YouTube» Vimeo» Audio» Paperback» Website»
To advance the Kingdom, we must overcome an inferior one, that currently has dominion over people’s lives. This doesn't happen by our will power or hope, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, as we depend on Him and grow in God. To be free we need to remove the armour, or belief system, from our lives that have bound us up, so the demon or strongman can be easily cast out. Demonic strongholds creates an energy, but the Holy Spirit can energise us, to get great victory and freedom over any area of our life.
Introduction:
I have with me one of my daughters, her name is Joanna. My wife sends her love - she’s at home looking after Jo’s children. She’s being a good Nana with the three little boys. For those of you who don’t know us, we have 7 children and 20 grandchildren - very big family, very blessed!
It’s so wonderful to be with you; to have a chance to share with you, to pray with you, and to minister to you. We really love coming to this church. For us, this has been the doorway to Taiwan. It’s been the connection with Pastor Jonathan and Euan, and made the way for us to come to Taiwan. We’ve been coming two or three times a year now, for probably ten years; and seen thousands upon thousands of lives transformed. So, I really want to honour Euan and Jonathan for making room for us to come to this nation, because it was their invitation that made it possible for us to build a connection and some wonderful relationships in this nation.
God has given us incredible favour and we’ve been able to minister to pastors and leaders across the nation, to minister to churches, and privately, to some of the most influential people in your nation. I’ve been able to go to people that others would have no access to; and see God move in their private homes and touch them. We just love Taiwan. I love coming here, and feel a great affinity with Chinese people.
When we first came here, we had the most enormous spiritual conflicts that I have faced in ministry. Every day, the interpreter would get sick; day after day, a new interpreter. I’d say: “Hey, what happened to the last one?” “Oh, sick.” I never see them again. Finally at the end of the first week, I got very sick. It’s quite embarrassing when you come to bring the power of God to people, and you’re sick - I just had to push through what was actually just demonic resistance. I think about the first three or four visits, I would get sick each time, and so would the people around me. Then we just broke through it completely; and there has never been any trouble ever since.
Sometimes in our ministry, the resistance we face, we find, is very real. We just have to have the courage to stand up and face it, and push through, so I just determined that I would not back down. In my first week of ministry here, I think about day 4 or 5, I got so sick I couldn’t even speak. I remember waking up with no voice; and saying: “God, I did not come here to be sick. I came here to help.” So, I just kept quiet all day, and when it came to the meeting at night, immediately I had my voice. I finished speaking - no voice; and then there’s hundreds of people to pray for. I said: “Lord, I will not back down. Help me.” He showed me a key to releasing the power of God without me having to speak. So, we’re always learning all the time; and I hope to be able to share with you things that will really help you.
Main Message:
Our theme then, is deliverance and ministering deliverance. Since all of you have had some foundations in this area, I want to do more focus on removing demonic houses. I want to go past just the casting the demons out, to looking at the structures demons live in.
Just as a way of leading into that, we’ll just look at something Jesus taught on deliverance. We’ll look at Matthew 12:28. In verse 28, Jesus said: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.”
Jesus is teaching about deliverance; and He brings out several things.
1.) Deliverance is a manifestation of the kingdom. So, it’s the kingdom of heaven coming into the Earth. It’s the authority of Jesus establishing itself in someone’s life. It’s an advancement of God’s kingdom, by overthrowing the demonic kingdoms. So, deliverance is a manifestation of the kingdom of God. Jesus said to pray for the kingdom to come. So, when you are doing deliverance, it is really kingdoms in conflict. It is a superior kingdom, and King, displacing an inferior one.
2.) Secondly, the power to make this happen is the Spirit of God. You can’t do this work except by the Spirit of God. It requires the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit; and for that to happen, it requires a person to exercise faith. So, one of the things I want to do with you, is to share about working with the Holy Spirit; because deliverance is not about methods. It’s helpful to have a process, or a way of approaching deliverance, but we should not depend on it. We should depend on the Holy Spirit to help us. You can’t do the deliverance work without the Holy Spirit, so your own relationship with the Holy Spirit is vital. “If I, by the Spirit of God, cast out the demons”, so the power that you need working through you, is the anointing of the Holy Spirit; and that comes by faith. We need to learn how to listen to, and respond to, and work with, the Holy Spirit. So, constantly in your ministry, you need to be listening to the Holy Spirit. We’ll talk a little more about that later on.
3.) You notice the next thing He teaches here, “If I cast out demons”. So, deliverance requires a person to confront the spirit. You can’t just pray for God to do it. You yourself need to confront the spirit. “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you”. So, we see now, in the dynamic of doing deliverance, it requires the person to work with the Holy Spirit, to exercise faith, speak and directly confront the demon; and when the Spirit of God works with them, then the kingdom of God becomes established. So, when we’re doing deliverance, we need to be sensitive to, and working with, the Holy Spirit. We’ll talk a little more about that in another session. We’re just giving some foundations now.
Now, look over to verse 43-45, Jesus said: “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, but finds none. Then he says: ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”
Notice some things that Jesus speaks here. What He is sharing is extremely important, because He’s helping us to understand the invisible spirit world; and He also identifies a problem with deliverance. The issue that He identifies is the one we want to focus on: “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through the dry places”, or: “he walks through dry places”. Jesus is describing what happens after the person is delivered; and this is of concern for you as a small group leader or a cell group leader: what happens to the person after they’ve been set free. We need to understand that there’s a spiritual dynamic happens after deliverance; and the problem is: so many people focus on doing deliverance, that they miss the bigger picture.
Casting out the demons is only a part of the work; our main work is to disciple people to follow Christ. Deliverance is about removing the spiritual forces that hinder the person; but we have to do more than just remove the demon, and here’s why. Jesus said: “When the unclean spirit goes out of a man”. So, in other words, after deliverance, the spirit is forced out of the person. The question is raised, well what happens to the demon?
Firstly, we notice that it walks. Demons are low-level spiritual beings. They’re quite limited and confined in their activities. When someone exercises deliverance, the demons are literally forced out. Then, they walk through dry places, or in other words: they move to where there is no anointing of the Holy Spirit. They rapidly exit; but they seek rest. Evil spirits constantly seek somewhere to live. They seek a dwelling place. They’re not looking to lie down; they want to gain access to some place they feel at home in. So, the demon is looking for another spiritual home. Evil spirits constantly seek to find a person to get into, so they can express their nature - that is their goal. They want to enter; and then once they’ve entered, to increase their hold and destruction in the person’s life.
You notice it’s seeking someone to get into. When it can’t find someone to get into, it plans to return. You notice an evil spirit has personality. It’s a spirit being, with a mind to think, and an ability to make decisions. It has the ability to speak and communicate. So it’s an invisible spirit being, with an ability to think, to plan, to speak. It’s like you’re dealing with a hostile spirit being. Notice what he says: I will return to my house, out of which I’ve come. The spirit can remember the person they came out of; and the demon is a legalist – notice what he says – ‘my house’. He claims the person, to have a right to enter them - so evil spirits look for a legal right to establish entry to a person. We’ll come back to that and develop that shortly.
So, the demon looks at this man, and said: “This is my house.” Now, the Bible tells us that: our body is the temple of the Spirit. We are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, we belong to Him. So your body is the house you live in; and you invite the Holy Spirit to come in. So your house becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit. Evil spirits look at people and say: ‘that’s my house.’ In other words, they claim legal grounds to enter.
Notice what it says: “When he comes, he finds it swept and put in order”. So, an evil spirit can locate the person they came out of. You can imagine from the realm of the spirit, that they can identify people. If I cast a demon out of him, and the demon moves a long way, it remembers who it came out of, and can relocate him again.
You say, ‘well, why can’t we just cast him into hell?’ There’s absolutely no scripture that indicates we are able to do that. In fact, there are many demons that are bound in hell, and they will be released in the last days. The Bible also tells us, that at the end time, Jesus will confine the demons into hell. Until then, they are Earth-bound spirits that look for people to gain access and destroy.
Notice the next thing: the demon can assess your spiritual condition. He finds it empty, swept, put in order. The word ‘empty’ means on holiday, loitering, not productive. The word ‘ordered’ means literally, to look good on the outside. Here’s a disturbing thing to realise: when we look at people, we only see the house they live in. It’s like a veil that covers the person. The Bible tells us that he is a spirit being, with a soul, living in this house.
So, the spirit sees us differently. When we look at a person, we just see the outside; when a demon looks at the person, he sees the inner man. When we look at a person, the body seems solid; when a demon looks at a person, this is just water vapour, and he sees the real person inside - and your spiritual condition is visible! From the spirit-world point of view, the real man is visible; and the evil spirit can assess the person’s condition.
I was doing deliverance one time, and I had a man come with me. It was quite a difficult deliverance, and the demon manifested strongly, and began to threaten me. I stood up against it, and then it did an unusual thing. The man turned or backed away from me, and he turned and looked at the man who’d come with me; and I saw him look, and then he laughed; and then he began to talk about the things happening in this man’s life. He uncovered what he could see! The man got very embarrassed, went very red in the face; and I said: “You’re not able to do this ministry. You haven’t established your authority properly.”
It was quite a shock for me to realise that the demon could recognise the person’s condition. If we’re going to maintain deliverance, and move the person into freedom, we must ensure that the root issues are dealt with, and the demon has no grounds to re-enter.
You notice it says in verse 45: “He goes and brings with him seven other spirits more wicked, they enter in, and the man’s state is worse than when he began.” In other words, evil spirits can communicate with one another, and they work together to increase the bondage in the person’s life.
So, here is a conclusion we reach, when we look at that passage: it’s not enough just to cast the demon out; we must deal with the root issues in the person’s life, and they must become established in their walk with God. In other words, they can’t remain just passive, idle; they need to be now active in their spiritual life.
There’s an interesting scripture, where Jesus poses a question; and it says in Ephesians 4:28 – “Let him who stole, steal no longer; but rather let him labour, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.” So, this is what Jesus is saying: it’s not enough for the thief to stop stealing; he needs to have a change, where he becomes willing to work, and to give. “Let him that stole, stop stealing; rather, work and give.” You notice for the thief, his freedom comes not when he stops stealing; but when he’s giving. Stop lying; but rather, speak the truth and love to one another.
So, it’s not enough to just deal with or confront the negative, the person must move their life to starting to embrace kingdom life. Another way of putting it: there’s no neutral position. We know we’ve passed from death to life, when we love. A clear teaching in this is: once we’ve cast the demons out, the person needs to be established so they’re walking with the Holy Spirit - that there’s real change in their life.
Let’s have a look in Luke 11, and Jesus is again talking about deliverance. Luke 11:20 – “But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Now, notice what he says in verse 21-22: “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armour in which he trusted, and divides his spoils.”
So, in this, the context is deliverance. Jesus identifies some things: 1.) A strong man. 2.) Armour. He says : if you want a person to be free, remove the armour. The strong man is a demonic spirit, who prevails over an area of a person’s life. It could be, for example, a stronghold of rejection. The person’s life is dominated by feelings and thoughts of rejection. At some point in their life, a stronghold was established. A stronghold is a mind-set. It’s a way of thinking, and it’s resistant to truth. So, when a person, for example, has got a deep root of rejection in their life, it is a stronghold. It’s a way of thinking about life; and every interaction with life, the person interprets it through the stronghold.
I’ll give you an example – suppose two people are standing talking, and the pastor walks into the church. He’s very busy, preoccupied, thinking about the next thing he must do. The two people say – “Hello pastor”; but he doesn’t hear them, and he just carries on. One of them thinks: “Oh, he’s busy, I’ll catch him later.” The other one thinks: “He doesn’t like me. This man doesn’t like me. I knew it! He doesn’t like me. He’s got something against me.” All through the service, they’re all stewed-up. The more they think about it, the angrier they get; and the whole worship service is ruined for them, because they can’t get it out of their mind – “the pastor rejected me today.”
Now, you notice that both men had the same experience, but each interpreted their experience differently. One had no root of rejection – “He obviously didn’t hear me, he’s busy. It’s ok, I’ll catch him again.” The other one – “He didn’t want to hear me.” The other one, same experience, but when you ask the question: “what does that mean?”, “It means he doesn’t like me. I knew he didn’t like me!” So, the person’s emotions get stirred up, the stronghold gets stirred up; and the demon constantly torments them.
What Jesus is saying, is that the spirit of rejection is the “strong man” exerting influence on his life. The “armour” is what conceals him, or protects him from being cast out. The armour is the root systems of bondage in the person’s life. The key way that demons gain access, is through deception. The person believes the lie, and the demon hides behind the lie.
So, if the person has a root of rejection, there may be a spirit of rejection, but there’s also a lie; and there’s also some emotional pain; and there may be some experience they had where it has come in. What Jesus essentially is saying is this: remove the structures that the demon lives in, and you can easily get it out. Remove the armour, or the defence system of the demon, and it’s easy to deal with it.
So in our ministry, we should not just focus on casting the demon out; but work with the person to find out the structures that the demon lives in. Remove the demonic house, and there’s nowhere for the demon to take hold. Remove the demonic house, and there’s nowhere for the demon to grip on, and so it has no place to come back in again. So, if you cast out a demon of rejection, but the person still believes the lie (I’m unloved and unwanted), then after a few negative experiences, soon the demon will come back in again. So, deliverance is not just casting out demons; it involves us ministering to the person, and dealing with the strongholds that allow the demon to sit there.
To do that, we need to identify what they are, and how they work. So, in ministering to people, we want to find out what are some of the structures the demon used, to occupy and hold them in bondage. That raises the question then: “how do demons gain entrance to people’s lives?” Now different deliverance ministries approach this in different ways. Some don’t even look at the root systems, but I think this is a mistake, because once the demon has gone out, it will come back in again. So, different ministries have different ways of looking at it; but in the end, it will come down to the same things.
So, number one group is legal rights. Legal rights mean sin. I’ll just list these 3 things, and then we’ll come back to them later. 1.) Legal rights. A legal right means the demon has a right, under spiritual law, to occupy the person. It has authority to be able to go there; and that authority has been given to them because the person sinned. For example, in Ephesians 4:27 “Give no door or room for the devil. Give no foothold to the demon.” The word ‘door’ or ‘foothold’ is the Greek word ‘topos’ meaning: a legal ground. So, don’t give a legal ground for an evil spirit to enter. We’ll explain what some of those are later. A major door that demons use, are legal rights.
When we walk in God’s order or guidelines, or when we walk in the law of God, we live under blessing. When we break the law of God, there are consequences. We reap what we’ve sown, and demonic spirits have legal right to access. A little later we’ll demonstrate that Jesus, at the cross, dealt with legal rights; and when you are ministering to people, you need to deal with the legal rights, and remove all grounds for the demon to be there - it’s quite simple to do.
A second major doorway is the area of traumatic experiences - trauma, or traumatic experiences. A trauma is an emotionally painful or shocking experience. It could be an accident, it could be a frightening experience, or it could be a long period of stress. So, a trauma has an emotional and physical impact in a person’s life; and demons use it to ride into the person’s life. Sometimes when you are trying to help a person, you’ll find there’s a traumatic experience with pictures and memories, and the demon is locked in on that.
Then a third major area is personal reactions to trauma and pain. When a person is hurt, they usually react, and try to control the pain. They try to control their life; and in attempting to control their life, often they create legal grounds for demons to come in.
So my experience in working with people indicates that all of these are connected. Legal rights, trauma, reactions. When we’re working with a person, working with a problem in their life, we need to be thinking of: the legal rights; the traumatic experiences; and the internal reactions. We’ll talk a bit more about these, and then I’ll give you a step-by-step way you’d look at a person’s problem, to try and analyse what the issues are.
Now, when demons get into a person, they create a number of problems inside them; and they tend to affect different areas of a person’s life. These are the areas that get affected:
1.) They may experience spiritual manifestations. So, if a person has got, for example, bad dreams, tormenting nightmares, spiritual manifestations that are obviously wrong, you know it’s occultic, or there’s a spiritual root.
2.) Evil spirits also affect the mind, the thought life, with thoughts that keep prevailing.
3.) Evil spirits affect the emotions, with emotions that rise up, that can’t seem to be managed.
4.) Evil spirits affect the body, with sicknesses that don’t seem to be able to respond.
5.) Evil spirits affect a person’s life, with cycles or patterns of failure.
Now, how does this work in a person’s life? I want to just explain, and help you understand the dynamic of it. We’ll just look at just a few scriptures; and we’ll start off first of all with Ephesians 3:20. The working or operation of demonic spirits in strongholds creates energy inside people; but the Holy Spirit also creates energy in us.
Let me just give an example – here’s an example. When a person gets angry, you feel angry. It’s like this enormous energy inside you; and it’s a negative energy. When a person is depressed, they feel this pressure and energy around their life which is quite negative. When a person is being tempted to sexual sin, they feel this passion of energy inside them. I want to show you just two sides of the coin here.
The first one, we find in Ephesians 2:1-2. It says: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience”. Notice what it says here – spirits work in people. The word ‘work’ is the greek word ‘energaio’, from which we get the word ‘energise’. So, when a demonic spirit is inside a person, it releases strong negative energy into them; strong spiritual pressure. Demonic spirits release a strong energy into people. It pressures them. It pushes on them; pushes on their mind, pushes on their emotions, pushes on their will. So, when a demonic spirit is operating, there’s literally a flow of energy.
Now, have a look in Romans 7:5 – “For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.” Notice how it says ‘something at work inside us’. Sin works in people. The word ‘work’ means ‘energise’. So, evil spirits energise people. Bring pressure, negative energy into their life; but sin also does the same thing. So, sin, when sin is working in a person, it creates negative energy in them. You notice, in trying to describe the spiritual effect of sin and demons, it uses the word ‘energise’.
When demons are operating, or sin is operating, the person experiences strong pressure and energy flow inside them that’s very negative. You can’t overcome it by willpower, because it’s a spiritual energy. Sin releases spiritual energy in us. It’s something living inside a person. It’s something that works in you, constantly demanding more and more. Demonic spirits release negative energy, it works in people. When a person is under the influence of sin, and demonic spirits, there’s this massive spiritual energy pressuring their life. So, if we’re going to deal with the demonic, we need to remove the sin, and remove all of that negative energy.
Now, look back in Ephesians 3 again, and we’ll read down to verse 20 – “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us”. Now its saying: for a believer, there is a power also, that works in us for good. It’s the same word – ‘energise’. The power that works in us is the power of the Holy Ghost. In other words, one work of the Holy Spirit is: to energise our life; to impart in us strength to overcome.
Notice what Paul’s prayer is, in verse 16 – “to be strengthened with might in the inner man through His Spirit”. So, it must be possible there, for us to be strengthened with might, in the inner man, by the Holy Ghost. The word ‘strength’ means: ‘greatly increase in vigour’. Strengthen with might - that’s the word ‘dunamis’ – ‘miracle power’. So, what he’s saying in here is this: that even though sin creates negative energy that leads to isolation from God; and even though demons create negative energy; we have something else that energises us for good! It’s the power of the Holy Spirit! So the Spirit of God can energise us, to get great victory over any area in our life.
Look what it says in 1 Thessalonians 2, we read in verse 13: “For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.” There’s that word again – ‘work’. The word of God can energise your life! The word of God can greatly energise your life. We see now, that there are sources of negative energy – sin and demonic spirits; and there are sources of energy for victory – it’s the power of the Holy Spirit and the word of God.
So if I’m going to help someone come into freedom, I need to remove the sources of negative energy, deal with the issues of sin and the trauma, remove the demonic spirits; but willpower alone is not enough to walk in victory. It’s not enough just to exercise willpower. So often, what we tend to try and do, is we try to get people: “oh, stop doing that. Do this, do this, do this.”
What is needed is: the person needs to be energised with life. They need to know how to activate, and be strengthened, in their inner man; and they need to know how to be energised by the word of God. So whereas their lives were characterised by defeat; now their lives become characterised by the power of God, and the word of God. I always ask this kind of question: “How do you get the word of God to energise you?” The Bible says that’s what it does; but how can my life be energised by the word of God? How can my life be energised by the Holy Ghost?
So it’s not a matter of just dealing with the negatives; you want to bring people into life. Don’t think just of deliverance as: ‘we cast out the demon’. Think of it as: ‘we move them out of a place of negative life flow, into a place of life in God’. The casting out of the demon is just one part of that. In bringing the person into freedom, my goal is to uncover what is creating negative energy in it, and confront it; and then lead them into a life where the power of God is flowing, where they are energised with the life of God; and we want to know how to do that. How to identify and remove the roots; and then how to bring people into a place of life?
When people are in a place where they are energised by the Holy Spirit; this is what the Bible says: “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ sets me free from the law of sin and death”. In other words, I need to be in a life flow in God; not just trying to cast my demons out. I need to transition out of being in bondage and darkness, and come into a place of life and strength. So, this is the process called discipleship – moving people into a place where their life is vibrant in God.
You’ll find when you’re working with people, usually they just want you to take away the pain, to fix them up; but our goal is to bring them into life in Christ. When there’s life in Christ, there’s a flow of the power of God.
[Student is invited to come forward for a prayer demonstration]
“Come, come.” We’ll just finish with this. “Look this way. I want you to just put your hand out, towards me. That’s right. Take my hand. I need someone behind her right now.” Now, God wants us to be able to bring his life to others. It should not be hard. It should be very easy. “You just close your eyes right now, and just in a moment the presence of God will come on you. Thank you Lord, for your presence coming right now, the Presence of God.”
In other words, don’t just try to fix a problem; bring them to the source of life. Don’t just try and get rid of demons, bring people into a place of life in Christ; and we’ll show you some ways of doing that.
“Just come. Come. Just take my hand. Close your eyes. Just open your heart to receive; and let the presence of God just touch you like that.” So, we believe for G