 612 when we want to talk

about spiritual warfare. But I will tell you that if you want to see what the Bible says is about spiritual warfare, look at Genesis 1 through Revelation 22. Copy that. The song tells me this will be a lifelong mission. Yeah, yeah, right? Right? That's wild. Yeah, and it's interesting.

And I love your thoughts on this, to Dr. Laura, because I think another problem that we run into, especially with the populace of people that I talk to, is, you know, when you're talking, to people in that extreme category where they're not demon possessed, but the demonization is extreme through unhealed trauma, ritual abuse, satanic ritual abuse, or any sort of like they are coming out of MK Ultra, trauma-based mind control, a military program, tech warfare that's coming now, if they're a targeted individual. What we're dealing with now with that populace

is we are not dealing with a simple, say the name of Jesus, and it all goes away and it runs into the hills and never bothers you again. Because what we're talking about now, it's not that there's not demons involved in that, but we now have higher level entities. And if we go with the standard definition of a demon, with it being the disembodied spirit of the Nephilim, and differentiating those beings from the four categories that we see in Ephesians 612. Because it doesn't say demons. These are principalities. These are fallen archons and the spiritual forces of wickedness in the dark places, etc., etc.

And so the method of authority in casting out a demon in the name of Jesus, get out, Ekbalo, get out. We're not told by Paul in Ephesians, 612, to boldly go into the face of these principalities and say, in the name of Jesus, get out. We're told to put on the armor. We're told to stand our ground. We're told when that doesn't work, to keep standing your ground. And I love the piece, because I was going to bring this. up and I'm so glad you brought it at first. The piece that's always missing is the prayer. And specifically, it's interceding for the saints. So that means you're not as, I think years ago, the U.S.

Army had a military slogan, Army of One. And it was all about this like, you know, and we can't be an Army of One in Jesus's Army. We have to be a finely tuned between. Italian, if that's the right work. We have to work together. And I love the fact that Paul's strategy for defeating high principalities is to pray for the body of believers, to pray for each other, which is, I think, of huge missing peace in spiritual warfare and maybe why we're getting our butts kicked sometimes. We're not united. Yep. Wow. And I'm just going to put a period on that by saying this to. To all the Christians, and I know this is a comforting thought, and I wish it was biblical, but it's not. This idea that I prayed a prayer, I'm a Christian, I go to church, I don't swear,

I don't listen to secular music, nobody can ever touch me. Jesus is going to walk five steps ahead of me with the Wonder Woman bracelets, that kind of thing. Here's the deal. Ephesians 612, according to the historians and the scholars, written somewhere between 30 and 50 years after Jesus died and rose. So what in the world, Paul and Peter, what kind of fear mongering are they trying to conjure up 50 years after the resurrection telling Christians who believe in a resurrected Messiah that we have to be sober-minded and vigilant and watch out for an adversary who like a prowling lion wants to rip us to pieces and to not be surprised at the fiery trials when they come upon us? Oh, and by the way, we're full armor regalia and stand your ground when astral entities come to attack you because they hate you.

What was wrong with these two? Jesus died and rose. We've got to stop feeling like safety is the number one goal of the church. Jesus never commanded us, do everything in your power to feel safe. and I have got nothing against preppers. We got some stuff in the basement, right? Who doesn't? Absolutely.

Be prepared. And there's nothing wrong with protecting your family. But when the crap hits the fan and we're in the final culmination of battle, I want to participate. I don't want to be hiding and drinking my urine through a purity straw. Yeah. Right. I love you.

I want to add something that was just brought out to me a couple weeks ago because you said about standing your ground. And I have this warrior mentality. It's growing by the day. And I did have the mentality for a long time that, oh, I'm like people who say things to me like, you know, aren't you worried about something with doing your show? I'm like, no, God's got me. He's fine. That's fine. It's fine. It's like, I'm bulletproof. And so I wasn't bullproof anymore. I was like, oh, what's that new pain? I felt that, you know? But 1st Corinthians 6, we're instructed to flee, not stand our ground on sexual immorality. The temptation that that offers is irresistible for man. And so instead of standing your ground and say, no, I got this, we can, I can, I know where the guardrail is and I can walk right out to it.

nope, if you know where the guardrail is, identify the location and go the opposite direction. Flee. And that is something that with men in my own life and stuff, I've been kind of sharing that with because it hit me hard, you know, because I'm such, I mean, I guess, I guess you could call me a prude. You know, like, it's like, like, I'm so rigid on that stuff because I lived through my mid-20s. I almost lost my marriage because I knew where guardrails were and I walked up to them. And so I'm terrified of the door that that opened that I didn't have the words for. And it was right there waiting for me to read them.

I was constantly just like I would always say like Jack can attested this. I would say, just run away. And it was like this thing. I was like run away. Like I'd say to everybody, just run away. But that's literally what we're being instructed to do. You know, it's to run away. And so like as we're.

in this conversation of spiritual warfare, that is an aspect. We don't need to go down that road because I know I'm kind of to redirecting and doing a U-turn here, but it's just, that is part of spiritual warfare because there are things that the enemy is going to do to kind of put out there and tempt you because that is the war. And when it comes to that, your best option is just a runaway. It's just a runaway. But so I saw you taking notes and stuff. Do you have, I just kind of I just want to give you an opportunity to maybe react to some of the things she was saying, because I don't want to move past it. But it's like there's a real thing here where, you know, there's there's demonic influence

in life. And this is kind of like a balancing act, I suppose, because I heard you earlier say, Laura, about how I wrote down here. Well, like, all right, so there's a difference. I wrote this down. there's a difference in preparing for war all the time and preparing or being prepared for when it happens, right? Right.

And that kind of hit me because I, and I've been, I've even said it on my show several times within the last few months. I'm approaching things, and maybe I need to realign how I think on things. I'm approaching things. Like the old phrase, there's not a demon under every rock. I'm yelling from the rooftop. Yes, there is. You know?

Like, in my mind, I wake up in the morning, and the way I'm looking at things is, like, there is an enemy seeking to destroy me every second of the day, and I got to be ready. And so in my mind, I'm like, there is a demon under a rock, but there clearly is instruction for a time of rest as well. And that's something that I have not given room to even consider. I'm just like, it's go time every time, you know? And it's like, but in order for us to actually war successfully and appropriately, we need to be able to see the battlefield properly. Absolutely.

And so it just kind of hit me because it's just like there is this balancing act of like when is the time for war? And but when the time for war is here, you have to be prepared to go all in. Is that what I'm hearing from you both directly? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I loved what you were saying about Psalm 91, that those promises are for those that are abiding in God's presence. And back to what we were talking about earlier, it's so important when we are in his presence, we are aligned with him. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

So we're surrendering our thoughts to him. We're surrendering our time. We're surrendering our finances. I mean, we're surrendering everything we have to him. that's when we can be assured that the promises of Psalm 91 are with us. And it's one of the things the Lord has really challenged me with lately is, and I wrote this in Generation Hoodwinked, I, you know, we all were educated in the Western world. So we were educated under a Greek mindset where if I boil it all down, it's either or.

And because, you know, the Greeks, they would debate in the theaters and the gymnasiums. And the one who won the debate was the purveyor of truth. And so it was one way or the highway, right? Well, in Hebrew thinking, it's both and. The Hebrew mindset is able to sit with the mysteries of God and not have to have everything understood. And so I think about the both and with Psalm 91 because, you know, with the suffering that you're experiencing in your household right now, with the suffering we went through, with the suffering you faced in life, I used to believe in triumphalism, which was the concept that if I

am passionately abiding in Christ, if I am pulling, like zealous for the Lord, which I I was in 2008 when all of this happened. I was the youth minister. I was leading the spiritual mapping team. I was an elder in our church and I was a prophetic intercessor. Like I'm all in. And my world fell apart. And I fell apart for a good year and a half. And I didn't know how to interpret scripture anymore. I couldn't trust myself with the prophetic gift that the Lord gave me. like I had to step away from everything. I thankfully didn't walk away from my relationship with the Lord. And the character of God's goodness was my anchor through that. And so it's a both and that there's a sound that comes out of the suffering that can set the generations free. And so I think

about Paul and Silas, you know, where they, when they were in jail and, Philippi, I had the privilege of being there physically. And the land, talk about what we did yesterday, you know, praying for the land. The land has these pockets of glory stored up in them. And when there's a son of God that comes on that land and joins in worship of our creator, in worship and truth, that pocket of glory gets released. And so the worship that Paul and Silas released in the waiting, in the squeezing, before the breakthrough came, they had a horrendous day. They were stripped naked in the marketplace.

I mean, how many of us, if you just stopped there, I bet none of us have been stripped naked in a marketplace of thousands of people. Nope. I mean, that in and of itself would be my very worst day, right? But it didn't stop there. Then they were flogged, beaten with rods, you know, beaten to a pulp, thrown into maximum security with their feet in stocks. And at midnight, when you would, when most people would be completely exhausted, if not unconscious,

what are they doing? They're praying. They're praising. They're worshiping. And their sound that came out of suffering shook heaven and earth and set the captives free. And for generations, because we're still reading about it now. So it's impacting us. And so on Sunday at church, we sang some hymns.

It was so beautiful to go back to hymns. And it is well. I don't know. I know a little bit about the background of that story. I want to read more about it. But didn't he, he wrote that on a ship when his family died, something along those lines. And the same.

sound that came out of his suffering, we're still singing 200 years later. So I just think about as an encouragement, like, yes, we have suffering in our lives. And yes, there are issues that we need to deal with in our generational line. Like, let's not suffer for no reason. Yeah. Let's deal with what we need to deal with. But even when we've dealt with that, and even though Jesus is triumphant, and leads us in this triumphal procession, we will suffer. Yes. Yes. And out of that comes a beautiful sound that can set captives free. I'm so glad that you went down this avenue,

because often when we talk about spiritual warfare, we're kind of just talking about the war. Yeah. And it's easy for me to get lost in the weeds with that because that excites me. But there is such a fine line between, Ephesians 612 and Hebrews 12, Job and James, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. And if we let that have its perfect work, we're being perfected through that suffering. And it's really hard when you're in

the weeds, when you're dealing with, you know, the death of a loved one or a misconduct. carriage or a divorce or you're dealing with the proverbial dark night of the soul, which I know I've been through one after my mom died. And it's the kind of thing that it's a different type of suffering. It's a crucible. You know, you're not there just to be tormented and flogged and whipped. You're there so that all of the dross is removed and you are pure gold. Like you're being perfected and beautified so that when you stand before Jesus, you're like, I was, I let myself get heated seven times over and over and over again. I didn't escape the furnace, even though I could have. You know, I could have bought my way out of it. I could have quit the job. I could have

found a new spouse. I could have jumped out of that furnace, but I let it have its full effect so that I could be a pure spotless bride. And so it's really hard when you're in the middle of those dark nights of the soul because the enemy does come and attack you at that time. And I know that when I was in my dark night of the soul, which when you were just talking about yours, Dr. Laura, I was like, oh, you cannot determine when you're in the midst of that whether or not Satan is sifting you like wheat

or Jesus is refining you in the fire. You can't pinpoint am I being tormented and I should fight against this or I should sit in my ashes and learn what I'm supposed to learn from it. I could not differentiate between the two of them at the time, which added a lot of confusion and fallout. And I too, praise God, stuck with God through all it. I white knuckled onto him. know, like you're the only sure thing in the world. And especially too with all of us who've been

red-pilled and we realize so much of what we've learned has been a lie. And I've just determined that Jesus Christ is who he said he is. And he is the way, the truth and the life. And no one comes to the father except through him. That's the one thing I am white knuckling onto. I will not let go of it, I will die for it. I will take a bullet for it. It's the hill I'm going to die on. Everything else, you can tell me it was a big huge lie, you big sucker, and I can deal with it. But he is the way the truth in life. That's my, there's no, there's no wiggle room for me on that one. And on that, I, I'm in the same mindset. And it's, I approach it as, and I've been trying to get better at, like talking myself down on the show because sometimes I'm like, oh, I was just, I'm just dumb,

you know, but I'm not, I'm not a genius, but I'm not an idiot either. And I, I, well, it's going. I forget. It's talking about genius. I know. I know. I'm the way the truth in life. Yeah, but you were just talking. I was going to use an example. No wiggle room. It's gone. White knuckling. Yeah, white knuckling. So, you'll get it. Yeah, it's gone. Darn it. What were you white knuckling? Jesus is the way the truth in life. Everything else. Yes, thank you.

Okay. Jack, edit all that out. He won't. But so, but that's how I am too because I, when I, when I'm observing the landscape of intellectuals around me who can't agree on everything, I come to a quick understanding that, hey, like you, you are not the beginning and end of intellect, right? So at that point, talking about Hebrews and just the faith aspect that he rattles off in that 11, I think, Chapter 11, where he's just talking about all the examples of faith. And might I say, blind faith? Just faith. Right. And he even says that the people that he's given an example to, they haven't even seen, they never saw the fulfillment of the promise. Right. Right. And so when you're talking about white knuckle, on faith of Christ. Like, that's the one that I've taken the step of faith on and I've made a decision. I ain't releasing my knuckles on that steering wheel. It is Christ 100% all the time. I don't care if somebody who's way more intellectually sound than I am comes and presents an argument to me that

I'm just like, well, that seems, it doesn't matter. I'm white knuckling on that one. You know what I mean? Because, like, there's so, there's, the Lord has proven himself way too many times. in my life for me to give a thought to a man's finite understanding of an articulate way of arguing his point over what my experience 101 has been with my creator. So that's the qualifier for me of saying I'm white knuckling because I actually had one-on-one experiences with the one who created me. Right. So the one who created this man here who has just a finite understanding of his worldview that he relate to me in an articulate way does not trump the actual interactions that I've had. Does that make sense? Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. That's what I wanted to say. I've almost forgot it. Oh, I love it. You know what verse took on a whole new, like, modern, like, aha moment for me recently is now with all this like quantum, quantum. stuff that's contemplating timelines and everything. And we know from the book of Daniel that they will attempt to change times and seasons and with the Mandela effect and all this. And I'll tell you guys,

the Mandela effect was one of those conspiracies because I love the conspiracies. I had to step away from it because it was messing with my head. It was a little too much for me. And it came during my Dark Night of the Soul. So I was already like not really in a sound place. But all of a sudden, the verse struck me a different way. I am the Lord God. I do not change. And I realize that one of the attributes of God that makes him God and not human or not created is he never changes. But where it flipped for me when all this quantum Mandela stuff started coming into the conversation and into the collective consciousness is when God says I do not change, it means every single thing created or fallen can, including things that we thought were immovable. All these things that we've been

learning about where we are and who we are and what the gods are and, you know, all this stuff. It doesn't matter what they take away from us. It doesn't matter what sort of revelation is given to us. You know, Lovecraft summarizes in the first paragraph of Call of Cthulhu, his short story, that when man comes back to this place where all dissociated knowledge comes back together into a cohesive whole, they'll have two options. They can either go mad from what they've learned or they can passively give in and become a slave of this new dark age. And so I've just determined for myself that by the grace of God, my goal is that when all that dissociative knowledge, because we see it coming together, and we know from the book

of Daniel that at some point there's going to be this leader that's going to come to earth and put that dissociated information back together for us. He's a man who understands the wise sayings, and they're going to have people even in the church losing their minds because too much of the carpet got pulled out at once. Or you're going to have the people that just go with the flow because going against the grain is going to be too terrifying. But my goal is I'm going to,

remain sober-minded and vigilant, okay? I'm not going to lose my mind, and I'm not going to conform to this, right? Because Jesus, that's the part where I do have the triumphalism. When people are perishing for lack of knowledge, and when even the elect might fall for this, if that were even possible, that's where I'm trusting Jesus to keep me sober-minded and vigilant. But where I think spiritual warfare is so important, it doesn't even have to just be demons are attacking you or you're having sleep paralysis

or all this stuff's going wrong. That sober-minded, vigilant lifestyle that we're practicing every single day is preparing us. So even if you're not getting blatantly attacked by the demon world, how are you going to recognize? recognize the demon world when it shows up.

And so this vigilance and the sober-minded that we're supposed to be practicing every day is practicing for not losing our minds or falling for the wrong Messiah. That's real good. And that goes right with what she was saying earlier about being prepared. Yes. I know before we started recording, you mentioned that there was a story. I think a spirit mapping story that there was like a misstep or something that it had happened.

Yes. Yeah. I feel like, I mean, I can share it, but I feel like this is such a beautiful place we're in right now with what you shared. I feel like it would take us in a different direction. I'm happy to share that in another point. Okay. I just, I love what the Holy Spirit did in our midst. I love how he wove this conversation together. and just you sharing about your dark night of the soul. I mean, we've each walked that. And going back to what you said about abiding, that's it. That's it. Abiding in Christ.

Because when we are abiding in His presence, he's our place of rest. Once I realized that there's a place called, rest and it's Jesus, I realized, oh my gosh, I can war from a place of rest even. Ooh. Wow. I can be in his presence. And when we're abiding in him, then we know, okay, time to engage, time to go versus time to sit at his feet. But both are a place of rest if we're abiding in him. So I so appreciate you. You know what that makes me think of, Dr. Laura?

I won't be able to cite the king or exactly which war it was in the Old Testament. But there was one of these times in Israel's history where they were about to get slaughtered by an army, an undefeated army who really probably in human terms would have beat the crap out of them. And I can't remember if this is the time where Hezekiah laid it before the law. Lord and prayed. I can't remember exactly the details, but the way Israel won that war was a rumor got put into the mind of the king. And he ran back to his hometown to kind of get his affairs in order based on this rumor. And then he ended up losing the whole battle. And then I think his own sons killed him because that was a dishonor, you know, to come home, you know, with your tail between your legs. But that ties into eschatology where there will be wars and rumors of war. And so as believers,

if we don't have the discernment between the wars and the rumors of war, we are going to be exhausting ourselves, running out to the front lines and getting information every time there's a whiff of a battle that's just misinformation. And we're going to wear ourselves out before the real battle chasing after all of these rumors. And so I love what you said about being in a wartime mindset at rest. And if we know our shepherd's voice, that's also our captain's voice, right? So when we hear a rumor of a war, we're going to be, that's not Jesus's voice. I'm going to stay at home and sit on this out, sit with this one out, right? Because it's interesting to me that one of the end signs is rumors. And when you look at our news, the way we get our information in this day and age, we have to sift through it because there is so much misinformation in there that does stir up fear, that does create a lot of aftermath.

in there is so much rest even in just being able to weed out the truth from the lies. That's good. That's good. I kind of came into today wanting to kind of just pick your brains, and I feel like I've done that. And I feel we've accomplished, because I had asked my members if they had any questions. And, I think I posted that post. I put it on the members app weeks ago. And I just remembered. And boy, did they have questions.

I was like, oh, wow. And so I was like looking at all of them. And I was just kind of reviewing some of the questions. And literally, we tackled a lot of these questions, you know? And I was just like, oh, wow. So what you were saying, how you loved how, what the presence of God was doing right here, the presence of God, God knew what the questions were. He knew the direction of the conversation he wanted to take it.

And it just kind of became a beautiful tapestry. And I feel like through this conversation, the topic of spiritual warfare, one thing that I'm taking away from it is there's a lot of depths to it. and just the phrase lifelong pursuit comes to mind and not of spiritual warfare but a relationship right so if you can just acknowledge that there is a cosmic war happening around you all the time and it's been there since before we existed here on earth all three of us uh if you can come to that acknowledgement and you come to the acknowledgement that the remedy is christ and in in relationship, then if you're going to be in a war that existed before you were born and is going

to be here after we're all on the ground, then the remedy is a lifelong pursuit of Christ, which then fulfills the Great Commission, not only within your own life, but with what we're called to do in the world. And we're building the kingdom of God here on Earth while we're here, and in doing what we're told to do, we are literally participating in spiritual warfare in a way that is whole and complete.

It's not, okay, today I'm going to do this in the war, and then tomorrow I'm going to do this in the war. It's just to live as Christ, live it out, and by doing that, you accomplish all things. I guess talking with you is it's really just a simple thing of when you boil it all down, there's so many layers to it, but it's like just live out your life for Christ. And he'll give the proper instructions and scrolls as the time comes. But it's just live it out earnestly.

You know, we were talking about what is a Christian and how, you know, you have to kind of define, what do you mean when you say Christian? Like, I think about that all the time. You know, they say, oh, America's a Christian nation. Hold on. Who says that? Because, well, statistics. Exactly. Because people don't even know what it means to be a Christian. You know, like, people who might say they're a Christian will in the same, not everybody for sure. But like, there are confused people out there who say, oh, yeah, I'm a Christian. Well, do you believe in? No, I don't believe in angels. No, I don't believe in angels. Do you believe in God? You know, it's just like that nobody really knows what they believe.

And so defining what is a Christian, you know, and then once we can nail that down and start yielding life over to him, we get our marching orders in that. You know? So I love this conversation. And I think it just took off and went organic. And I appreciate you both for just being. here and sharing. I'll give the table to the table to both you. I'm trying to refrain from saying y'all. You guys. Because I'm so, I'm from the northeast and it's you, or you guys, and now I'm down

south and I say y'all all the time. And so when I'm on the microphone, I'm trying not to say y'all because they're like, oh, he just doesn't, it just comes out of me. So I'm going to hand the table to y'all and let you have final words on anything you feel on your heart that you'd like to share. And also, while you're speaking, please, because the platform's constantly growing, Jack just said that we're experiencing another gross spurt. And so praise God of that. And there might be people guaranteed. There's people listening that maybe just found you, use, y'all. And it would be good for them to know where they can get more of the information you guys share today, or you ladies. So I'm going to shut up. I think as far as final thoughts, I too, I'm just so.

grateful for what the Holy Spirit did in our midst. And I think, you know, one of the parting thoughts that I'll share is, you know, what we can learn from David, even when he was a boy, you know, he walked in the fear of the Lord. He didn't care about what other people thought. And for, you know, I think about us and the different platforms we have. Like for me, I'm often going back to examining myself, asking the Holy Spirit to show me, okay, what are my motives? What am I doing this for? Because I want to walk in the fear of the Lord, which means I have an audience of one. And so it doesn't matter what other people think. As long as I am doing unto the Lord what he's asked me to do and I do it with excellence, then I can feel good about what I'm doing and what comes out of my mouth. Well, I think about David

in that way. He was a man after God's own heart. He walked in the fear of the Lord. And because he developed intimacy with the Lord on the fields while he was protecting the sheep from the lion and the bear, that prepared him for battle. So coming back to full circle with it, the abiding, it's all about intimacy with the Lord. If you look at the different giant slayers, I write about that. In Roots of the Federal Reserve, I have a chapter on giant slayers alone. You look at all the biblical giant slayers, there's a pattern in their life. They developed the fear of the Lord and an intimate relationship with the God of Israel. That's what gave them courage to stand their ground, no matter what battle, no matter how big the giant was. You know, in our day, we don't have, well, there are some,

But we don't have giants the size of what they faced in antiquity. But the power and control that Nephlam hosts, which I call Nephlam hosts, you know, global elites, you know, the Luminati. The power and control that they wield certainly reaches to great heights and global governance, but we can stand on the Word of God. We stand on Romans 831. What then shall we say in response to all this, if God is for us, who can be against us? And so if we have cultivated that intimate relationship with Jesus, not only do we know what season we're in, is this a season of peace or a season of war, but we know that we can go up against any giant that we have to face because we've got the ancient of days covering our back. So that's what I'll leave. And then I'll let you share and then we can share like our websites and stuff.

I think another way that we prepare for the battle is we know and accept our rank. You know, everybody who joins the military, they want to be the Marine or the Navy SEAL and they want to be on the battle and they want to come back and get the Silver Stars and the Medal of Honor and the Purple Hearts. But some people are on KP, you know, I mean, some people are there and they're part of the machine and they're valuable. And about a week or so ago, I was reading the War Scroll, which is one of the fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls. And I've always kind of had this fantasy that one day, like, A, when I'll get to be on the horse with like a ball, like on the end of a stick, like one of those mace. And I just want to see that whatever or whoever that sleep paralysis entity is that tormented me my whole life, I just want to like,

put that mace to the side of his, I want to see his neck snap. I want to be on the horse. Like, you know, I, I'm reading this war scroll, and it's describing the armies of heaven, the human people. And, you know, a thousand, you know, from left to right in rank and file, seven rows back, you know, thousands of these people. And the ornate nature of the shield and the sword, It's with precious metals and jewels. And it kept talking about the beauty of the craftsmanship of even just the sword and the shield that they're given. And I was filled with so much like passion and inspiration and joy and fervor as I'm reading this battle. And I was reading it in the car out loud to my dad.

And we're both like choked up. over this. And we get to the place in the scroll where it says all the men in the battle are between these ages and they're all men and there are no women in the battle. And I grieved over it. And I know from other lessons I've learned in life that as soon as you start, doubting or disagreeing or not liking something about the way God made you, you're opening up a door of ingratitude and other things. I mean, to the point where I don't even want to color my hair or put in contacts of a different color or get fake nails on because it's, I want to fully embrace this.

is who God made you to be, and you're never going to be ashamed of it. You're going to be your strongest if you remain who God designed you to be. And so I'm grieving over the fact that I will never be in the battle formation. And I'm praying about it for a few days. Like, I had to mourn the loss of that dream, right? And so I just felt like the Holy Spirit, it told me after I had sort of gotten all my emotions out. You know, Vicky, you're a writer, you're a poet. You love words. You can string poetry together. And he said, maybe you can't be in the battle, but what if like Miriam, you're the one that gets to compose that song of victory? What if you get to put together words that bring people into a fever pitch

of worship when Jesus leads the troops back home. Would you be disappointed if that was what I had for you? And I was like, oh. And so even now, I'm sort of regrouping in my mind that identity. And Dr. Laura, how you were talking earlier about putting your time on the altar, I'm putting my fantasies about where I stand in some sort of end-time battle, putting aside the fantasy and receiving with joy the role I might get to play, that God, from knitting me together in my womb, picking who my mom would be,

who she was a writer, being raised in a home where that, was nurtured and realizing that if that's the part I play in an end-time war, that's just as beautiful as the sword full of jewels, right? So in summary, whatever role God has given us, even if it's you die in a nursing home and you miss the whole thing and you just wake up later in paradise, you missed the whole thing. No, no matter what he has ranked you, no matter how many stripes around your uniform, you are going to be presented before him. No one's going to get in heaven and feel ripped off. It's true. I felt similar, believe it or not with this podcast. I would say there have been times that I've grieved

that I've been handed this because it's not what I wanted. You know, people get to see the adventurous side of me and I do believe the guy created me a certain way. You know, I love adventure. But when it comes to the podcast, I grieve. grieved that I wasn't like you both immensely. I grieved that I wasn't able to be a Tim

Almerino or a Heiser with these intellectual ways of communicating their thoughts and just the intellects. I never had Heiser on this show. And it wasn't because I didn't know who he was. I knew who Heiser was before most people knew who Heiser was. I would drive my tractor trail around in 2016 listening to Heiser, but I was intimidated by Heiser. So I never talked to Heiser because I thought I couldn't hold a conversation with Heiser. I had him on the schedule once. And I had such a panic attack the entire week that I canceled the interview. And then he got cancer and he could no longer do interviews.

and that's where I put intellectuals in my own view. I was like, I wish I could be that. And in the same way, like, the Holy Spirit just reminded me, I created you a very particular way. And I now embrace it. And I'm reminded by people around me because I look at what I do. I'm like, it's nothing special.

What I do is nothing special. I host conversations with people. Anybody can do that until people around me are saying, no, actually, not everybody can do it the way you do it. And then I started hearing things from people, and this is not boastful at all. I'm just using it as an example. I started hearing this year,

a lot of people I'm having in studio say, for instance, one person said, I was walking by the studio. We took a bathroom break. I was walking by the studio and they were talking to Jack and they said, every time I talk with Tony, he pulls things out of me. I never thought I'd be saying. Heather, Heather Z, Joseph Z's wife, they were here a couple months ago.

Afterwards, the very first thing that was said, once we're like, we're done, Joseph stands up and says to Heather, Heather, you shared things that I'd never heard you talk about on an interview before. And I was just with them in Dallas, I think it was Dallas a few weeks ago. And she said to me, the way you do anything. interviews allows for people to just talk and say things that they normally wouldn't say other places, the way you pull it out. And I don't try to pull things out, but that's the point. Like, God created me a very specific way for a very specific purpose. And I'll just say something that I've said a million times on the show, but if you're new here, like I didn't start the show

because I was bored. I didn't start the show because I felt like I wanted to talk to somebody. The Holy Spirit literally told me in my truck, you're going to start a podcast and you're going to work with a guy named Wes German from Sasquatch Chronicles. I had no desire to do it. I was a truck driver. I was just got my life back on track with the Lord, my marriage. I didn't have any kids, and I was just a trucker. I didn't want to do that.

And I went home that night and I told my wife what the Holy Spirit said to me. I'm in the habit of doing that. And a month later, lo and behold, Wes calls me over a Facebook messenger out of the blue. And he's like, have I ever, I haven't had you on my show to tell your Bigfoot encounter? I was like, never had one, bud. And then for 45 minutes, we talk, and in the first conversation, he's encouraging me to start a podcast. And so, like, I can, from my perspective, now, you can, anybody listening to that, can say, oh, yeah, right, whatever. So that's fine.

From my perspective, there's no way I can get around the fact that God called me to do this because he designed me. Just like he designed me to be a Merkel, he designed me to do this. And this is my lane until he tells me otherwise, right? and 100% transparent. I'm very open for another lane to open up. I love doing the show and everything like that. But I would be lying if I felt like one day God's going to add to the calling. I don't know if he's ever going to take this off the plate for me.

I really don't. He might. But I do strongly feel that God, I'm in a season right now where God is actually adding to the plate. but I think we're not done yet. I think at some point God's going to literally say, all right, you're on this path, and we're going to make it a two-lane highway now because you've got another thing you've got to be doing too, you know?

So anyways, that's my closing statement. So I love you both so much. And the blessing that you guys have been in my life personally and even from afar, just watching you both operate, and how you live your lives out publicly, what you say on other shows. It's encouraging. And I can't get enough of it. And I certainly hope that anybody that watched this episode has the same feeling.

So on that, let's get the logistics out of the way. Where can they find us? You can find me at the confessionalspodcast.com. And for me, I direct people to my website first, which is no longer enslaved.com. And then I've written a couple books, Roots of the Federal Reserve, and also Generation Hoodwink. Those are available on Amazon. I narrated them. I don't know if you've narrated before, but it is not easy. But they're both narrated and available on audio. And then, yeah,

just live in the dream going from adventure to adventure with the Lord. That's awesome. No kidding. No kidding. Well, speaking for Dr. Laura and myself, if I may, we love you too. Yes. Yes. I do the same thing. Vickijoyanderson.com. That's Vicki with just an eye. Everything is pretty much right there on the homepage books and all the links to social media and all that. The latest book is they only come out at night exposing the dark weapon of sleep paralysis, available at la marsruly.net. And a forthcoming book, look for it this summer, from Eden to AI. Yes.

Dun, dun, done. Yeah, I was going to say, I hope you mentioned that. You got that new book coming. And, yeah, I'll do it. Shout out to Destiny Image. I'll do the episode of that. Yeah, they're really good over there. And you both are going to be writing a book.

Your book's coming and coming out. And I know you're going to be writing a book for them. And I'm in the process myself. So it's a good, it's a good publishing platform for this type of crowd. Yeah. because they don't deny the supernatural and they're embracing it and they just want they just want the world to understand how supernatural our existence is and they they platform a lot of pastors who preach it from their pulpits like my friend like i raglan and um and i just love them over there so

i'm glad that you guys are going to be writing for them uh it's much needed much needed because when i i forget how the conversation came up and i was like guys i got two for you you need to talk to So I was like just trying to like please do you have to you know so anyways I love you guys the power of the Merkel bunch yeah well it's nice it's nice having the show because it's like this relationship that's developed where I'll contact them and and charisma too and I'll be like hey this author you have I'd really like to talk to them and so that's why I was like I got two authors that you guys need to talk to you so Anyways, it was good talk with you guys.

This was a great conversation. And let's go have lunch or something. Awesome. Sounds great. Sounds great. Oh, how's my... Look. Loh.

Hey, me flexing for the dark. I'm deployed with a mission. Now, shadow boxing fear. I'm position with permission. They say don't talk. Demons. Just keep your eyes above. But you don't ignore the better feel when you're fighting for love.

Yeah, they told us they stay quiet. Don't study the schemes. Meanwhile, the enemy running plays in the seams Six out of ten said the devil ain't real, But they wonder why faithful numb And the peel feels sealed I ain't fascinated with darkness or tricks I just know who stripped them naked

And exposed all the myth Cross-turned courtroom, but that's already signed King walked out the grave like your power ain't mine Yeah, public disgrace, sports paraded in light Chain still clinking, they're just loud in the night Handcuffs on them but they barred like kings Only scary you forget who disarm those things I don't wake up passive

I wake up away My feet hit the floor Hell already annoyed that I'm here Not asking God to hide me Like I'm fragile and small He kept in tight as suns Told us stand tall and call Yeah, yeah

We don't coward We don't fold We don't move it out of thought it either On our own True first Time ain't mine Put it back in the dirt Yeah we don't feel

We don't stall We advance When the father make the call Yeah we don't feel We don't stall We advance When the father make the call Yeah

Look I don't rush in the war Just cause curiosity knocks Seeing people chase portals Them panic when the cover and drop You don't free style warfare This ain't content or cloud You better check what's open Before you start calling things out

Bloodline matter Yeah they go through time Long on from the past Trying to tighten their bind up Genetics switch Flick way before me But grace deeper than curse This thousand gen story

I ain't pretending I'm clean Cause I said a prayer once Turn like a mad stick Burn whole month Say waste on my time Didn't know I cursed it brave had to repent quick put that phrase to death yeah now i lay my schedule flat on the altar calendar don't rule me inch in the days is the author yeah time ain't mind it's alone with intent

every second in offering every delay heaven sent armor ain't aesthetic and sort of ran weight truth before righteousness peace regulate yeah fate up front when the arrows is night helmet guard in the thoughts words sharp in the fight and prayer ain't optional is command and receipt Strategy downloads while I'm half asleep sometimes the scroll come quicker than grind That's what happens when you move outside time Yeah We won't cow up we don't fold We don't move without authority though

I'm wrong True first time ain't mine put a bag in the dirt Yeah we don't feel we don't stall We advance when the father make the call yeah we don't fear we don't stall we advance we don't We advance when the father make the call Look I ain't obsessed with names but I know they mean war Enemy attack the label you was given at birth Victory and joy that's where hell try to erase

Funny how you wrestle longest with what marks your face Guardian of the frontier didn't know that was me Thought my past was confusion God said wait and see Last name wasn't random wasn't luck or romance I was drafted before I ever learned how to stand Now I move like incense when I enter a room Sometimes it smell like life Sometimes smell like the tomb

Because death is self-stink To the world outside But heaven old that fragrance When the ego died I ain't waiting on giants To fall from the sky I run at them like David No armor, just why

Because courage ain't loud And faith ain't naive Yeah, it's knowing who won I'm refusing to leave I don't need darkness To prove that Christ reigns I just show up obedient That alone cause pain

Enemy already lost Still screaming this case But we march like victors through the street treats of grace, yeah. We don't coward, we don't fall, we don't move without a thornido, yeah. First, time ain't mine, put it back in the door.