The 5 People You Should Never Let Lay Hands On You

Many Christians will let almost anybody pray for them. Someone says, can I lay hands on you and pray for you? And without hesitation, they would say, of course. What if I were to tell you that the Bible actually warns us not to be careless when it comes to laying on of hands. Paul tells Timothy, do not lay hands on anyone hastily, nor share in people's sins. Keep yourself pure. 1 Timothy 5.22 Why would Paul give such a warning? Because prayer is not just communication with God, it also involves spiritual transference and influence. Now, I'm not talking about fear, and I'm not saying that believers should walk around being suspicious of everybody. I'm not saying that every person who prays for you is dangerous. What I am saying is the Bible does give us warning, and we must exercise discernment. And today I want to show you five people you should be very careful about allowing to pray for you and lay hands on you. First of all, what is laying on of hands? In Hebrews chapter 6 verses 1 through 2, it talks about the elementary principles of Christ. How we have to lay the foundation, repentance from dead works, faith toward God, doctrine of baptisms, and it actually talks about that the fundamental doctrine, elementary doctrine is on laying on of hands. Of course, the resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment. So, laying on of hands is a biblical foundational doctrine. In the Scripture, hands were laid on people for a blessing, for healing, for commissioning, for ordination, and for impartation of ministry responsibilities. We see Moses and Joshua, Numbers 27, where Moses lay hands on Joshua and he publicly commissions him. We see Jesus healing the sick by laying hands on them. We see Paul tells Timothy to store up the gift that Timothy has, which is interesting, the venue through which this gift came, through the laying on of hands, which tells us that it becomes a vehicle through which impartation or commissioning or blessing can be done. There's even a story in the Old Testament where the priests would lay hands on an animal and almost like symbolically release sins on that animal and then one animal would be killed and then the other animal would be released. And so, we're not saying in any way that you can, you know, put your sin on someone or you can put your righteousness on someone by just laying on of hands. But to treat laying on of hands and people praying for you carelessly and it's just a nice gesture, they're offering prayer and you just receive it will be also very dangerous. So, laying on of hands is not something magical but the power comes from God. It does involve spiritual influence and as I mentioned, the Bible tells us not to treat it casually. So, here are five people you should be very careful about letting them lay hands on you. Now, before I mention that, I do want to highlight, I have a VladSchool and on that VladSchool, I have a lot of courses. One of them is actually Foundations that takes the laying on of hands teaching in the detail. All of my VladSchool courses are free and you can do them as your small group. They're very short but they have like a bunch of lessons in each course and it's going to be a great blessing to your life. So, check it out if you want to learn more about the foundational teachings of Christianity. So, here's the first category of people that you should be weary about them laying hands on you. These are the people who are living in open rebellion against God. The Bible says in Proverbs 15, 8, it says that the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. So, anything that the wicked person does displeases God and the word is abomination. It's stronger than God is just displeased. God is provoked to anger. So, the last thing you need from these types of people who are wicked is to get some kind of an impartation or some kind of a blessing. God is against them. You don't need their prayer. You don't need their blessing. So, we're not talking about imperfect people. We're talking about people who knowingly reject God's commandments. You know, character matters. Submission to God matters. Therefore, don't seek spiritual influence prayer from people who refuse God's authority. One of the examples is Korah in the Bible. And Korah was not a witch doctor. He was not a pagan. He was actually a leader among God's people. He challenged God's appointed leadership and that's where you see when somebody is rebellious. When they constantly challenge, undermine and rebel against appointed leadership. He gathered followers around himself and he was spiritually influential yet rebellious. And the earth swallowed him up and his followers. So, not everyone in the ministry, not everybody in influence or who has influence or anointing is submitted to God. And so, having a position or a role or a title in the church does not mean somebody has intimacy or integrity. You got to be very careful about that. So, never seek a blessing from someone who's openly resisting the God they claim to represent. Especially when they're openly resisting the appointed authority whether it's in the church or in the organization where they claim to serve under. The second type of people that you should not lay hands on you or you should be weary about laying hands on you and that is the people who are using spirituality to control others. The Bible clearly tells us to be aware of false prophets. What's interesting is that that is given to the followers of Jesus. That tells us that not every prayer that people pray is pure. Some people use God told me to manipulate and to dominate and control naive, innocent and sometimes just desperate people. And other people, they will use prayer or praying for you as a way to gain influence over you to create dependence on themselves instead of Christ. So, when you notice constant control, when you notice constant pressure, when you notice constant, instant, special revelations towards you, you got to be very, very careful. There is a story in the Bible where the Simon sorcerer, he sees a Peter apostle laying hands on people and the Holy Spirit is given through laying on of hands. Again, we're seeing this connection when through laying on of hands God imparts certain gifts. And so this Simon, he recently converted and he used to be like into witchcraft and used to do sorcery. So he comes and gives money to buy this gift to be able to lay hands on people and impart things. Now, Peter rebukes him and says, your heart is not right before God. This is very important because Simon wanted spiritual power without any spiritual transformation in his life. So you have to be very careful because these Simon, the sorcerers exist in church today. They will use spiritual gifts to gain influence, to gain status and to gain control. And so how do you discern that? Is that you watch for these people because the true spiritual leaders, they always point you to Jesus. People who are manipulators and sometimes it's the bitterness from their past. Sometimes it's the witchcraft kind of a manipulative, dominating, intimidating tendencies they picked up. They need to be submitted and they need to repent of that. So manipulators will point you to themselves. One of the big thing, the difference here is in the first one is the rebellion. In the second one is they really want you to be dependent on them, not on the Lord. See, even the ministry, the fivefold ministry is to equip the saints for the work of ministry. The fivefold ministry is not so that the saints will be always propping up and honoring this big shot pastor. It's so that the big shot pastor empowers the saints to be doing big things for God. And so we have to be very careful when people like that insert themselves into your life and they seek to impart things and they really want to create codependency on you instead of releasing you into knowing God more intimately. Again, I want to just take a short pause and mention that I do have an e-course called Foundations on Vlad School. And while you're there, kind of search around. There's a lot of other courses that I have there. Each course is about 15 to 12 minutes. Each lesson in the course is about 15 minutes and then each course has about 7 to 15 lessons and it really will help you to dive in and understand your Christian faith. So let's go to the person number three that you should be very weary when they lay hands on you or they offer all kinds of spiritual influence over your life. And this is the person who is filled with bitterness. Now the Scripture clearly tells us in Hebrews 12.15 lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble. See, when a person has bitterness, it contaminates everything in their life. Unforgiveness will affect their spiritual health and some people with bitterness, the way it surfaces is it surfaces in constant gossip, in constant criticism and whatever their heart is filled with eventually comes out through their words. So when they come to pray for you, when they come to lay hands on you but they are filled with bitterness and you know that. Now sometimes we don't know that but sometimes it's very obvious. They're bitter. They're constantly complaining. They're constantly talking about the past and what somebody has done for them and you could see that they're not healed. And here they are offering to bless you and pray for you and it's not just the act of them laying hands on you. It's that when they lay hands on you and they exert spiritual influence, you begin to be drawn to them and you eventually begin to pick up the same spirit that they carry. You know, you begin to pick up this tendency. You begin to pick up these views. They begin to insert you in their little pity party and then in their little bitterness club. And so it's very dangerous because then you begin to pick up those things. How do you think Satan convinced one third of angels to join him against God? Somehow he was able to influence them with his own bitterness, with his own pride. That spilled on other people. You eventually pick up other people's vibe. I always tell people, be careful of whose tribe you are in because you will carry their vibe. Whatever they're carrying inside is going to spill on you. You will catch the residue of that. You know, you see King Saul is a good example of that bitter leader. Everyone around him suffered and David had to remove himself from the presence of Saul because Saul carried bitterness, jealousy, obsession, suspicion and he was still technically a king yet he was so corrupted and he was so bitter, so upset and so offended. He was actually demon possessed and so David had to distance himself and not allow to be in close proximity though he still honored him because that is very dangerous to be near people like that in your life. So don't seek spiritual ministry from people whose lives are dominated by offense. Offended people always have a reason. Offended people always have a cause and don't jump on that. Don't follow them. Don't be a part of that. It will destroy your destiny more than anything else. If Satan will not use sin to derail you, he will use offense and the way some of us pick up offense is from offended people. Sometimes it's not somebody did something to you like it's the fact that you're around people who begin to read into things that should have never been read into, who begin to exaggerate, inflate hurt feelings and you begin to see life through their lens and then you find yourself being trapped by offense, you find yourself leaving churches, you find yourself ultimately leaving your calling because you're busy living a life of offense. The fourth type of person you should avoid creating spiritual influence on you is people who love attention more than they love God. And Jesus talked about these people, Matthew 6, verse 5, they love to pray standing in the synagogues. And these are people who, they don't care about serving you and serving God. They love to be seen. They need to be needed. A prayer to them is about performance. Ministry is all about self-promotion. Pride and spiritual authority cannot coexist too long. And so sometimes ministering to you, imparting you is really actually about the attention they're getting and feeling important. And so Jesus is very different than those kind of leaders. Jesus washed people's feet, Jesus served and Jesus humbled Himself. You know example of that is Absalom. Absalom was very charismatic, very gifted and very talented and he was related to the king. And so what he would do is he would use his position to really feed his ego. And people fell for that spell. Imagine being under that kind of influence. It actually destroyed them. It hurt them. A lot of people died because of that. Because see, Absalom stole people's hearts. He loved popularity. All of his life was built around bitterness and influence and himself. So what people did is they fell for it and then they followed him. Because that's what happens when you begin to receive that spiritual influence, that impartation, that laying on of hands and spiritual influence, you begin to follow these leaders. And when all they're doing is building themselves instead of building you, they're asking you to serve them instead of them serving God and serving you. Eventually decisions they make influence you. The punishment God or discipline God gives on them influences you as well. Because they're walking with like a nuclear weapon and everyone is affected within their radius. Everyone is affected within their proximity. So all of these people who fell for Absalom's charm, eventually Absalom led them to fight against David and many of them died. And so be very careful when you serve and when you are under an influence, spiritual influence that's full of pride, full of ambition and full of self-promotion. People like that will fall and their falling will affect you. So the safest hands that are laid on you are the humble hands. And so humility is such a rare commodity. Humility is such a rare trade but it's so necessary. It's so important. I think it's one of my biggest prayers and desires is Lord help me to cultivate humility. Not power. You know power is from God but humility pleases God. Humility is what causes God to release His favor. So humble hands are the safest hands. The last person you should avoid laying hands on you or the last person you should be weary of being under their spiritual influence and that is the people whose fruit you do not know. In Matthew chapter 7 verse 20 it says by their fruits you will know them. This means that you cannot be naive. You shouldn't be paranoid but you shouldn't be naive. You need to ask questions like what is their fruit? You know what is their reputation? What kind of life do they live? Are they accountable? Now sometimes people have bias toward people. I've heard you know people just being scared of people because they don't know them. And so giving a little bit of time and getting to know of who this person is is warranted, is necessary. So we shouldn't kind of just because we don't know somebody we just jump and right away label them as oh they're false or like I have a gut feeling. You know we have to judge the fruit. Your gut is not the most important ingredient for the sermon. You have to use fruit. Fruit inspection is very important. But the big idea is this not everybody deserves access to your spiritual life. You shouldn't be afraid of people. You shouldn't be afraid of prayer. You should not be afraid of people laying hands on you. You should trust God. And not every spiritual voice should have influence on you. Not every hand should be laid on you. Not every spiritual person is spiritually healthy. And the Bible teaches us to test the fruit to exercise discernment and to also walk in wisdom. Now let's just say that you have received a bad impartation and it's pretty common now online. You see people renouncing impartations from this minister or this minister especially when the minister goes through some online turmoil or online exposure or attacks. The Bible clearly teaches us that believers can receive unhealthy influence from people. Scripture tells us bad company corrupts good morals. The Bible does teach us that false teachers they deceive people and that bitter roots can spread. But the Bible does not explicitly teach that a Christian is permanently damaged because someone prayed for them or laid hands on them. So let's just say that you've had somebody pray for you, you know, influence you and then you find out they were not who you thought they were. Or you find out later they fell from grace, they fell from faith or something came out about their life and there was not just people taking shots at them but actually truth, you know, there were like receipts, there was evidence, there was truth that came out that these people were not who they claimed to be. So what do you do in that point? Well, number one is don't panic. He who is in you greater than the one that's in the world. Your confidence is not in somebody who laid hands on you. Your confidence is in Christ, the Holy Spirit who lives in you. Plus you didn't receive from them, you received from God through them. You know, Samuel didn't walk around, you know, renouncing the fact that he spent his childhood in the house of Eli which was very corrupt, you know, he was not contaminated by that. And so even though he was receiving instruction from Eli but his ability to hear God was way better than the one of Eli. So don't be afraid, don't panic. The second thing is you might need to renounce anything that is not from God. If you received some kind of a prayer, false teaching, manipulation, wrong beliefs, unhealthy influence, bring it to God and pray something like this, Lord, I reject and I renounce anything that did not come from You. I only receive that which is from Your Holy Spirit and from Your Word. It's normal, it's not bad. Book of Acts 19 talks about when people came to Christ, they renounced their former practices. So renunciation is biblical. Now some people might simply just kind of make a decision, I will never be connected to this person again. The season that I was in, I received from God even though God used this person and move on. Some people because they were deeply, even like sometimes develop soul ties to this individual, to this minister and feel like part of their life is now broken because this person fell or this person is not who they thought they would be. You just need to renounce it. Reject the stuff you received that was not from God and renounce it. Number three is submit everything to the Scripture. 1 Thessalonians 5.21 says, Test all things and hold fast to what is good. So Paul tells us that we have the freedom to test things, we have the freedom to try things but we got to hold on to things that are good. Which means not every spiritual experience is from God, not every feeling is from God, not every prophecy is from God. The Bible is the filter. So we keep what aligns with the Scripture and we reject what does not. And then number four, Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you. Be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit according to Ephesians 5.18. The solution to unhealthy influence is not the obsession with the unhealthy influence. The solution is the greater filling of God's presence. And lastly, and this is huge because some people go and overcorrect the bad influence they received by not allowing any influence in their life at all. But the last thing is you have to receive prayer from trusted leaders. There are people who have the fruit, there are people who are not rebellious, there are people who are not full of bitterness, there are people who are not full of pride that probably exist in your life but maybe they're not famous, they're not known, they're not visible. That doesn't matter. They carry authority and you need to genuinely seek prayer from those people. Ministry from those people. The Bible tells us in James 5.14 that we are to confess our sins to one another. But you don't need to look for some kind of a big personality. Look for a person who is big in God and who has legitimate fruits. So just because you got burned by leaders it does not mean that you go overcorrect to the extreme where now you don't allow anybody to pray for you. Not because these leaders have magical powers but because God uses healthy spiritual leadership to strengthen believers. Now there's an example in Galatia where Paul had ministered to them and false teachers came afterwards and influenced them. Now Paul didn't tell those people Hey, you received a permanent spiritual curse. He simply called them back to the truth and he said, Who has bewitched you? In Galatians 3.1 So if somebody prayed for you and afterwards you feel troubled don't become obsessed with that person. Become focused on Jesus. Renounce anything that is not of God, submit yourself to the Scripture and ask the Holy Spirit to fill you afresh. And remember that Christ is greater than any influence that may have touched your life. And so just pray with me right now. Lord, give me discernment to live without fear but give me wisdom to live without pride. And Lord, give me spiritual sensitivity without being overly suspicious. In Jesus name, Amen. Thank you for watching this video. Let me know in the comments below your experience. Have you ever had somebody lay hands on you and you found out that they were a fraud? And how did you process that? And don't forget to check out Vlad's School where you can learn more about spiritual growth and all those courses are free and also you can recommend them to your small group. If this ministry has been a blessing to you would you consider becoming our prayer partner or our financial partner? There's room for both. That would be really helpful for us to take this message even further through books, courses and charity projects around the world. And thank you everyone who is part of our prayer team and who is part of our partnership team. To learn more about that go to pastorvlad.org I hope that this video helped you to grow in your walk with God. Imagine multiplying that impact through the world. Through this ministry we've discipled over 160,000 students through our online school. 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