Overseas travel often involves a much stronger sensory experience for someone with discernment. In China, for example, I will encounter unusually perverse thoughts, but then in Central Asia I will discern deep anger and rage. Those who travel with me have similar experiences because we are discerning the same atmospheres. We have also encountered places that host the glory of God and His angels, and such atmospheres are always refreshing!
Discerning different atmospheres happens in different ways and varies from person to person. For myself, I often discern the spiritual atmosphere of a city by what I spiritually see and feel on the land. Where there is a strong local church, cities will host the peace of Jesus in such a way that you can feel it coming off the ground and in the air. I have even sensed that same feeling of peace while driving through certain cities, which tells me even before I have any tangible evidence for it that the Church of that city is strong. I have also heard testimonies from incoming travelers to my city, Turlock, who say they feel the tangible presence of God when they enter the city borders.
Cities that lack a strong local church will come under the influence of a demonic atmosphere, and this will show up in the personality of the city. This is why some cities become labeled with derogatory nicknames such as “sin city,” “drug capital of the West,” “religious city” or “party town.” These labels are actually the personality of the demonic spirit ruling the atmosphere, “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2 NKJV).
I once ministered in a city that was so bound to witchcraft that I could see with my spiritual eyes endless numbers of snakes coming out of holes in the ground. I spoke at a conference there, but I struggled emotionally and mentally throughout because of this issue. I know how to overturn that kind of spiritual problem in prayer and through other biblical methods, but this was such that it would require going back to that city several times to uproot it successfully. Likewise, I was ministering in a small city in the Midwest and noticed how many of the church people’s children were in bondage to or were in jail for drugs, alcohol-related crimes, theft, etc. It is not normal for so many “church” children to be in jail, be unsaved and be in that much trouble. The Bible promises us a much better outcome (see Psalm 115:14; Acts 16:31). Yet this was their normal because this was the spiritual atmosphere of the city, and the Church there had not yet defeated it.
Spiritual atmospheres are real, and we discern through our senses what God and His forces are doing, as well as what Satan and his forces are doing. This is always a call to prayer. In her book Unlocking the Gift of Discernment, Australia’s Helen Calder, founder of Enliven Ministries, put it this way:
If we stayed in a place in Asia where strange spirits were worshipped, I encountered them in my dreams. If we ministered in a region or church where spiritual warfare was occurring, I felt the battle acutely.
We were often led to wage spiritual warfare or intercede through my sensitivity to the spiritual realm.2
The Role of Discerners
Discerners are spiritual watchmen and gatekeepers. The Bible talks about the role of watchmen and gatekeepers in a very practical sense. In ancient times, watchmen were guards who would watch from high towers and walls over their grain fields and cities. One of the Hebrew words used for watchmen is the word shamar, which means to watch, protect, keep and guard.3 Watchmen would watch for any sign of danger from potential trespassers or enemy armies who would want to invade, rob, spoil and destroy the fields or the city. Gatekeepers were attendants at the city gates or other designated gates who would control access to the city and other important places. Watchmen, then, would work with the gatekeepers to keep the gates shut and guarded at any sign of danger.
Those with the gift of discerning of spirits are both spiritual watchmen and gatekeepers for their church and city and beyond, as the Lord directs. They “shamar” the land and genuinely discern spiritual enemies, what they are presently doing or what they are about to do. Several years ago, our head usher had become agitated at a male visitor who had dropped off a young boy at our children’s service. He began questioning the visitor and asking him the nature of his relationship with the young boy. Everything seemed to check out, but our usher could not get over it. He became so agitated that he asked the man to leave the church campus, which is something we never do without a tangible reason. I was really taken back by our usher’s behavior and debated this within myself. Not long afterward, however, Megan’s Law was passed, allowing the public to look up sex offenders by city on the Internet. Would you believe that the man who brought the boy was on the list? Now I understood the “shamar” reaction that our usher had, although it did not make sense at the time.
Several years after this incident, I had a dream of a very good-looking man asking me—more like begging me—for permission to come through my city. Remember that the gift of discerning of spirits also works inside our dreams. Through this gift, I knew that this charming, good-looking man was actually some kind of serial killer. He kept asking me for access through the city, and I kept saying no. He finally gave up asking, and the dream ended. A few days later, I read in our local newspaper that members of a terrorist sleeper cell had been caught and arrested in a nearby city. I also had the distinct impression that, by the grace of God, my dream and what happened with this terrorist cell may have been connected. In the dream, I refused to open the spiritual gates of our city to a serial killer looking for access. What was handled in the spiritual realm was immediately revealed in the natural realm. Through my gatekeeping and likely the similar efforts of some other such gatekeepers throughout the city, a religious enemy, an actual “serial killer,” was not only locked out, but was also shut down.
Not only do discerners shut the spiritual gates to the wrong things; they also open the gates to the right things. Cindy Jacobs, founder of Generals International, and her companions were attempting to pass out Russian tracts in Moscow’s Red Square. “To my amazement no one would take them,” she wrote in her book Possessing the Gates of the Enemy. “In fact, they ignored me, staring straight ahead as though they had not heard or seen me.” 4
Cindy discerned that they had entered the territory of a spirit controlling Red Square, and that it was blinding the eyes of people to the Gospel (see 2 Corinthians 4:3–4). Cindy and her team used their spiritual authority to bind Satan in the name of Jesus and command spiritual blindness to fall off the people in Red Square. Then they prayed for God to open a door for them to share the Gospel. They saw results immediately! People readily received their tracts, even asking for more.
As spiritual watchmen and gatekeepers, discerners often become great intercessors. An intercessor is one who advocates in favor for another, and discerners passionately advocate for people and for their cities in prayer. What drives them so fervently into prayer is often the pain and discomfort they experience as they discern the spiritual realm through their senses.
Henry (not his real name) was working in an assisted living facility that had a separate locked unit for patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Every time he worked that floor, he experienced tormenting fear in the atmosphere and was petrified even to be there. He also noticed a distinct change in a certain patient who had been transferred to that unit. The patient became deliriously afraid and tormented, and then quickly died. Then another patient kept saying over and over, “There’s a spook in here!”
Henry finally clued in that he was discerning a spirit of fear in the Alzheimer’s/dementia unit (see 2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV). He began to pray and command the spirit to leave. Thankfully, there was a quick turnaround. That oppressive fear no longer afflicted him as he worked the floor, and the patient who saw the spook, which was probably a demon, stopped seeing it. Again, this is the “not so great” aspect of this gift, but those who discern in this manner will pray diligently to get relief both for themselves and others.
Managing Overwhelming Discernment
It is one thing
to be sensitive to spiritual atmospheres and quite another thing to be overwhelmed by what you discern. What I mean by that is that some people have been anointed so strongly with this gift that what they discern can become too painful to carry or too overwhelming to allow them to function. And when they don’t know they have this gift, all too often they end up on medication and in psychiatric facilities, falsely believing they are going crazy. I have recovered many such persons to their place in the Body of Christ, helping them learn how to manage their discernment. They are shocked when they discover how strongly they are gifted, soon realizing that they pay a higher price for what they have been privileged to discern about the spiritual realm.
There was a widely spread news report about a South African sign language interpreter who was assigned to former President Barack Obama at South African President Nelson Mandela’s memorial. As he signed Obama’s speech, Thamsanqa Jantjie, 34, claims that he “lost concentration, and started hearing voices and hallucinating,” according to Johannesburg’s The Star.5 Upon investigation, it was discovered that Thamsanqa reportedly suffered from schizophrenia and would see visions of angels. He also had some history of turning violent.6
Thamsanqa became widely criticized in the media, being labeled as a “fake” interpreter. I cannot argue for or against this man’s credentials, as I have no knowledge of the situation beyond the media reports. I did watch his videos, however, both on and off stage. Since I have walked this kind of thing out personally and with others and I know what it looks like, I would like to suggest an alternative. Is it conceivable that Thamsanqa was not crazy, but had a gift from God? Could he possibly have had the gift of discerning of spirits instead?
People like Thamsanqa are often connected to the spiritual realm, but they don’t know why. This is intended to be a blessing from God, but it becomes a point of defeat until you learn how to control it. Instead of discerning through your senses, it feels more as if you are being ransacked in your senses. You see apparitions, you hear voices, and it is overwhelming on your emotions. Nothing is yet filtered through the Scriptures, and you are therefore not exercising wisdom and self-control about it. This unfortunately brings disruption to your world, until you know what you have is a gift and you learn what to do with it. To make matters worse, the way this gift often manifests can be mistaken for symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.
Jami Redman from Bozeman, Montana, believes she has had the gift of discerning of spirits her entire life, but did not know it or understand it. She said that when she gave her life to Jesus, her sensitivity to the spiritual realm then escalated beyond what was manageable. She thought she was cursed, crazy and schizophrenic. She was volatile with explosive rage because of the “voices.” Totally desperate, Jami attended a conference where I was teaching about this gift. Hope filled her world again as she realized she was not crazy, but needed to learn how to manage and control her strong discernment in the context of a healthy church community. Jami still sees and senses things very strongly, but steadies herself through promises in the written Word and in prayer. She has also learned to look for ministry opportunity when she has had a rough day filled with overwhelming discernment. She knows that someone nearby is suffering with what she just walked through, or that she has experienced an atmosphere that needs her prayerful intervention.
Like Jami, Michael (not his real name) could see and sense the spiritual realm for as long as he could remember. His traditional parents, however, believed that what was happening to him was demonic and did their best to shut it down. Left without help, Michael was unable to process all the spiritual information he was absorbing. This left him severely depressed and overwhelmed as a teenager and young adult.
“I turned to psychiatric medication and alcohol to try to get relief, but couldn’t get a grip on myself most days,” he explained.
Michael climbed out of his severe depression when he broke rank to attend a charismatic church that believed in all of the gifts of the Spirit. Finally, he found acceptance for his unusual spiritual package and a healthy place to process the myriad of things he was discerning. Michael often discerns what is going on with people without having been told, and then he ministers healing and deliverance out of that supernatural knowledge. He also discerns spiritual atmospheres in his church, his city and his travels.
“It’s still overwhelming, but now I have context,” he shared. “I can usually pray through it and get to the other side, or I can get help when I need it.”
I shared with you in the first chapter about how I have had supernatural experiences my entire life. These experiences would have been misdiagnosed as a mental disorder if I had ever talked about them. And the symptoms only escalated after my deliverance from demonic oppression, instead of diminishing. Having an extensive family history of schizophrenia, I naturally wondered if I were losing my mind. My late great-aunt, for example, spent the last years of her life in a mental institution with this diagnosis. Her religious denomination had made no room for the supernatural. If her schizophrenia was truly a medical condition, her church was not looking for supernatural healing for her (see Mark 16:17–18). If it was a misdiagnosed gift from God, her church could not redirect her. She was imprisoned for the rest of her life because she had been denied the freedom in her church to learn about the Holy Spirit and operate freely in His gifts. How sad and how true for so many people.
The Holy Spirit graciously taught me through the Scriptures and through His voice that I was not crazy, but had a gift from Him. He then began to teach me how to walk out this powerful gift in a way that was a blessing to me and to others. It has been a long road of discovery, with plenty of mistakes and victories along the way. I also learned that the things we discern are not the end of the story. We discern so we can respond. When we discern the presence of the Lord, we can worship. When we discern a demonic atmosphere, we can change it. We are supposed to change it.
Changing Spiritual Atmospheres
Jesus stood in a boat off the shore of Galilee and taught the multitudes until evening. He then told His disciples, “Let us cross over to the other side,” and they got in their boat and left (Mark 4:35 NKJV). You probably know the story, but a terrific storm emerged along the way, making it appear as if the boat would capsize. The disciples panicked, while Jesus slept peacefully in the boat’s stern. When they finally woke Him up, Jesus “rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still!’ And the wind ceased and there was a great calm” (verse 39 NKJV).
Here we see the disciples becoming overwhelmed by an atmosphere. This atmosphere was a storm, but it was not just any storm. When Jesus told them, “Let us cross over to the other side,” it was because they were on divine assignment. On the other side of the sea was a man possessed with a legion (thousands) of demons, a man Jesus would fully deliver. I believe these spirits sensed Jesus coming toward them and sent a killer storm to try to stop His arrival. Jesus shifted the atmosphere, however, by speaking to it. His disciples were in chaos, but He declared His peace to the storm. We can do the same.
When you encounter a demonic atmosphere, you, too, need to speak to it. You speak to the atmosphere out loud and with authority, going in the opposite spirit of what you have discerned. We read in Scripture, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21 NKJV). We are also exhorted that if something is standing in our way, we can speak to it and it has to move (see Mark 11:23). God uses His words to give life to the dead and call things into being that are not (see Romans 4:17). Being created in His image, you and I will also use our words to change what needs to be changed.
David Jenkins, from Texas, served as an on-site intercessor at a men’s retreat in Colorado. His job was to pray over the facilities prior to the arrival of the retreat guests, since many groups had used the location for different purposes. As he entered the various buildings and rooms, he would typically experience a wave of feelings, usually negative.
“It was fairly simple to remedy once I d
iscerned it,” David said. When he discerned hopelessness by feeling it within himself, for example, he spoke to hopelessness out loud. “Hopelessness, go away!” he commanded. “I release hope and faith instead.”
He did this with many more issues as he discerned them. David was amazed at how his thoughts and feelings instantly changed from room to room, corner to corner, and even bed to bed. As he spoke to these issues, he could feel darkness shifting and being replaced by light.
Another way to purge an atmosphere is through praise and worship. Bible teacher and evangelist Perry Stone shared about the spiritual struggles he experienced while traveling around the country in his early days of ministry. He wrote in an article for Charisma magazine that he and his wife would have bizarre and disturbing experiences in hotel rooms, accompanied by strange and demonic dreams. He learned, however, that he could change the atmosphere of his hotel room if he would play praise and worship music in the room continuously.
“In Scripture, David’s music brought refreshing and peace to a tormented king (1 Samuel 16:23),” Perry wrote. “If music had this effect in David’s life and ministry, why would it not have the same effect today?”7
It sure did! This changed the atmosphere of his hotel room every time and made his stay much more peaceful.
Dr. Violet Kiteley, the late pastor of Shiloh Christian Fellowship in Oakland, California, discovered the impact of praise and worship on her troubled city when the police called on her, as well as on her church, to “do something” about Pleitner Avenue. At the time, Pleitner Avenue was notorious for gangs, drugs and prostitution; it was one of the most dangerous areas of the city. Dr. Kiteley and her congregation understood that this was first a spiritual problem and needed a spiritual solution. In Psalm 149, we read that the high praises of God work to bind kings and enemies. With that in mind, Shiloh Church held a block party on Pleitner Avenue for three weeks in a row. This block party included a barbecue and giveaways, praise and worship according to Psalm 149, and an evangelistic message. The results were so incredible that the police notified the media of the good news—70 percent of the drug pushers moved out of Pleitner following Shiloh’s praise party that shifted the atmosphere.8
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