Ministry Team Training

We spent the previous lesson looking at why we don't allow demons to manifest in ways that might hurt or embarrass the person we minister to. We take control early in the deliverance session and do not give the demon an opportunity to gain control of the ministry session.

Now let's talk about what a typical deliverance ministry session looks like. Here is the model I use for deliverance prayer:

1. Forbid the demon to manifest or to hurt the person or make them sick.
2. Get the person's attention and insure they want to be free of the demon.
3. Take authority and command the demon to leave.
4. If the demon doesn't leave quickly/easily, then look for "hooks" it may be holding on to and deal with them.
   • Unforgiveness
   • Unrepented sin
   • Curses
   • Vows/dedications (also dedications made by parents/relatives)
   • Generational access
   • Witchcraft or occult practices
5. After removing hooks, then command the demon to leave.
6. Keep the demon from coming back.

We already discussed the first step in the previous lesson. Now we will look at the rest of the steps.

ASSURE THEY WANT TO BE FREE OF THE DEMON

Never assume that any demonized person wants to be delivered. Many do, but this is not always the case. Some people have deliberately invited the demon in because they want something that the demon gives them. If you force the demon out, they will just invite it back again. Others don't necessarily want the demon but they don't want to give up the things that the demon holds on to in their lives. They don't want to forgive or they don't want to give up a particular sin. So they decide that they would rather keep the demon than to give up the things that empower that demon to be in their life.

Sometimes people are very "out of it" when you first start to minister to them. Rebuke the demon and shut down the manifestations. Then get the person's attention. Ask them if they want to be free from this thing. If so, get them to participate with you in the process. I like to either have the person renounce the demon or to command it to leave them. A sample repeat-after-me prayer I use is along the lines of "Spirit of _____, I renounce you and I don't want you in my life any more. I take back whatever permission I gave you to be here and I want you to leave me and never come back."

TAKE AUTHORITY AND COMMAND DEMON TO LEAVE

If the demon is a freeloader, it may leave immediately, because it knows that it has no right to be there. Sometimes when you exercise the authority of Jesus and command it to leave, that is enough. It goes. I usually start by doing that unless God gives me explicit instructions to pray another way. Often when I command a demon to leave, it will put up some token resistance and take two or three or four minutes to comply. I treat the demons about the same way you train a dog. I give the command with authority and then I am unwavering in it. I do not leave room to negotiate. I may spend three or four sentences telling it to go. If it does not comply immediately, I will often repeat the command a second time, reminding it that I come in the authority of Jesus Christ, who defeated the demon when He rose from the dead. I may remind the demon that Jesus' power is greater than his and that because I come in the name of Jesus, it must leave.

I have observed something interesting here. The more you are certain that you have authority to use Jesus' power, the more quickly the demon will obey you. You gain this assuredness through experience. The more times you cast out a demon and watch it leave, the more you become certain that they have to obey you when you command in Jesus name. And as you gain that confidence and assuredness that Jesus' authority really works and that you really are allowed to use it, the less the demons resist before leaving. When I first started doing deliverance, I had to spend 15 or 20 minutes commanding a demon to leave. It would procrastinate, hoping I would give up and let it stay since I was not all that sure of My authority in Christ. Now I have much more experience in using the authority that Jesus gave me and know it works. The demons seem to be able to tell that I know my authority, so many times they spend less time resisting me because they know I am not likely to give up and let them stay.

Sometimes we just exercise Jesus' authority and command the demon to leave and they do. But most of the time, the demon has something they are holding on to, some "legal right" they think they have to be there. And they are much more inclined to resist your command and hold on if they feel they have a legitimate right to be there. So if you command a demon to leave and it doesn't, then you need to find and remove the things it is holding onto. That brings us to our next step.

IF THE DEMON DOESN'T LEAVE QUICKLY/EASILY, THEN LOOK FOR "HOOKS" IT MAY BE HOLDING ON TO AND DEAL WITH THEM

This is basically inner-healing ministry. There are issues in the person's life that have to be faced and dealt with. You can get at most of these by talking to the person -- they usually know if they are harboring sin or unforgiveness. And they are usually aware if they participated in anything occult or made vows or dedications. So if you know the right questions to ask, you can usually find all of these roots through simple interview and do not need supernatural revelation. However, we strongly prefer it when the Lord participates actively in the deliverance session and when He gives us information and directions about how to proceed. If the Lord gives you any words of knowledge or supernatural revelation about the hold the devil has on them, address those first, before looking for any others.

The primary hooks include:

1. Unforgiveness. If they are harboring unforgiveness you have to get them to release forgiveness. If they are unwilling to do so, it may be because of the depth and intensity of the hurt, so you may need to minister healing to the hurt and then revisit the forgiveness issue. If they are still unwilling to forgive, you may need to tell them that they probably won't get free of the demon if they are unwilling to forgive, because unforgiveness gives the demon a legal right to them. I usually won't continue the deliverance part if they refuse to forgive, but I will work with them to help them become willing to forgive. At times I have even led people in repeat-after-me prayers along the lines of, "Lord, I know You want me to forgive this person for what they did to me. Something inside of me is making that really hard for me to do. My mind wants to obey You but my heart is really resisting. Please come and help me so that my heart lines up with Your will. I want to become willing to forgive, so please help me get to that place."

2. Unrepented sin. They have to repent and if it is a repeated sin, they also have to stop engaging in it. If they are unwilling to do this, then I am unwilling to pray deliverance for them. If I cast the demon out, it will just come back as long as that sin rules over them. Sometimes people will have a besetting sin and they want to stop but keep falling into it over and over again, feeling very repentant and sorry each time that happens. That is not the same as unrepentant sin. That may very well be a demonic oppression in their life -- a symptom of the problem instead of one of the causes of it. In those cases, I ask them to renounce the sin and to ask God to help them be set free from that sin pattern in their life. Then I use my authority in Christ to cancel the enemy's assignment to tempt and beset them in that area.

3. Curses. There are three kinds of curses: self curses, spoken curses and ritual curses. We have discussed them in some detail in previous lessons. If the curse is a self-curse, the person must renounce it and break it. If the curse is a curse spoken by others, you must break the curse and have the person do two things: they need to release forgiveness on the one who cursed them, and they need to send back a blessing because the Bible commands us to bless those who curse us. If it is a ritual curse, break it and seek God's direction on anything else that He wants you to do in regard to this ritual curse.

4. Vows/Dedications. Vows are where you make a decision that effects how you will live one area of your life, instead of letting God have lordship over that area. You effectively take control away from God for yourself and many times a demon comes along and takes control out of your hands. The vow is often a reaction to seeing something you dislike, such as "I'll never..." (example: "I'll never treat my kids the way my father treated me") or "I will always...," etc. Vows must be renounced and broken.

   Dedications are where you are tied to some "deity" or group or organization. This includes seemingly harmless things like fraternity and club memberships that require oaths of loyalty. For instance, many fraternities require their inductees to swear an "eternal vow of loyalty" to the organization. Sometimes parents or other relatives will form a dedication on your behalf. One of the most common examples is Buddhist baby dedications, which are very common in Asian cultures. Sometimes the parents can be saved and the unsaved grandparents will still do a baby dedication without the parents' knowledge or permission -- and that can give a demon a right of access to a person.

   Self-dedications must be renounced and I recommend having the person recommit themselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in their life (and only to Him). Also all dedications (self-dedications and those done by relatives on a person's behalf) must be broken.

5. Generational access -- many families have generational spirits -- demons that have access to family members because of the sins of past generations. The demons are passed down from generation to generation. This is actually a very weak hold on the individual and can be broken easily by putting the blood of Jesus between the generational spirits and the person and canceling their assignment. I also cut off any right of access through the generations that the spirit has to the person. Typically I do each of the family lines as separate prayers -- the mother's family lines and the father's family lines.

6. Witchcraft or occult practices. Typically the person has to repent for having "worshiped another god" through occult practices, then renounce the practice and break any ties or controls that it may have given the enemy in the person's life.

7. Other. This list is too exhaustive. There are things like soul ties, blood oaths, embracing lies of the enemy, etc. Ask the Lord to reveal anything that needs to be dealt with and ask Him to show you how to address it.

AFTER REMOVING HOOKS, THEN COMMAND THE DEMON TO LEAVE

If all of the hooks have been removed, the demon has nothing left to hang on to, and it must leave. If you are new to deliverance ministry, the demons may test your authority and resist your command for a short period of time, sort of procrastinating to see if you really mean it and will really make them leave. Sometimes when they resist, it is helpful to worship God (maybe one worship song) and get the demonized person to worship along with you. Demon's don't like heartfelt worship.

If the demon resists leaving for more than a short time, then there is a good chance that you haven't dealt with everything that the demon was holding on to yet. In that case, you need to stop and ask God to show you what else needs to be dealt with. Deal with it and then once again command the demon to leave. [When I say a short time, that is 10 to 15 minutes for someone new to deliverance, and maybe three or vour minutes for someone highly experienced and confident in the authority God has given them.]

KEEP THE DEMON FROM COMING BACK

We know that once a demon is evicted, it will frequently try to come back to the person, who the demon considers as it's former home. Jesus told us about that in Matt 12:43-45:

43"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation."

So we want to do what we can to keep the house from being empty. In other words, we want to fill the space the demon occupied with the things of God. This involves leading unsaved people to Christ, asking the Holy Spirit to fill the space the demon vacated so it can't come back, suggesting the person engage in a lot of worship, and play worship music in the background as they do other things, etc.