 One of the things that I've dealt in ministry and being as a pastor is helping people sometimes to recognize certain things that hold them back from moving forward in their relationships or moving forward in their life with God. A lot of times there are these invisible chains that hold us back to a particular event or a particular person and they're not actually like demonic spirits but they are soul ties. Now I understand so many people say well this is just a charismatic invention of people who do deliverance. This is totally not true and we're going to dive into the scripture and look at what Bible talks about what Bible says about soul ties and most importantly how for us to break ungodly soul ties. Let's start with the first verse Genesis chapter 44 verse 30. It says, now therefore when I come to your servant my father and the lad is not with us since his life is bound up in the lad's life it will happen when he sees that the lad is not with us he will die. So one of the sons of Jacob is saying to Joseph in Egypt he says that Jacob's life is tied his life his soul is tied bound up meaning together bound up to the life of Benjamin. So that means that Jacob had this soul tie to his son Benjamin. Partially it was because Joseph was gone and then the mother of Joseph and Jacob and Benjamin she died a childbirth of Benjamin and there was this very strong tie that Jacob had to Benjamin. Now let's look at another example and this example that most people hear about David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel chapter 18 verse 1 it says the following. Now when he had finished speaking to Saul the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. So I want you to see one soul is knit to the soul it's pretty much like bound up it's connected and so where we get the idea of soul ties it's when your soul becomes knit together with another person's soul. David's David's emotions David's inner being not his spirit but his soul was tied up like chained bound knit together with the soul of Jonathan. Now let's look at the people of Judah the tribe of Judah in 2 Samuel chapter 20 verse 2. So every man of Israel went up after David and they followed so every man of Israel went up from after David and followed Sheba the son of Bikchi. But the men of Judah claved unto their king from Jordan to Jerusalem in King James version claved meaning they got attached they got knit together they are they closely followed they got pretty much infused with David the rest of the Israelites they walked away from David but the men of Judah had this close connection to this leader of theirs their king. So as we're seeing already parents can have very close ties to their children friends can have very close emotional and soulless ties to their friends and people can have these ties to their leaders people in authority teachers pastors or somebody that they look up to as a person of authority. Let's look at one more. Shechem was strongly attached to the daughter of Jacob Dina or Dina and I want you to read the I want you to listen to the verse Genesis chapter 34 verse verse 3. His soul so it talks about Shechem his soul was strongly attached to Dina the daughter of Jacob and he loved the young woman and spoke kindly to the young woman. It's interesting that it followed on the footsteps of him raping her you know they had a physical connection and then something happened she becomes connected to him and he becomes strongly attached he becomes connected knit to her soul and a lot of times that's what happens when people have sex they develop soul ties sometimes these soul ties can develop not through sex they can develop through an obsession that you have with the person or some kind of a thing that you go with the person that can really anchor you in that's not even physical like for example David and Jonathan this wasn't a physical relationship it was very emotional relationship that they had same thing with Jacob and Benjamin he had a very close almost like unhealthy dependence upon his son because the other children of Jacob noticed that if Benjamin is gone Jacob is gonna die and that's not healthy. Now the Bible talks about husband and wife have this relationship in Genesis chapter 2 verse 24 it says that I mentioned leave his father and his mother be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh they are knit together there is this knitting together between husband and wife and then we're gonna look at one more verse and then I want to talk about how to begin to break those unhealthy soul ties so as you're noticing there's healthy soul ties and they're unhealthy soul ties so soul ties in themselves are not bad the problem begins to happen when we have unhealthy soul ties by which we are controlled dominated manipulated or we are dragged on by our past or we are still connected to some kind of a previous relationship of our past that we need to move on from. Colossians chapter 2 verse 2 it says that their hearts may be encouraged being knit together in love and attaining to all the riches at the full assurance of understanding to the knowledge of the mystery of God both of the Father and of Christ so we as believers we are knit together to other believers in love not in control not in guilt not in domination not in some kind of a you know where somebody exercises this domination over you but in love we are knit together as different parts of our bodies are knit together so is we the members of Jesus Christ we are knit together not just to the Lord but to each other we are knit together in love God is in the business restoring your soul if certain parts of your soul are stuck somewhere else in the previous relationships in the previous episodes of your life in the previous seasons of your life maybe through certain activities that you were involved in that some portions of your soul are stuck somewhere else the Lord wants to restore your soul in fact the Bible wants us to worship God with all of our soul that means he doesn't want us to give fragments of our soul to an abusive relationship he doesn't want us to leave fragments of our soul portions of our soul and these particular things in some kind of a previous relationship he doesn't want to have hooks people to have hooks to our soul and for them to hold us back he wants us to worship him with all of our soul a hundred percent of your soul not just with your mind not just with your spirit but with your soul with your mind with your emotions and the Bible even says that in Psalm in Psalm 23 verse 3 it says that he restores my soul so maybe your soul got broken down as you went through relationships as you went through maybe abusive relationships perhaps you went through relationships where you were manipulated controlled you were taken advantage of God forbid raped molested maybe you had a very unhealthy dominant parent authority that just dominated your life and destroyed and broke your soul down perhaps you had somebody in authority in a spiritual place who destroyed or took certain portions of your soul and just crushed them the Lord wants you to worship him with all of your soul he wants to remove all the hooks from your soul and he wants to restore your soul so you can become a healthy being in your soul the devil wants to tear your soul to pieces and this is where the main verse about soul ties comes from in Psalm 7 in Psalm 7 and verse 2 it says lest he tear your soul like a lion rending it in pieces while there is none to deliver so the devil like a lion wants to tear your soul to fragments to pieces to portions so you're no longer a whole person you're a person with holes your person with hooks your person with fragments you're broken down that's what the devil wants but God wants to restore your soul God wants to bring your soul back so that it with your soul you can praise him and worship him fully so in the conclusion of this message what do we want to do if you found yourself today with soul ties if you found yourself with hooks broken pieces in your soul i'm going to give you just four hours to consider number one is to repent of ungodly soul ties repent of any sexual sins repent of depending on someone even if it's your parent even if it's your ex-boyfriend even if it's spiritual authority where you lost your even individuality where you lost your personhood you got so obsessed with this person you got so maybe admiring you admire this person so much or perhaps you were so fascinated or perhaps you were so weak and this person took advantage of that and you let that happen repent of any known sins where you've opened the door for your heart for your soul become a prisoner broken and torn to pieces by the enemy because of willfully going into relationships that God doesn't want you to be in or allowing yourself to go so deep in depending on the other person that you lost who you are you lost the you lost the freedom to think to make decisions and the freedom to be who you are who God made you to be number two is renounce ungodly soul ties renounce ungodly soul ties of codependence maybe on your parents where you can't function today and you're over 30 years of age and you can't be you you can't make decisions because you're so dependent in an unhealthy way renounce any soul tie you might have to your ex-boyfriend or your ex-girlfriend perhaps to somebody who victimized you renounce these soul ties perhaps somebody that you had a one night stand renounce those things repent of them and then renounce them maybe you had the situation that this guy had it with the daughter of jacob renounce those things because these are spiritual these are like little hooks connected to your soul dragging you and keeping you from going forward where God wants you to be number three remove any objects that connects you to that person or that event especially if it's relationships that ended romantic relationships or relationships that were very toxic and unhealthy gifts objects different sometimes people have different scarves different low necklaces earrings perfume cologne they have different notes photos anything that gets you connected to those things and just let the Lord lead you to that this is not some kind of a law or a legalism where where if something that connects you to that just remove that from your possession remove that from your life because that thing is over and whatever that it was over with it needs to die together with it it doesn't need to that does not need to drag into your future remove those objects that connect you to those soul ties i know people who sometimes hear a message like this and as a pastor you know i deal with people who are trying to get married and sometimes they had a previous relationship where things didn't work out and and they feel this like drawing toward that person they know they shouldn't be with that person this person already the other person already got married and they still feel like man but this is this is it for me and they feel stuck and the moment they take the objects the pictures the the notes the even the i remember one person scarf that was holding her back remove it god just opens the door and they're able to move forward into the next thing that god has for them and number four is receive restoration from the spirit of god this is the work of the holy spirit now you might need counseling you might need professional help but holy spirit is honestly the best helper i'm not in any way discrediting or belittling or minimizing the importance of counseling or therapy or professional help but the spirit of god is your helper as well he wants to repair your soul he wants to bring your soul back he wants to renew your soul he wants to put you back together he wants you to be whole again not the person with hooks and holes but for your soul to be whole again god bless you in jesus name as you go in the process of finding restoration for your soul