Demon Of The Day: Gluttony

Gluttony is not merely overeating, eating unhealthily, or eating when you are not hungry, although all of those are signs of gluttony and can give a demon of gluttony a legal right of entry to you. (The fact that evil spirits are legalists should prevent Christians from walking after their ways!) Make no mistake, gluttony is an evil spirits, and evil spirits are depraved and irredeemably evil with no positive characteristics. So, a person bound by a spirit of gluttony will have unnatural eating habits, compulsions, and cravings. Not only being denied food, but being denied the type of food and the amount of food that the demon is motivating to crave will cause such a person severe emotional, mental, or even physical distress. The person afflicted with this will not only think but fantasize about food all the time. He will use food as a motivation and reward. He will use eating as a way to mask his problems and as an escape. He will believe that eating and eating certain things will make him happy. At first, eating will make him happy for a time, but the happiness will go away. Then, the eating will not make him happy, but he will continue to eat anyway chasing the happiness that it USED to give him, plus he knows nothing else to do and cannot control himself. Whenever such a person is sad, lonely, nervous, stressed out, fearful, is having financial/health/relationship problems, food will be the refuge. The person will also allow himself to be trapped in bad situations, because rather than taking the steps required to extricate himself from it, he will just be passive, accept defeat, and just go eat something.

It is easy to mock or even hate the image that comes in your mind of a lonely pig hiding from the world eating a large amount of food while sitting on the couch in his stained underwear or pajamas, but the fact is that these are real people under demonic oppression, and they are in real pain! A great many of these people commit suicide, and if it is not by using a gun or pills it is just by eating themselves to death. So make no mistake, gluttony is no joke.

Another terrible truth is that this spirit seems to be hard at work in the church. There is the stereotype of the overweight church man or lady, and it is not a stereotype! Though it is not much remarked on inside or outside of the church in polite company, privately many worldly people attempt to psychoanalyze church people by claiming that the reason why so many Christians overeat (and why charismatics “shout” for that matter) is because it is an outlet for people who are inhibited and repressed, especially sexually. Of course that is nonsense and the reason for the gluttony is demonic, but the fact that it is common enough for the world to observe it and come up with strange theories for it only shows how common it is. The truth is, however, that people who are trying to live for God will not do the same things or go the same places that the world does, and that can lead to a lot of rejection, stress, and loneliness. And there is also great pressure to “be holy” after the manner of religious appearances, and to religious folk looking the wrong way or saying the wrong thing “will send you straight to hell” but getting thirds and fourths from the church buffet table is just fine.

There are also other definitions of gluttony that are not limited to food. One is wanting more pleasure from something than it was made for, another is having to have things our own special way (delicacy), and a third is demanding too much from people (excessive desire for other people’s time or presence). In other words, an inordinate desire for pleasure, or living to please oneself.

The question is how does this spirit enter. Most evil spirits enter as a result of a reaction to a person being wounded, neglected, or harmed emotionally or mentally in some way. A small child, for instance, may suffer a great loss, and resort to eating his or her favorite food in order to cope with the grief, make it go away. A child being abused or molested may do the same. A person who frequently experiences social rejection, academic, professional, or relationship failures will often take refuge in food. Parents may even expose their children to gluttony by allowing them to overindulge in food, sometimes as a result of the parent feeling guilty for neglecting the child for work or for being a single parent. Any person who has not developed the ability to cope with daily life and will run to the refrigerator rather than deal with problems is either a glutton already or is in danger of being one.

Of course, such a person will need not only spiritual deliverance, but a complete and total change in their lifestyle and the way that they look at life. Even with the demon gone, the physical, psychological, and emotional need for food will almost certainly still be there, as will the gaping wound, unresoved issue, or unmet need that the person was trying to cover up with food in the first place. Until those are dealt with, the person will be at risk for allowing the demon to re – enter. For the former, a rigorous but attainable and non – legalistic program of fasting is often necessary to break the person’s physical, psychological, and emotional addiction, and to build self – control. In most cases, this will be arduous, must be done over long periods of time, and the person will experience any number of failures and disappointments along the way, but the good news is that it almost always works! The dependency goes first, then the habits, then the craving. After one is done, he will discover that he didn’t even LIKE a lot of the food that he was eating! And as for the unmet need that was being covered up by the wound, well a lot of people will find out that the fasting to break themselves from the food was easier. It will involve confronting painful incidents from the past, especially childhood, including things long forgotten or more accurately repressed and buried under piles of food. The person who is eating because of failures must realize that the reason for the failures is his unwillingness to do only that which God wants him to do; a failure to submit to God and let God run his life. Up till that point, his life has been driven by his own desire to experience pleasure! But once a person stops living to please himself and starts living to please God, he will see that he will never fail. Also, the person who runs and eats because of fear and therefore never does this thing or that thing needs to realize that in many cases this is a demonic trap to keep him from doing what God wants him to do, and therefore this gluttony demon has been acting to hinder God’s plan. Imagine if David had gone off and eaten something when it was time to face Goliath, or Moses had done so when it was time to lead Israel out of Egypt, or John the Baptist had done so when it was time to proclaim the coming of Yeshua HaMashiach and baptize many of the people who would follow Him and ultimately preach His resurrection to prepare the way! If a demon of gluttony could have delayed those works being done, it most certainly would have, and that is precisely what many glutton demons are doing to hinder the people that they are oppressing in their service to God. But the thing is that even when the demon is gone, the fear is still there. The way to overcome it is to remember Bible verses such as “perfect love casts out fear” and “God has not given us the spirit of fear but of a sound mind” and then go forth and do EXACTLY what we are most afraid of, because often that will be the thing that God wants us to do, and what Satan DOESN’T want us to do.

Remember, Yeshua HaMashiach got the victory over all demons for us on the cross through His shed Blood. In order to claim that victory, we must first be saved and reconciled with Father YHVH by that same Yeshua HaMashiach, and then be honest about our behavior and need for deliverance, and then further be honest about what the root cause or issue of the behavior is and deal with that as well. There is no reason to be ashamed. Quite the contrary, you should be thrilled, liberated! Why? Because many gluttons are consumed with guilt over their behavior and self – loathing over their appearance. But finding out that it isn’t YOU, that there isn’t anything wrong with YOU, that YOU are not a filthy disgusting pig but rather there is a filthy disgusting pig defiling your temple of the Holy Spirit – your body – that is making you act that way and that once you are free of that demon you can finally take on a lifestyle and eating habits that God intended ought to thrill you. Knowing that once that is done you will be able to take on healthy eating habits and have the ability to exercise to improve your health and appearance ought to motivate you! Remember, all demons are liars. So if you have some glutton demon telling you that you are just worthless, useless, a pig and a slob, and that God will never love or accept something gross and disgusting like you, then know that this demon is LYING. Actually, what the demon is describing is ITSELF. The DEMON is gross and disgusting. The DEMON is what God will never accept. Why? Because the DEMON REBELLED AGAINST GOD! But that is not you. You are not a rebel against God, you are reconciled to God (or at least you can be, if you want to be please follow this link). So do not believe the lying demon, but rather know that your reconciliation with God makes your deliverance possible right now!

Father YHVH in the Name of Yeshua HaMashiach, please reveal it to people with gluttony what they have inside them, and motivate them not to feel ashamed but instead to seek deliverance so that they can be free. Please lead them Lord to wise, patient, loving counselors who can perform deliverance and then help them with the recovery process of fasting and teaching them how to let the Ruach Hakadosh conquer their fears, eliminate their self – hate and guit, and heal their wounds. Let them know, Lord, that victory is already theirs and all they need is to step forward and claim it! In the Name of Yeshua HaMashiach, Amen! In the Name and by the Blood of Yeshua HaMashiach, I bind and rebuke every demon of gluttony that is operating or trying to operate within the Body of Christ, or has its design on any child, and in the Name of Yeshua HaMashiach I command you to loose and free from the Body of Christ and from all children.