Spiritual Warfare Training Course - Level 1: Part 1 - Keeping Your Vows To God - A Key To Overthrowing Demonic Forces In Our Communities

Spiritual Warfare Training Course - Level 1
Part 1 - Keeping Your Vows To God
How Our Obedience To God Will Move The Lord
To Overthrow Demonic Forces In Our Communities

"Make vows to the Lord your God and fulfill them;
Let all who are around Him bring gifts to Him to be feared.
He will cut off the spirit of princes;
He is to be feared by the kings of the earth."
Psalm 76:11-12 (nasb)

Cover of San Diego City Beat Newspaper
"How James Hartline Became Hillcrest's
Most Notorious Christian Soldier."

I have been living right in the middle of one of the most dangerous, anti-christian neighborhoods in the United States for nearly seven years. It is a neighborhood composed of some of the most vicious homosexual activists found anywhere in America. It is a community where honor is given to men who parade down the streets wearing dresses, but Christian values are bashed with a hatred that stands on equal footing with anything found in the former Soviet Union. Many have asked me, "Why do you live in the midst of a community that hates and despises you so?" I can easily answer that question, "Because the Lord asked me to." The story of my life inside of Hillcrest, San Diego's gay community, was a front page, 2005 cover story in San Diego City Beat, a very liberal local newspaper (www.sdcitybeat.com/issue.php?IssueNum=164).

My testimony of coming out of thirty years of bondage to homosexuality has been told all over the world. Many newspapers and magazines have published articles about me, and just last year I was featured on an international broadcast of the 700 Club (www.cbn.com/vod/index.aspx?s=/vod/AR28). With this much notiriety comes a very steep price. Nearly every week, for many years, I have received hate mail from gay activists who despise my testimony of leaving the homosexual lifestyle (www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/aug/05082205.html). Countless gay websites devote columns and webpages to mocking me (http://nlsngrc.blogspot.com/search/label/James%20Hartline). I even receive emails from those who claim to be Christians, some from right here in my own town of San Diego, who berate me for my stand for Christ.

It would be tempting to think: "Wouldn't it just be easier to fade to a place of quiet contemplation, where I could remain hidden behind the four walls of my home, not bothering anybody and believing then, that everyone else will stay on their side of the street not causing me any trouble either?" That might be the nice, easy path for some Christians, but that could never be the life for me. Why? Because I have made a vow to the Lord and I believe that breaking a vow to the Lord is equal to taking the Lord's name in vain, a violation of the second commandment.

The Lord saved me from surely going to hell. I was absolutely doomed with no hope of getting out of homosexuality or the life of destruction that that sin had trapped me in. When Jesus Christ came into my life and imparted into me the Holy Spirit, God's word became alive and set me completely free. What then, do I owe the Lord in return for such a marvelous gift? One day the Lord answered that question: "James, I want you to stand as my witness in the dark places where you once were held captive."

Shortly after the Lord spoke to me about His desire for my new life, an image came into my mind: I heard a mother crying out in the night, "Where's my boy? Oh, where's my baby boy?" That mother was Sandra Giovinetti, the wife of Leo Giovinetti, the pastor of my church, Mission Valley Christian Fellowship. "Who will help me bring my boy home?" Sandra Giovinetti was crying out into the night. She was weeping over her oldest son, Bill Giovinetti. Over fifteen years ago, after Leo and Sandra had sent their son Bill away to college, he came home one day, completely indoctrinated with an anti-christian ideology. Bill had been raised all of his life to know Jesus and to serve Him. However, after one year in a secular college setting, Bill came home and renounced any belief in God. Even worse, he had completely given himself over to homosexuality and has now lived for many years with an older man in a very diabolic homosexual relationship.

Six years ago, when God first sent me to Mission Valley Christian Fellowship, I learned of the dark trap that satan had set for Bill Giovinetti. Without a tremendous miracle, Bill Giovinetti will die and go to hell. His mother Sandra has been crying out in the night, day after day, year after year, "Who will bring my baby boy home to me?" God spoke to me one day, "James, I saved you from the very trap that Bill Giovinetti now is imprisoned in. You go in there and you get him out." What could I say in response to this request from the God who had given me eternal life? I had made a vow that if God would save me from the bondage of homosexuality, I would give him my life to be used for His glory upon this earth. I made a vow to God. And that vow I will keep.

I said to the Lord in response to His request to rescue Bill Giovinetti, "Yes Lord, as you command me, that will I do." The Lord said to me, "You stay in the midst of Hillcrest and your presence, with My annointing upon your life, will eventually force the demonic prince sitting over that neighborhood to flee. It is that demonic prince that is guarding the prison that keeps Bill Giovinetti's mind ensnared. You will be threatened, you will be persecuted, you will be hated, but remember, before they hated you, they hated Me."

Our Hillcrest Mission Team during the Prayer Walk on Bill Giovinetti's Street
Crying Out to God to rescue him from the enemy's captivity.

It is this commitment to keepng my vow unto God that makes the passage in Psalm 76:11-12 so true and so relevant. If we keep our vows according to the assignment that God has given us, then we have given the Lord a place of cooperation, a path of connecting heaven to earth, where the Lord will come forth and drive out the demonic princes that enhabit the principalities controlling our communities.

How do we know that the Lord is moving forward to cut off the prince in the land as a result of our fulfilling our vows to God? One needs to look no further then what has happened in the gay community of Hillcrest since I accepted the assignment that God gave me to stand firmly rooted in that neighborhood. Many demonic businesses that we have prayed to God to shut down have fallen and continue to fall. Here are just a few of the many examples of ungodly enterprises that we have targeted in this battle and seen fall by the power of God:

ReBar shuts down after 20 years
Long-established gay leather bar closes Dec. 27, 2005
Copyright © 2003-2006 Uptown Publications

Local gay bathhouse, formerly called Mustang Spa,
in the Hillcrest/North Park area agrees to close down.
Copyright © 2003-2006 Uptown Publications


Celebrating the closing Of Sensual Delights,
An F-Street Gay Porn Store in Hillcrest


Celebrating the closing of the F-Street Video,
another Gay Porn Store in Hillcrest

The Bible gives us a simple point of order when conducting our spiritual warfare. It is written in the second book of Chronicles:

"If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray,
and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I shall hear from heaven,
and will forgive their sins, and heal their land."
2 Chronicles 7:14

This is our simple battle plan. It is ordained by God and if we will utililze His word correctly then we will see every community in this nation revived and changed for the Glory of the living God. We must keep our vows and our commitments to God. We are His people. We have made promises to Him and He has made promises to us. Keep your vows and God will move to save your families, your friends and He will drive out the powers of darkness and save our nation as well.