Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel 1 Chronicles 21:1

A few years back I wrote and told you all about how I had seen a goat-headed demon and he had said to me, “I will wear you out”. I had another vision in prayer of a demon pummeling me in the old chapel at my parish. The other day I went to my friend and mentor, Jansen Bagwell, because he is an expert in deliverance. I relayed to him a lot of things I am going through, including these past interior experiences. Jansen told me it was God who revealed those interior visions to me and that the Lord was showing me the intentions of the demons. By letting me know their intentions I can fight more intelligently.

I came home to ponder all that Jansen said and I was also reading Deliverance Ministry by the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services Doctrinal Commission. The book said that spiritual bondage doesn’t just happen to individuals, sometimes it can happen to entire nations, sometimes it can be through systems of operation. The book defined Spiritual Bondage as an inner demonic influence by which a person’s will is bound or constrained to some degree, such that the person is unable to freely choose the good in certain situations. Spiritual bondage involves some degree of consent to demonic influence, whereas oppression does not necessarily involve consent. 

And I thought of how I had become exhausted, but that it wasn’t just me. Person after person I spoke to were feeling the same effects. The intentions those demons had for me are the larger intentions the demons have for anyone who really wants to choose Christ. If Satan can’t convince you to mortally sin, he can manipulate the systems you use to get a back door of consent to influence your life and wear you out. I realized our systems have incited us to number the people who follow us, and even for those of us who don’t buy into that way of thinking, we are constantly bombarded with everything we turn on to “like and subscribe” so as to monetize even the holiest of things. And while we may genuinely not want to be influenced by this, the fruit shows us an electronic exhaustion and an attachment to reputation by numbers that has seeped into hearts.

God didn’t want David to number his people because by doing so David was relying on himself and his own military strength rather than on God’s Providence. Saint Augustine’s commentary on the psalms said, “when you begin to count your forces, you begin to trust in yourself, rather than Me.”

The result of David’s numbering was a choice of chastisement. He chose the 3-month plague. Does anyone see a parallel to COVID 19? And yet since then the world has gotten more frenzied not less. We turned toward technology to save, and our relationships suffered while we were locked out of God’s houses of prayer. At least David repented. That we should do the same. Lord have mercy on us.

Fast forward to today and it is plain to see that people don’t know who the real enemy is. The online world has further torn us apart, and even the “good” things out there, from the prophecy we see posted online, to the meditations, to the podcasts, there is an electronic exchange that seems to be stealing our souls. It’s a corruption that has seeped in, involving a level of consent. I sit here telling you this and knowing that I am typing this on a blog that wants to show me stats while at the same time my inbox gets bombarded by people who want me to use the platform to advertise. I have thus far refused because I really do want you to have one place to come to where an ad doesn’t pop up in your face. It’s exhausting. And please understand, I don’t begrudge anyone wanting to make money to care for their loved ones. That’s not why I am writing this. I think technology is a tool that is can be used for good, but what I see happening more often is a lack of real relationship and a distraction from what is actually Godly, even if the work we are doing appears Godly. The system is being usurped by demons, and we find ourselves in bondage.

My friend Rob Marco told me he bought a typewriter a little while back. He said he fell in love with the art of writing again. He said,

“There was something cathartic and real about the clackety-clack of the typeslugs hitting the page; the physical work involved in banging out paragraphs; the amazing fact that I could produce words without electricity anywhere, and didn’t have to worry about being hacked or remembering a login password or uploading it to the cloud. It does one thing and it does it well. There is no distraction, because if I don’t write, the machine just sits there like a boulder on the table waiting for me. I am not being sold something, reduced to that of a consumer. Rather, I can be a producer, should I choose to do the work. The page I pull off is real, inky, intentional but full of mistakes and typos – and real. It exists…..”

Rob wrote that in relation to a commentary on Latin Mass. But he hit on something that has affected everything, from the Liturgy to the minutia of the daily grind. Our identity is being stolen. Our worth is being questioned. With the advent of AI we need not even write anymore. We don’t even know if the videos we watch are real since AI can reproduce our images and our voices. And as the enemy trains our minds how to think, our bodies become consumers who don’t really produce. The humanity is gone. How many of you have a voice that tells you that you are worthless? It gets louder with each subscription to someone else’s fame. But that voice is a lie and so is the fame. There is only one who needs to see you and only one who is good.

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. Mark 10:18

Can we plant a garden without filming it? Does everything we produce need to be seen? Do we have prayer time that doesn’t involve headphones filled with someone else’s imagination? Is our reality real? or is it virtual? There is an electrical exchange that is happening, and it is hampering our ability to know God.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me John 10:27

This electronic exchange is purposeful and planned, and we have consented to the numbering. It is stealing our light. That is not to say that good and true Evangelization hasn’t also happened using these electronic tools, but I what I am issuing is a warning. It is an age old warning;

You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.  So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.  But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.

1 Thessalonians 5:5-8

Be children of the light. It is okay to use the systems we have but see them for what they are. Do not let them distract you from knowing Jesus is your Lord. Do not let pride creep in and check your interior motivation when using these tools. Do not think you can rely on yourself or these systems to save you. If you think you can then your mind has already been marked with a beast.

Keep heaven in mind always as your goal, your salvation should ever be at the forefront. Ponder what it would be like to be without all this stuff. If it was taken away, would you still love and seek God and know that He is good?

God is good, He loves you. Like and subscribe to that ideology and life will pour abundantly.

P.S. I am in the middle of reading a phenomenal book called Padre Pio and You by Mary O’Reagan. I hope to write a longer review when I am finished, but so far the spiritual wisdom held within the book has been a lifeline to me. I just wanted to mention that.

If you would like to purchase our new book Consecration to the Holy Family please click here or here