 It's a very small verse. This story comes from a man who was laying sick at this particular pool, expecting an angel of God to come down and stir the pool, and whoever would jump into the pool first will get immediately cured of all their problems. At this particular pool, Jesus himself walks into and he doesn't go in to stir the pool so that people can walk in and get healed, but Jesus comes to this man and he begins to interview him. He asks him questions, how long he has been sick, how long he has been laying there, what does he wants to be healed, and as he continues a conversation with him, eventually he tells this man these words. He looks at him and he says, "'Rise, take up your bed and walk.'" Well, this was Saturday and in the Jewish culture at the time, it was illegal, it was wrong on the Sabbath to carry any load on your shoulders or carry any load at all. But he still obeys, Jesus walks in with his mattress on the streets, people start calling him with names, said, dude, what are you doing? You shouldn't be walking today with carrying things. He's like, Jesus, who told me to do that, told me to do that, I'm gonna do that anyway. And he continued to walk. Actually, he didn't even know who told him to do that. When they asked him who told you to do that, he says, I don't know, somebody. And then later on, he meets Jesus and Jesus tells him, he says, listen, you've got healed. This is awesome. But if you continue to mess around, worst things will happen to you. So just don't sin so that you will stay healthy and you will stay whole. I want us to know one thing this evening from the bed. What our faith is toward our relationship with God, sin is toward our relationship with the devil. How God uses our faith through which he touches our life, Satan uses sin through which he destroys our life. Through faith, God saves you. Through faith, God can heal you. And through faith, God can bless you. But Satan uses our sin through which he brings pain and brings suffering and torment in our life. And this particular man, now we don't know what kind of sin he did, but we know one thing that Satan had an access to his life and through this access, he made him completely paralyzed where this man was completely unable to move, laying there for a very long time in his life. Satan and demons are real and they exist. Their primary object is to bring people harm. And when people commit sins, this gives them a legal right through which they can bring people harm. Many times when the topic of demons or Satan comes up, many people become very little bit spooked out, especially when you come to a prayer lines and I don't have the clip today, but what happened last Sunday when the prayer was being offered and a lady begins to convulse and a voice begins to speak through her, when an evil spirit speaks through her and what he did to her and everything. And when the name of Jesus is used and you see this evil spirit comes out, a lady collapses on the floor, gets up and says, I don't know what's happening to me. And people sometimes who walk in for the first time and they see that they're like, what is that in church? So some people quickly think it's a show and we pay them and they're acting. Other people simply saying, what kind of nonsense and madness is this? But what this is happening is this, is that there are evil spirit, there's evil forces behind the scenes who are hurting and tormenting people and they are bringing pain and affliction and they can paralyze a particular area of a person's life until Jesus comes with his power and strikes that root. The biggest misconception that we have as Christians is this one, a person who is demonized is a person who is completely out of control in every area of his life, kind of like in the movies where the person is levitating, chained up, a neck is twisted, veins are coming out and all this really lion or kind of a voice is coming out of them and it's all the time happening like that and so when we hear the idea that a demon can bring affliction to someone, we're like, oh yes, of course, it's to that Emily Rose in the movie. But it can never happen to anybody else or if it happens, it's somebody in a mental institution. It is true that there are people where demons have so much control over every area of their life that they're completely out of control. But for most of the people, that's not the case. The words that we are afraid many times as Christians is this, demon possessed. In the Bible, in the original Bible, in the original Greek or Latin, they have said, the people who studied those, they said that in the original Bible, in the original language, there is no such words as demon possessed. There's only one phrase that is used in the Bible. It's called demonized. And word demonized has nothing to do with possession and ownership. It always had to do with influence and then control. So that simply means that in average, good looking, somewhat functional human being who goes to school, goes to work, can still be demonized in a certain area of their life. That doesn't mean they're levitating at night and speaking gibberish. They're still doing fine, but what's happening in one particular area of their life, they are paralyzed, meaning they don't have control. They lose control. And no matter how hard they try, in that particular area, they could not control them. For some people, it's the area of anger. Not every day, but there comes a heated argument and they lose control. And in the moment of anger, they can say things that they will regret for the rest of their life. In the moment of anger, instead of zipping their lip, they pick up a knife. In the moment of anger, their fists go on flying and hitting the doors and hitting the kitchen and breaking things, throwing things, slamming the doors and saying really horrible words and walking out. Let me tell you what that is. It's a person who is being demonized in the area of anger. We all get angry. But the Bible says some of us get angry in such a way where we don't sin. But when you get angry and other people suffer and hurt, the area of anger and cannot be controlled, that area in that area, you are paralyzed. And that paralysis is not just your human, natural, carnal, sinful nature. It is the enemy who has that area under his influence and therefore under his control. Any area Satan has under influence, he has under control. It's kind of like alcohol. If you open your body to alcohol and you receive alcohol inside of your body, you come under influence of alcohol. Guess what happens? You come under control of alcohol. Now nobody forces alcohol down your throat. When we choose to open our life to a demonic influence, we open our life to him being able to paralyze in one particular area of our life. And sometimes he can leave all other areas untouched. Pay very close attention to what I'm saying. We have to remove this idea from our mind that people who are under influence of Satan are somehow all in mental institutions. Some are CEOs, some are very wealthy men, very wealthy women. Some are actually even healthy. But a particular area of their life is being demonized. Jesus cast out demons out of many people. Casting out of demons did not exist in the Old Testament. It wasn't highlighted. It started with Jesus and continued with his apostles. But we see very interesting case that most of the demons Jesus cast out out of people, these people were not out of control, levitating, jerking and yelling. Some of these people lived a very dignified and very functional lives. For example, one particular time Jesus comes to a synagogue and there was this lady who was bent for a very long time. And Jesus comes to her and instead of healing her, the Bible says he rebukes a spirit of infirmity. And this when this was done, the Bible says the woman boom went straight. And everybody was amazed and because it was done on Sabbath, criticism started flowing in Jesus' direction. And Jesus in defense for this woman and himself, he says this. He said, wasn't it good to lose this woman whom Satan has bound for this many years and she is a daughter of Abraham? So here is a woman who comes to church, who is a worshiper of God, but a particular area of her life is under influence of an evil spirit. The area of her back. A particular area in her health. Her legs worked, her eyes worked, her ears worked, her heart was working fine. There was one area where a demon paralyzed her back and he bent her. One particular time we see Jesus walks into the Peter's mother-in-law's house and she had a flu. She had a fever. We all get fevers, but this fever was something else because instead of praying for this woman, the Bible says he rebuked fever. Hmm. There could be a demon behind fever. And trust me, I had one few weeks ago, I say amen. I remember we were in California a few months ago. One particular man, I was speaking about the topic of freedom, how God wants to set us free. One particular man, he was an older man and I thought first he was drunk. He made his way, I just finished my message, I worshiped him, got up and kind of were singing a song. He makes his way to me in the front and the ushers over there were just staring to see how he's gonna beat up the preacher. There was no usher team prepared and our guys were kind of like not sure because we're not used to these things. He comes to the front and he begins to grab and jerk me and begins to tell me that I need to pray for him. And I was like, well, we're gonna pray for you a little bit later, just hang in there. And he becomes extremely violent and extremely loud. And most of the kids, they just like any kind of disturbance. So everybody started paying attention and I was like, Jesus. And I told Leo, I was like, Leo, take him out and stuff. We're gonna pray for him, but a little bit later we first gonna do a mass prayer and then we're gonna pray for him. And so eventually I didn't get a chance to get to him. We prayed for other people. When I just finished prayer, I walked toward him to stop praying for him and I see his face completely changed. I was like, hey, can I pray for you? He said, that thing was gone. I was like, what thing? He said, that thing that I had was gone. I was like, well, praise God. You know, I don't have to pray for you. Amen. I move on. I guess someone else, one of our team members came in and prayed for them. Next morning, I walk into the church and this man runs up toward me. I was like, oops, scenario number two, on a parking lot. But this time he comes in and he hugs me and his eyes are different. And he says, he said, I had this spirit inside of me yesterday. He says, it was anger. So I asked him like, were you drunk? He said, no, I wasn't drunk. He said, but some violence came upon me. He said, I wanted to kill you. And I was like, well, it's pretty obvious that you were not in yourself. And he says, after I received prayer, he said, something left me. And he said, my wife can testify. Ever since yesterday, today, he says, I have this supernatural peace in my heart. So here is a man who comes to church, but in the area of his emotions, he has no control. The areas of your life you are out of control is the area someone else has control. Is the area someone else has paralyzed you? That's why we come to church so we can learn and not just pop in pills and not just shoot ourselves up with drugs and not just shoot ourselves up with alcohol and put bandits on our problem, but go to Jesus, who's our deliverer, who can undo the paralysis, defeat the devil and set the captive streak. And somebody say amen. And that night, there was a particular girl who also had this, she had this weird experiences where she would sit in church and her stomach would twist and she immediately starts getting dizzy. She said, the funny part is the moment I walk out of the church, I feel perfectly fine. She says, the moment I sit in church, I begin to be dizzy and I begin to just, my stomach begins to hurt. I wanna throw up. And she says, I've received some prayer, but it's not leaving. And so, and as I'm talking to her, she's getting dizzy. And you could see that she's not in her right mind. And so I asked if I could pray for her, started to pray for her. And I asked her to put her stomach, her hand on her stomach and I let her in a simple prayer of surrendering her life to Jesus and renouncing every spirit that's tormenting her life and begin to command those spirits to leave. And she began to shake and shiver. And you could see something was happening to her and something like, left. She didn't throw up anything, but you could see it and she just almost like yawned it out. And I was like, how you feel now? She's like, I feel like 75%, just something just left out of my body. But there's some still left. We prayed one more time. And in this time, you could actually feel it, praying for this person. And in that very moment, I knew when that thing was gone. Right away, you could just kind of sense it and feel it. And when that thing was gone, she said, I completely feel fine. Next day, she said, through two services, no nauseanness, dizziness, whatsoever. Amen. Sometimes it could be small things that the enemy can use like loneliness, depression. Some people have fear of elevators. I know Derek Prince mentioned when his wife, he was married, his wife was one day spooked out in one of the elevators or some got stuck or something like that. And she had fear of elevators. She would never take elevators only the stairs. It seems like a small thing, not a big deal. And he prayed with her and he says, I just commended that spirit to leave. And ever since then, she said there's no fear of elevators whatsoever. We have to, I am not saying that behind every small little accident, small little red light, and you got laid to work, there's a demon. But to live your life, bearing your head in the sand, having areas of your life where you are out of control and not thinking that there's something behind that is also foolishness. Also foolishness. Also foolishness. I remember praying for a young man this weekend. And this particular young man occupies a very high position in the church. I will not mention details. And he came up to me, asked me about ministry, asked me about advice for how to do home groups and everything we start talking and talking and talking. And then at the end, I'm about to release him and then there goes that awkward pause that I usually anticipate. I need to talk to you about something. I was like, okay. And usually, I know what that's gonna be about. And he start to mention in area of his life what he is completely out of control. He said, Pastor Vlad, no matter what I do, no matter how much discipline I apply, I lose it every single time. And I told him about an area of my life, what I had out of control, what I was a Christian. And I told him that this area, at that time, there was a demon there. I was like, I'm not saying I had a demon. I was demon possessed, but in that area, a demon had an influence and a control over my life. And I was a good person. I was not shooting up drugs. I wasn't drinking. I was pursuing God. I was fasting every Wednesday. I would fast first month, first three days of every month. I would pursue God. I would give my money to church. I would serve church. But one area of my life was under demonic influence. And I looked at him straight in the face and I said, your problem is not just with this and this and this. You have a demon problem. And I'm like, until you wake up to the reality that this area of your life, you're paralyzed. There's nothing you can do because this area of your life, there is a stronger spirit there. And with the help of Jesus, renouncing this, you can find freedom and you will find victory. Had the opportunity to pray for him and I'm expecting awesome results. Somebody say amen. So here is a man who is paralyzed. He cannot move. Now this man, he's not paralyzed in his pinky. He's paralyzed everywhere. Every part of his body is under influence of paralysis. And Jesus comes to him and he touches his case and this man gets immediately relief and receives freedom. And that's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ wants to do. He wants to bring freedom in the area of your life where you experience complete loss of control. Loss of control. Maybe it's depression. You wake up in the morning and out of nowhere you lose control. Maybe it's cursing. You cannot stop that. Maybe it's smoking. Maybe it's drinking. Maybe it's pornography, masturbation. Maybe it's homosexual tendencies or certain things that you get drawn to that you are like a person on ice. You lose it right away. And no matter how hard you try to cold it, you lose it. I am not saying in any way you are a demon possessed person but that area of your life that you have no control over, that area Satan has his hands all over it. You may not demons might not come out of you when somebody receives prayer but you must understand your fight is not just against fleshly desires. Your fight is against the devil. And with Jesus only we can win against the devil. You can turn off your internet, throw away the computer but you're not gonna get rid of Satan like that. You can pop in pills against depression and fear but if the enemy is behind it you're not gonna get rid of him with pills. You got to step in into your calling as a Christian. Ask Jesus's help. Renounce that claim Satan has and receive victory for the glory of God. Can somebody say amen? And that's why in our church we want to see more of people receiving freedom from the things the enemy bound them by. We are praying for that every single time. I am personally as a preacher reading books because I know the measure of grace God has given us now. The measure for salvation. I would go sometimes to churches where people don't come for altercalls for months. They don't even believe there's lost people no more or maybe everyone is lost. And people, the service has ended. I've seen this already when I would go and speak. Service already ended, it's 12 o'clock. Everybody, some people even leaving and I would take two minutes to do an altercall. Six, seven people would run and weep. And I was like, well I thought the whole service was kind of already disorganized. And God gave us this grace. Same thing with healing. Because we talk about it, we pray about it and now we see people, God's healing people. When this last conference we were there you know there was maybe 20, 25 people that rose their hands for, that they received healing. And I received a testimony right after where one lady, one girl was watching live stream and she had some eating digestive problems with her stomach and right on the live stream Holy Spirit's presence touched her. She said, I felt completely better and went and ate the food she couldn't eat and was completely fine, sends a text message to her friend, she was from Los Angeles, and said I just want you to let them know that God touched me and I got healed. Because God has given us that grace because somebody say amen. But we have to understand that God wants to give us the measure of grace where people will be free from demonic spirits. I remember hearing a testimony of Guillermo Maldonado. He's the pastor of the largest Hispanic church in the United States from Miami, Florida. He was mentioning when the church was stuck and the church wasn't growing and things were really hard. He says he took his main leadership team and during a retreat he started to pray for them. And the next thing that he said took me by puzzle and surprise. He said I was casting out demons out of my leadership team. He said there was many demons in my leadership team. He said when all the demons came out of my leadership team he says then my team became strong and healthy and we started to grow. And today that church is 14,000 members. Well before it was just a hundred members. And today in that church they have recorded documented resurrections of the dead, people who get translated from one place to another in split of seconds supernaturally. And God who does incredible things in their ministry. I know same thing happened to our ministry. You know when many years ago some of you know some of you don't. When we took trips to the ministry of property by Joshua, most of the people if not all in our team received also deliverance. There were certain areas of their life that were under control of Satan. They were still functioning really well. But certain areas of emotions and when they went through deliverance and they would come back walking God's word they saw changes in those areas of their life. That's why I believe what God wants to do with our team is going to be powerful because anytime God sets someone free he will always give them the grace to maintain that grace and see revival in their life. Can somebody say amen? And so freedom is our portion. Casting out of demons is our portion for the glory of God. Now for a moment the thought that I want to end everything on is the thought where Jesus delivers this man from this paralysis and he tells him rise up, he gets completely healed. And when he rises up Jesus then goes on and tells him take your mat, take your mattress. The one that you've been laying on for this many years source of your comfort and I want you to take that mattress pick it up and walk. Now I want you to with me to think with me for a moment. This is the man who has not walked for many, many years. That means that his bones are very weak. His whole body is extremely unused to walking here is Jesus who tells him not only to walk Jesus tells him pick up something heavy and carry it. Almost sounds like Jesus. This man is going to crumble and collapse under the weight of mattress. Jesus removes paralysis out of this man's life but he does not remove his mattress. He leaves the mattress to that man and gives that man power over the mattress. It's as though Jesus took the power from the mattress and put it into man's muscles and says I removed the paralysis out your body but I'm not going to remove the mattress out of your life. I will give you the power to carry that mattress and have dominion over that mattress. Why? So that people can truly see you are truly and indeed you are made whole because you can walk that is a miracle. But when a man who was laying for most of his life carries a mattress that is a super miracle. I find out sometimes when God touches our life and he removes a certain demon out removes a certain sin out and he changes a particular area of our life. There are things God leaves for us to still overcome. You would think Jesus would throw a match for the mattress and light it on fire. You would think Jesus will roll up the mattress tell Peter and John is this guy is so weak. Let's give him a break. Let him just learn to walk for the first time in his life. Let's hide the mattress plus it's the Saturday. Jesus doesn't play it like that. What he does is the very thing that was carrying you for a very long time Jesus flips it over and says I'm not going to take care of that. I took care of the paralysis but I'm giving you the mattress so that you will exercise your authority and your victory. When God sets us free from certain things there will be things God will not give us freedom over for one reason because he wants to give us a victory. Freedom is what comes for free. Victory is what comes when you exercise the freedom you already received to pick up what you've been laying on what has confined you and what has been the source of your comfort when you were paralyzed and God wants to not only give us freedom he also wants to teach us what it's like to walk in victory and to make us stronger as we walk in that victory and it's interesting when the moment this man picked up a mattress there came the haters and they told him this, what are you doing? Are you out of your mind? Today is Saturday. What is this thing that you're carrying on your shoulders? Did you know that it's illegal to do that on Saturday? And I love what that man said. He said the man who took the paralysis out told me that I can carry it and I should carry it. You didn't take my paralysis out, I don't listen to you. I want to tell you something this when you experience certain level of freedom God will steal, live, leave some enemies around you for you to exercise your victory as a young believer. When you begin to step into that position of victory there will be a devil right there telling you who do you think you are? You think you can have a home group? You were smoking weed three weeks ago. What you think God can use you? You think you can now do this? You think God can give you a blessed marriage when you had this and that and the enemy right away will tell you, drop the mattress. Rejoice in the fact Jesus took your paralysis and go home really quickly. And that's where you have to reply to every voice that comes against you and tell him you didn't remove my paralysis and you will not tell me what I can carry and what I will not carry. Be like that man who looked at them and said I don't know which day it is today. And I don't know all the rules, but I know one thing. I was paralyzed, feet up and nobody could help me. This man who helped me also told me to carry the mattress. They asked him a question, who is that man? Listen very carefully. He didn't even know who Jesus was. Yet he still obeyed him. I wanna speak to those here who come in coming to church for some time and you feel like you don't know much about God. It's not a problem. The problem is when you begin to know more about God but obey him less. It rather raise a generation where we have young men and young women who just learned something about God in the last few weeks, but they've learned this. If God says you can do it, you can do it. And every voice that comes against you, I might not know much difference about which angels and which spirits, even which realms. I might not know the difference, justification, regeneration, certification, but this is I know. If Jesus who took my paralysis gave me the power over this issue. Listen, no devil in hell is gonna stop me. I will pick up my man and walk with it. It's better to know God less but obey him more than know God more and obey him less. The problem with us who come to church for long is we know so much about God but we never pick up our mattress. Certain problems that are left still around us and what we do instead of picking up our mattress and ruling over our mattress, we run from our mattress. We run from relationships, run from problems, quit jobs, walk away from relationships, walk away from certain opportunities. Why? Because we're scared to pick up the mattress. We think if we pick up the mattress, our spine will go crack. We think that we are so fragile. This is so hard. This is so difficult. Why didn't God remove my mattress? God left you a mattress so you will grow a spine. God left you a mattress because he doesn't want to just be free. He wants you to be a victorious soldier in his army. He wants you to be just like him who rules and reigns over mattresses. I wanna challenge you this evening. God leaves mattresses for you to rule over. It's pointless to pray over the things. God left on purpose to make you strong and to reveal. Will you obey God or will you listen to the voices of negativity, defeat, and the voices who say, you can't do it, you won't make it, you will fail? And someone say amen. Same thing happened with Israel. When Israel walked out of the Egypt and we see that in Egypt, God took care of the paralysis. God took care of Pharaoh. But in the wilderness, in the promised land, God left them some mattresses. There were some problems. They were not as big problems, but they were still there and these problems were left so not so that Israel can go and lay on them. Not so that Israel can run from them or crumble under them. God left these mattresses so that Israel will pick them up and against all of the feelings and voices in their head, they will carry that and say, listen, my God, who helped me in Egypt, he is with me. I overcome this, I am better than this, and I will reach my destiny. But instead of that, their mattresses became their graveyards. The Bible says God has given us the power to reign in life. Remember, there will be problems, Jesus will remove supernaturally. But there will be things he will leave on purpose to teach you how to be a fighter, to teach you how to be victorious. Your freedom is what you get when somebody breaks you out of prison, when somebody pays your ransom and you're free from the chains, but nobody ever wins a belt, a trophy, or a certificate. That way, that is only one when we fight and when we win. It's somebody's same hand. Your lack of knowledge about God should never be your hindrance for the lack of obedience to him. And obedience to God is simple. Do what he says. When it's hard, you won't fail. It's somebody's same hand. You know, sometimes in my life, last few years when we started to run with this vision to see people saved, and when me and my wife started to take the steps, the sacrifice financially toward the kingdom of God. And I remember when last year, in the beginning of last year, a certain mattress God told me to pick up, a certain area where God placed on my heart to yield to him. And I had a big phobia because this mattress was so heavy and I was afraid that my weak fragile spine will crack under the weight of this mattress. And I remember when picking up that thing that God told me to do, it seemed like a heavy mountain. I was like, Lord, this is so hard. I'm gonna go under. This is so difficult. How am I gonna make it? People think I'm crazy. I think I'm crazy. This is just so difficult. You're just abusing me, God, telling me to carry this mattress. I am so weak. I'm barely walking right now. Give me some time. Let's take it easy. Maybe not a mattress, a pillow first. But this is what I learned when you pick up a mattress. God has no interest in breaking your back. His interest isn't making it stronger. You can't make your back stronger by Jesus laying hands on it. You can only make it stronger by picking up that which he said to pick up. Even if that has been what's been carrying you all your life, maybe even if that has been something you've been laying on all your life, the negativity, the defeat, the fear, the anxiety, the phobias, the addictions, certain habits that you've been chained up and they gave you a sense of comfort for your paralysis. And maybe now Jesus touched your life but that comfort is still laying there and you're like, Lord, take it away. God says, no, no, no. I'm not just interested in saving you. I'm interested in raising you up and making you a soldier and a warrior. And I cannot do that without a mattress. I'm not gonna get rid of a mattress. I will give you the strength to rule and reign, dominate and overcome in Jesus' name. There are some things God will heal you supernaturally. Some things God will heal you by you taking God's promises like that mattress and saying by his stripes, I'm not a sick person trying to get healthy. I'm a healthy person fighting sickness and standing strong in the promises of God even when you feel symptoms in your body and you say, but Jesus is my healer. There's some financial problems God will take care of it but just supernaturally just certain things will work out and others they will work out by you standing on the promises of God and this is what you will find out. The ones that took longer, required more patience, developed you stronger on inside than the ones that happen instantly and God will do both. He'll remove the paralysis and he'll make you stronger by leaving a mattress and telling you, pick it up and carry. You won't die under its weight. You will find out how strong you are in me and how strong I am in you when you walk in a bed.