Ministry Team Training

(The next two lessons are a short guideline on ministering deliverance. There is a more exhaustive teaching on it offered on the GodSpeak website as:

http://www.godspeak.net/hs_lessons/hs4_index.html)

YOU ARE IN CONTROL, NOT THE DEMON

First, when you minister deliverance, you do not want to let the demon be in control of the ministry time. You are the one with authority, so you need to be the one who is in control. This means that you do not want to allow the demon to manifest and put on a lengthy "show." Some of the more typical manifestations include things like wandering aimlessly around the room, vomiting, attempted violence or violent gestures, slithering, etc. We don't have to allow the demon to do those things and we don't have to allow the demon to make the person sick either.

It is true that at times the demons Jesus cast out threw the person down to the ground -- a physical manifestation, as the demon was "leaving." There are two accounts of this in Scripture. Let's look at them and see how Jesus handled the situation when the demon began to manifest.

The first is the epileptic boy that Jesus' disciples could not heal. This deliverance is recorded in two of the Gospels: Mark 9:20 and Luke 9:32. Mark records it this way: "When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth."

If you look back at verse 17, you will see that this was a common behavior for this particular demon -- it did this all of the time. This was how the demon affected the boy. And in this case, the demon began to manifest BEFORE Jesus began to cast it out. I would like to make a comment on that. It seems that some demons tend to "freak out" or begin to manifest when they get around the presence of God.

Sometimes demons will begin to manifest when there is an anointed or powerful service going on. That was the same sort of thing that was happening here. The demon did not manifest as a ploy to keep from leaving the child. It "showed itself" when it got around Jesus because it was overcome and terrified by the presence of God. This demon was not resisting deliverance, because deliverance had not started yet.

The full account of this deliverance is in Mark 9:14-27. From this account, it was clear that Jesus, not the demon, was in control through out the whole encounter. Jesus asked the father some questions about the child's problem. But as soon as a crowd began to gather, he stopped talking to the father and addressed the demon. Jesus did not allow the demon to "put on a show" for the crowd. He immediately exercised authority over the demon to command it to leave, and the demon had to leave immediately. When the demon left, the "spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out" (Verse 26).

It is true that the demon did manifest as it came out, but Jesus did not allow the manifestation to go on very long; He got the demon out very quickly. And this particular demon was one of the toughest demons to cast out of a person -- either it was very strong or it was very strongly attached to the boy. The disciples had tried to cast this demon out and were unable to do so. Even though the very powerful demon did manifest for a short time, Jesus remained clearly in control and never once allowed the demon to be in control of the situation.

There is only one other case recorded in Scripture where the demonized person manifested during deliverance. And this appears to be another case where the demon "freaked out" when it got around God's presence and began to manifest. The account is told in Luke 4:31-36.

Jesus was not looking to cast out a demon, He was preaching a sermon. One of the men in the service was demonized and it began to "freak out" when it heard Jesus preach with authority. So it began to cry out (verse 34), "Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are--the Holy One of God!" The demon made a scene, interfering with Jesus' preaching. Jesus immediately shut down the manifestation and cast out the demon. He said (verse 35), "'Be quiet!' Jesus said sternly. 'Come out of him!' Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him."

In this case, Jesus immediately shut down the manifestation. The demon did throw the man down as it left but did not hurt the man in the process. That is what we call a "parting manifestation." And it is not at all uncommon for demons to do some sort of parting manifestation as they leave. I think of it as a temper tantrum at being evicted against their wishes. But they are not able to harm the person on their way out.

Jesus did a lot of deliverances when He walked the earth. And the Bible only records two times when demons manifested while He was doing a deliverance. In one of those two cases Jesus shut down the manifestation immediately. In the other case, He got the demon out quickly so that it did not have much time to "put on a show." In short, it does not look like Jesus allowed demons to manifest very much during deliverance. And we don't have to let them manifest either.

A lot of people have been taught to encourage the demon to manifest. That is a wrong teaching and a very bad idea. I have also seen a lot of deliverances where a group makes a circle to surround the person. They push the person back into the center of the circle when the person tries to wander out of it. I have also seen deliverances where the person attempts to be violent and two or more people physically restrain the person as they put up a prolonged struggle. I feel that all of these are "out of control" deliverances. We should use our authority in Christ to control the demon, we should not have to physically constrain the person.

A believer should not be ministering deliverance unless they plan to exercise the authority of Christ to force the demon to leave the person. The demon is not going to go willingly; you will drive them out because you have greater power and authority than the demon has -- the authority of Christ. And if you are going to use Christ's authority to force the demon to leave, then you should start exercising authority right from the beginning and take control. Do not give the demon any ground. As soon as it begins to manifest, command it to stop. Forbid violence and forbid making the person sick.

One time I was in Brazil and a man began to manifest a demon as I prayed for him for physical healing. The man literally grew several inches taller, got a very wild look in his eyes, made a fist and began trying to strike me with his fists. I immediately got in his face and told the demon "You will not manifest! I forbid you to do any violent behavior!" I told the demon that it had to obey me. We had a bit of a standoff for about a minute or two, where the demon was snarling and shaking the man's fist at me. It tried several times to hit me but literally behaved like something was restraining the man's arms so that he could not deliver the blows -- they all stopped when his fist got about 6 inches away from me, as if there as some invisible barrier between him and me.

I put my finger in his face, only a few inches from his nose and shook it at him, the way you rebuke a naughty child. I spoke in a very commanding tone and told the demon that it had to obey to me because I came in Christ's authority. I forbid violence and then I forbid it to make the man sick and then I forbid it to cause a spectacle. The demon totally shut down (stopped trying to manifest) within 2 or 3 minutes and assumed a sulking posture. It took about 10 or 15 minutes to get the demon out, but it did not manifest again during the deliverance.

After I was done praying, one of the other ministry team members came to me and told me that this was the same man who had raised a big scene and got physically violent the previous night, and he had to be restrained and dragged out of the meeting. The person who ministered the night before had not forbidden manifestations and as a result the demon had used very violent manifestations to keep control of the situation. But when we used the authority of Jesus to forbid these manifestations, the unwilling demon was forced to obey us. This took away his leverage and it became possible to cast him out of the person.

Let me share another story. When I was in Nigeria, I had a ministry team that prayed with me at our crusades. One of the ladies on the teams encouraged demonic manifestations and tended to draw a crowd of spectators as she ministered. But it is not clear how effective her ministry was. She prayed for a man one night and he did all sorts of very embarrassing manifestations. He came back the next night and asked me to pray for him since the original problem that he went to her for was still there. I began to pray for him and a demon began to manifest. As soon as it began to manifest, God spoke to me and said, "Do not allow the demon to embarrass this man." I immediately got in the demon's face and shut down the manifestations. His whole body would shake a lot from time to time, an evidence of an intense inner struggle. The demon tried to start up the manifestations two or three more times and each time I shut them down again. I asked the man if there was anyone who he needed to forgive because unforgiveness can give demons access to torment us. He needed to forgive his father and once we worked through that, then it was easy to get the demon out. He had many embarrassing manifestations the night before but did not get free from the demon. The next night he got free from the demon, but did not have to have all those embarrassing manifestations.

After the deliverance was complete, someone told me that this man was a president of a large import/export company in the area and that some of the people at the meeting were employees of his. No wonder God did not want me to allow the demon to embarrass him!