Deliverance

With so much attention on deliverance and so many “Experts” I decide to write into this subject to help bring some clarity. First what qualifies me? Let me give you some history and then Ill speak to some of the things going on.

I have always been involved in deliverance minsitry. It started when I was 6 months old in the Lord in 1979. Many people were getting delivered from drugs, and a huge number of other things and we had many demons manifesting. These deliverance went on for many years. We eventually did mission trips into West Africa in 1992 and went to the location were all the witchcraft in West Africa originated. Along the way we confront a village of four hundred witches, saw demonized monkeys, saw witches saved and delivered, and a typical night would do 2-300 full blown deliverances in a meeting. In 2000 I went into Nigeria and dealt with witchcraft at new levels. Witches behead people in anger that I as an apostle and had come into the area. I have seen curses broken, eyes regenerated where there were empty sockets, hearing come back, sunken skulls pop out, plagues dissolve, women be able to conceive, broke the power of water gods who impregnated women, and I had to take authority over a witch doctor who astral projected into my bedroom once. There are many curses put by witches. In one place a death in an intersection happened weekly because the witches had put a curse on it. I took 300 pastors, stopped the traffic broke the curse and until this day no deaths. These are only a few things ill share as most people in the western church wouldn’t believe or would acknowledge how real it can truly be.

In the states I have cleaned out homes where demons were being seen. In one home they were turning on the water faucet. In another they were seen walking around in the night. Our ministry was birthed doing deliverance as over sixty cult people got saved and went through ongoing deliverance. We had daily walk-in deliverances as well for 12 years. We confronted strong holds over families, broke generational curses, and took out a couple primary principalities. We have seen people levitate, contort and just about any kind of manifestation.

But what makes me most qualified to address some of the things I see is not just my experience in these areas, but my current position in the Lord as an apostle, father, leader, and biblical student of the word. There is a grace to bring order and see authority be effective.

There Is a lot of people in this hour doing a lot of deliverances with what I can see either a mix of understanding or a lack of understanding due to immaturity. There is a great need for deliverance minsitry, but it needs to be done in a right way and order. Demons are very stealthy and slick. Demonic spirits will point the finger at others and accuse them of the very thing they are doing. The main strongest demonic spirits will sacrifice other demons in a deliverance so they can remain hidden. So, you need to move based on what your spirit knows not what you observe. My greatest concern in this hour that we are repeating is the sensationalizing of the demonic and the over focusing and fixating that occurs. Jesus rebuked the disciples talking so much about demonic forces instead of talking life giving conversations. As deliverance is occurring right now, and I’m really concerned about how many are modeling how it should be done.

To me God will deliver people when deliverance is done in ignorance and without much knowledge. I call this Gods mercy on a person. In many ways this deliverance is very pure as all the motives are gone and the simple innocent desire for someone to be free remains. The person doing the deliverance may not have much knowledge or understanding. They may not have ever been around deliverance. But the great desire they have for the person to be free and the love they have for the person will free them. God loves people so much he will deliver them despite our techniques or understanding. Sometimes God heals people the same way. Sometimes God simply delivers the person without someone doing deliverance on the person.

This is deliverance that draws a lot of attention to the demon itself and the person doing the deliverance. Talking to demons, getting its name or history etc. does nothing to facilitate the deliverance and is not needed. Jesus asked for the name once and Legion responded. This was not to create a deliverance doctrine but to show the strength of the authority of casting demons out no matter the vast number. Showman’s ship deliverance sensationalizes deliverance and can empower the demon as attention is being given to it. Afterall demons do lie and will tell you things you want to hear. This type of deliverance is not done in love and desire for the person but for the one doing the deliverance to be known. This kind of deliverance can be lengthy and drawn out. It also can be very traumatizing for the one being delivered. It has a lot of confusion, chaos and many voices. Many times, there is not a set person leading the deliverance but an entire gang.

I understand there is much zeal, and that zeal may come out without much control being present. But this is about the person being free more than my own self expressions. In other words, many times showmanship deliverance is done for bragging rights and to create a following. God will still deliver a person even if the motive of the deliver is wrong. This can cause people to think this is the correct way, after all a result happened. But there is a more excellent way. The way of love.

Training in Deliverance

To me training deliverance is when a person wants to learn deliverance minsitry but has lots of struggles doing the deliverance. The only real way to learn deliverance is by actually doing it. This means you will make mistakes and struggle in some areas. Being with a seasoned person will help you through the journey. This is how I have always trained deliverance people. You can teach the areas understanding is needed in, but the actual application is when the real training begins. Jesus sent the disciples out and when they came back, he told them what had happened. No one should ever do deliverance by themselves and should always have at least one other person. When in West Africa we had over three hundred people manifesting, ripping their cloths off, smashing their heads into trees etc. We had to tie them up with ropes. The Pastors did not know how to do deliverance, so we showed them how and trained about twenty pastors as they did it.

Let me say this as I start this area. People perish for lack of knowledge. We need several things to be effective in deliverance. I’m not going to cover this as an all-inclusive teaching but a simple addressing the need for understanding. You can accomplish anything with love, even if you’re lacking. Love covers a multitude of sins, short comings and inadequacies.

With Biblical deliverance you need four things in deliverance. Know your authority. Use your faith. Hear the Holy Spirit. Rightly discern the spirits. Everything else is a bonus but not needed to be affective. You don’t need to know a list of demons and their attributes. You don’t need the demon to talk to you and tell you things because everything is probably a lie. You don’t need an exorcism cross, or holy water. You don’t need a demon to thrust about or scream to have a deliverance. You simply hear God, rightly discern, bind the demon and cast it out with the authority you have been given.

Most of the time it does not need to take a long time. Jesus said to a whole legion of demons one word “GO”. Other times it was simple words, but words filled with power and authority. What I see a lot of times is the struggles doing deliverance come from not knowing who you are in Christ and having things in your own life you need delivered from. You can’t deliver someone from things you are battling yourself.

Biblical deliverance is not a show. It never distracts from what is going on. Many times, demons manifest and eventually a whole room can move from worship focused on God to a demon who then is stealing God’s worship. When this happens, the demon is in control. Simply cast it out and move on or remove the person to another room and deal with it then.

We need no gimmicks. We need a voice of authority. We don’t need a bunch of people yelling but one person should oversee the deliverance and everyone else is praying and discerning. If demons manifest, you tell them to be still. If the person yells you tell the demon to be quiet. You take control right away and part of that means you maintain order. Deliverance is an ordered ministry.If a demon screams , I command it to be quiet. If it thrust about, I tell it to be still. I take away its power, influence and control of the moment.

Any type of deliverance is a traumatic experience for a person. The person needs much love afterwards and discipled. They need assurance and to feel they are accepted. The work of deliverance many times is the steps afterward and the days and even weeks following. A void needs filled and the person needs assured.

I also discern if deliverance is truly need. There is a big difference between demonic oppression and possession. Oppression is outward influences affecting internal decisions or responses. Possession is forces from within that can take charge of a person, that the person loses control. We can take authority over both. Sometimes we are trying to cast out when we need to prevent by stopping before possession occurs. Other times if we deliver someone, we need to place a deposit within of God’s love, presence etc. to fill the void. This is the real work of deliverance. The casting out of demons is the act of deliverance. After all the word salvation means deliverance and just as salvation is both a moment in an event and a long-term process, so is deliverance it has both the act of and the work of.

We need to touch briefly on taking out root demonic influence points and not just binding manifestations. There is no spirit of nicotine but a spirit of bondage. There is no spirit of addiction but a spirit of bondage. There is no spirit of lust, but perversion. Lust is excessive desire created in the soul as thoughts are planted by demonic forces trying to pervert. Remember jezebel was a person who had demonic influences.

Every demonic spirit has certain attributes. Those attributes reveal what spirit is working behind the scenes. The spirit of jealous will have competition, feelings of inferiority, and a suspension. Symptoms will point to a primary demonic spirit as work. There is much to teach on in these areas and again our class in our school is about 25 hours. I feel like we sometimes look very uninformed in the spirit realm and look foolish to the people of the world looking at how we set people free.

If we do deliverance with a works mentality, then then it will “wear out the saints”. If we, do it as a common action with real authority then it will not wear us out or wear us down. We also will not be getting backlash or having demonic activity coming against our lives. We are above these things and have been positioned to live at a higher level.

The sensationalizing connected with deliverance needs to be removed out of our lives as it only opens doors to wrong motives, elitism, pride, and a host of other things. To me the simplicity of authority is all that is needed. We need to show forth the majesty and sovereignty of our Gods power over evil forces and how quickly that authority can move anything that opposes.