Deliverance Ministries - Their Tragedies And Triumphs

Deliverance Ministries: Their tragedies and their Triumphs

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Chapter Sixteen: Deliverance Ministries: Their Tragedies and Their Triumphs This is a short review of some types of Christian Deliverance ministries. It is based on those I have come across and read of over a number of years. I draw my own conclusions. Before we continue into our subject it would be a good idea to consider language, terms and concepts. Deliverance ministry or minister There may be different terms to describe this but Deliverance Ministry concerns exorcism of evil spirits from persons or places by Christian ministers and lay people. Demon possession The control by evil spirits of the whole of a person. This includes control of the body, mind and soul. Demonic oppression As distinct from possession, oppression is an evil influence or attack God’s Detective Chapter 16 Aðalsteinn Eaglehawk

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upon body or soul by spirits. Casting out demons Implies the casting out from inside a person the evil spirits that have possessed them. In the Name of Jesus Implies faith in the full authority of Jesus Christ, Son of God over all forces of evil. Christian ministers use the name of Jesus to cast out evil spirits. Legal ground The concept that God's Spiritual Law by which He governs the universe is binding upon all creatures. Demons gain control over believers and others by legal ground. That is by use of deception or intimidation or temptation, causing a person to 'open a door' to the evil spirits, either knowingly or more likely unknowingly. In this sense evil spirits have used God's Spiritual Law to gain access, as God regards those who give legal ground as giving permission to evil spirits to work. The Power of the Cross and the Blood of Jesus It was through the Cross that Jesus personally defeated Satan and by shedding His blood that He provided the means of deliverance. This is all related to God's Law but it means in practise that deliverance can come specifically by faith in the Cross or the Blood of Jesus. The Blood of Jesus cleanses us from sin (legal ground) and the Power of the Cross is applied by the Holy Spirit against the Powers of Darkness. The Powers of Darkness Primarily Satan and his fallen angels, as well as demons but it can also include those who use dark arts or evil spirits; such as Satanists, occultists and so on. I will explain any other terms I use. This is only a brief introduction to the subject. Types of deliverance ministries Today evangelical Christians in various denominations would have God’s Detective Chapter 16 Aðalsteinn Eaglehawk

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gained ideas of Deliverance Ministry mainly from Charismatic or Pentecostal sources, including literature. Before considering these let's consider more traditional deliverance ministers. Many more traditional types of Christians know of Deliverance Ministry under different names. Catholic Exorcists The Catholic Church does have some ministers trained in performing exorcisms. In the Catholic Church there are set prayers and rituals that are gone through in cases of demon possession or other types of demonic activity where exorcism is required. Today there is also training in the areas of counselling and psychiatry and priests are trained to forward people with mental problems, who believe they are possessed, to qualified professionals. In practice it is very difficult to cast out evil spirits. Success is measured by the change that comes over the person being delivered or exorcised. The Catholic Church is failing to identify and free captives. Where there are earnest exorcisms the success rate varies according to God's free grace offered to all who pray and believe. In fact before going on I should say, contrary to conventional wisdom, that God often frees captives from pure kindness. As God indeed gives many blessings to people in the hope they will repent. Because of this principal of God's undeserved help and kindness, exorcists in other religions are sometimes successful and generally exorcists who invoke the Name of Christ have some measure of blessing from God. Anglican exorcists The Church of England also has minsters that are trained in deliverance. These few priests within Anglicanism that practice deliverance ministry are usually evangelicals. They too read prayers and sing hymns as well as using set rituals and language. Some of these ministers have been very successful. This is due to a lot of sound teaching in the area of shepherding congregations and following the basics of faith in Christ and His power over evil. They tend to reject as bizarre and purely frictional the kind of phenomena often depicted in Charismatic 'personal testimony' books. This caution is legitimate but they are also unaware, as almost all deliverance ministers are, of God’s Detective Chapter 16 Aðalsteinn Eaglehawk

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many of Satan's works. Pentecostal and Charismatic deliverance ministers How they conduct deliverance is based upon their religious culture; according to its assumptions and prejudices. They tend to be more hyper-active and have many rules and beliefs that in no way reflect reality, spiritual or otherwise. For example many have a cultural belief that Christians who have a demon will 'manifest' it, often by writhing as a snake upon the floor. People who believe they have a demon tend to do this. The minsters then shout; shouting is seen as being authoritative, something like, “We cast you out in Jesus Name!” This may be, and usually is, said over and over again. After a while the person delivered gets up off the floor to the praise of all. Often speaking in tongues, supposedly a spiritual language from God is used in deliverance as well as prophecy and other gifts. The tragedy of all this is that the whole spectacle is itself a delusion from beginning to end. Much of it is psychological. Much is psychogenic in terms of manifesting symptoms of possession and deliverance by the power of the mind. The apparent remedy is normally psychogenic- as they believe they feel, and they feel as they believe. There have been cases in history where demons caused people to writhe as a snake but generally this is not a symptom of most demon possession. Another tragedy is that there are many signs of demon possession and oppression that are seen as real manifestations of God's Spirit by practising Pentecostals. Among these are confusion, passivity, paranoia, censoriousness, super-spirituality or religious pride, sexual immorality, petty blasphemies, strange illnesses, madness, hatred of holiness and the holy... These are disguised, excused and justified variously as righteous indignation, grace (i.e. “God knows we're only human”), freedom of the Spirit, anointing, natural etcetera. To go further into the subject I'd need to write a book on deliverance alone but for now I will give you one or two real examples of Christian exorcism. God’s Detective Chapter 16 Aðalsteinn Eaglehawk

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A spiritualist's demon cast out A young friend of mine complained that a spiritualist neighbour had been causing trouble for Christians and that they felt oppressed and believed an evil spirit was at work connected to the spiritualist. I prayed against the antichristian spiritualist and her demon. Into the room where I was praying an old woman entered. I could see her clearly but I could also see through her. She walked toward me with an evil sneer upon her face. I realised that she did not know I could see her. Behind her a great pit opened up in the floor. As I turned my head toward her she realised I could see her and as I commanded her to depart into the pit in Jesus' Name, she screamed in terror, fell back into the pit and it closed. I am not going to defend, justify or explain this exorcism. It was after all engineered by God. It was not what I had read or been taught. It was just reality. Few know it as fact. The demonic oppression of my Christian friends ceased. The demons' ultimate terror I have often not followed the rules in Christian books about casting out demons. Once I came up against an evil spirit and I said, “I command you in Jesus' Name to appear before the Father in Heaven and He will tell you what to do!” I learnt from this that they fear going before God more than they do going down to the Pit. The evil spirit rose up to God in great terror. “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” [Matthew 10:8] Self Deliverance Generally Christians that are troubled by evil spirits that have to some extent entered them, such as in the form of frightening and sickening images that appear in their minds apart from their own volition; or strange body jerking and or shaking – may practice a form of self God’s Detective Chapter 16 Aðalsteinn Eaglehawk

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deliverance – by which is meant of course deliverance by the Holy Spirit using the believer to be their own minister. Mental illness or demonic oppression? Firstly the believer needs to question whether they have a form of mental illness as most people that believe they are oppressed by demons are suffering from mental illness. However occult power and mental delusion are differing things as are spiritual entities and mental neuroses. For those suffering from mental and emotional problems a counsellor or Christian psychiatrist is recommended. For the totally sane and self aware believer who recognises intelligently the activity of evil spirits however there is self deliverance. Psychiatry had a vested interest in dismissing all spiritual phenomena as delusion as it is a fundamentally materialist and also sin justifying philosophy specifically designed to counter the influence of Christianity. The harm done by psychiatry is incalculable and its effects truly evil – spreading unbelief in the words of Jesus and failing to free the oppressed from the devil – failing to acknowledge real evidence for the supernatural and by necessity rewriting history and reality to fit into a neat, self justifying antidote to faith. You must realise that according to psychiatry the biblical Jesus and all the prophets and apostles were totally insane and also corrupt individuals who variously suffered from delusions of grandeur, schizophrenia, paranoia... and they also manipulated and exploited others. Jesus, if you can find a psychiatrist honest enough to admit it, would be seen as a cult leader who had delusions about being the son of God as he heard voices – voices that also warned him of persecution. In other words he would be seen as a paranoid schizophrenic... The fact is however that around the world each year millions of people will see spirits and many millions will be oppressed by them – mostly unawares. All these will be patronisingly dismissed upon the basis of a scientific knowledge called Psychiatry that is neither scientific nor knowledge. The reader should therefore realise that in this chapter I am not mistakenly giving advise to the mentally God’s Detective Chapter 16 Aðalsteinn Eaglehawk

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ill because I have failed to understand narcissism, paranoia, anxiety, schizophrenia, obsessiveness compulsive disorder, or any number of disorders and syndromes – I have a good layman's understanding. I am giving advice to the self aware – those self aware of being tranquil in mind and sensible and logical in thinking – clear headed and sound – as a rule- except for a specific problem often traceable to a specific cause in the spiritual realm. Here are some examples: The pentecostal or charismatic who had noticed that their own prophecies often fail: Failed prophecies are unacceptable to God and not part of His will and should not be tolerated. Do this: Think of the power of the Cross and apply it to the prophecy while praying that if this thing is not of God it will cease. As you are prophesying especially as you have a prophecy telling you the prophecy is of Godcontinue to pray in this vein. As a rule you will gradually become enlightened and free of false prophecy – a gift inspired by the devil. For tongues, slain in the spirit, dancing in the spirit, laughing in the spirit, groaning and shouting in the spirit, making animal noises in the spirit - do the same. A steady application of the Cross of Christ by faith will eventually whittle away everything that is not of God. It is however a battle and only the true disciples of Christ will win this battle. Many pentecostals and charismatics who try this out will only become more convinced their obviously failed gifts are of God! This is due to lack of holiness and discipleship. GOD IS HAPPY FOR HIS GIFTS TO BE TESTED but the powers of darkness will make excuses to the mind for not doing so or not being thorough.... Mental images that are horrific Often evil spirits inject into the mind images or visions that are part of their imagination and therefore utterly horrible and evil. The graphic nature of these images can be and usually are indicative of an imagination and knowledge of evil that is beyond that of the believer – that is the believer is very aware that another mind that is familiar with evil the believer on their own could not imagine is having a direct influence upon them. The antidote is to repent of any known God’s Detective Chapter 16 Aðalsteinn Eaglehawk

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sin and ask God to cast the oppressing spirit into Hell – Yes, right into Hell. Apply the Cross of Christ to your thoughts and wilfully reject all thoughts not of God. Exercise your mind and train it to reject offensive images, thoughts and blasphemies. Blasphemies may enter the mind if you go near a church or want to pick up a bible. This does not mean you have blasphemed but that you are oppressed by a spirit of blasphemy. The twofold exercise of attacking the evil spirits in prayer and disciplining your own mind to gain control of it will give you both a discerning and clear mind. You may achieve in hours, days or months what psychiatry will take years, if at all, to achieve. However for those with a psychiatric problem a good counsellor is needed – but such counsellors are useless in dealing with the evil of the supernatural- which is why I said earlier when it comes to great suffering and overwhelming and real problems the counselling industry is a fraud as it pretends to be able to supply needs it cannot supply to foster profitable business and reputation. Like a petrol pump that falters after just a few drops enter the car... Here is an interesting observation: The Christians I have known who have been the most intelligent, clear headed and insightful over a number of issues also had a greater faith: Their minds were stronger, purer and far more advanced than most. These also would agree with all I have said above as it was very familiar to them. This is in stark contradistinction to the view of psychiatry that the impaired mind is the mind that believes fully in demonic battles. Shaking of the body, loss of control of facial muscles, and sometimes beatings upon the body by unseen beings. The cause for this is always passivity of mind usually in relation to some false spiritual gift. By false teaching the undiscerning and often young believer will give themselves up to a kind of zombie minded state in which they wait for the 'Spirit to move' in dance or prophecy or rapture of some kind. The spirits behind this false teaching begin to control what the believer has given up control of. They begin to take over some of the muscles and gestures of the believer, sometimes unknown to the believer. If you look on Youtube at some of the God’s Detective Chapter 16 Aðalsteinn Eaglehawk

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charismatics and observe closely you will see, that even while trying to discuss something normally, they will often have jerking movements or strange facial expressions... A deliverance from this attempt at the possession of the believer can result in the evil spirits attacking from without, quite literally so that the believer feels unseen fists hit them. Command them to depart to Hell IN JESUS NAMEand train your mind to always be active and never passive and free yourself of all zombie, trance like states – which are actually occultic and not Christian – It takes effort but follow all the guidelines above. Take control of your mind and body by steady faith, prayer and discipline and may God be with you. Don't give in or give up. This is just the fearful demons trying to whittle away your will power and consecration to God. Persevere in holiness and Christ will save you. Deliverance from evil objects Evil spirits like to regard what is inspired by them as belonging to them and those who own such things that are inspired by them as under their authority. Therefore you must rid your home of all occultic objects – even of Christmas and Easter cards from false friends who may hate you in their hearts can generate an evil, oppressive dynamic– Get free of satanic movies and books – of pornography... Pornography The internet has made access to porn easy and commonplace. Most Christian men and probably a larger proportion of Christian women than would be guessed at look at pornography. Men may find that they indulge what seems like a natural desire and find themselves drawn to look at what is unnatural and find to their horror that when they try to break off or repent they do not but go further into sin. The reason for this is that pornography is of course sinful and satanically inspired. The evil spirits hold sway over the viewers of pornography and their power is felt by undiscerning men and women – and kids too sometimes. By recognising the occultic element behind pornography you may be God’s Detective Chapter 16 Aðalsteinn Eaglehawk

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helped to reject it. You should also remember that if you pay for pornography you are paying for the people that make it to go to Hell and you may even be paying for the rape and murder of victims as a certain percentage of funds of mainstream pornography also finds its way into the hands of the most sexually depraved people on the planet. Understanding these things may help you break off of it. Another helpful thing is to realise that in your ‘flesh life’ you do not possess the power to break with sin but the Holy Spirit has the power to make you holy by faith in Christ. Some advise you in the vein of the usual rubbish you read in Christian counselling books that avoid the issues and don't know how to solve the problems – as they often skirt around the issues. However many of you reading this will indulge in looking at pornography – I know it – God knows it and so does the devil. If a clean break is too much for you – like a drug addict using methadone to lessen the withdrawal symptoms from heroin – break gradually until you achieve purity of heart and action. It is possible and generally the earnest disciples will come out of this trough if they apply themselves. For some knowing of the connection between the powers of darkness and pornography will be enough but for others there will be a slow climb out of the mire. In this area I will in fact advise counselling – but Christian counselling. It is not enough to command demons when you yourself are the one committing the sin. May you all find peace – the very peace waiting for you in Christ.

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