Ministering Deliverance

Let's talk about retaining a person's dignity during ministry. When you minister deliverance to a person, you need to always retain his dignity. In other words, people need to be affirmed of the process. Make it clear that you are not rebuking them personally when you're addressing a demon.

What can you do to help them and to retain their dignity? Do not give an adverse reaction or make a big deal out of it when you realize there is a demon present. Do not make the person feel small or put down because they have a demon. The demon is already doing enough to torment the person -- do not add to it.

Let them know this is really a common thing, that it is not that abnormal. We think it's abnormal because of the way we have not been used to dealing with it. But if you look on a scale of 1 to 10 as people are demonized, everybody is affected by them one way or another. So just say it's normal, similar to fleas on a dog. We need to treat this thing and get rid of it. It's a lot more common than we realize.

Use wisdom in declaring what you think if you believe you are dealing with a demon. I don't usually tell the person that they have a demon. (I do occasionally when I think they can handle it.) Sometimes the Lord will reveal that to them or sometimes He'll have you tell them because that will comfort them because they'll know it's not them. But you can always use different terms. Describe it as spiritual warfare, or "This is an area of spiritual bondage we need to get free of."

Keep in mind that you can know how to drive a car without knowing how it works. Knowing how it works means you're able to open up the hood and look at things and go, oh, the vacuum line is not working well, the crankshaft, yeah, the camshaft is out of line. Look at that timing belt. Looks like the carburetor needs a little adjustment so the fuel mixture will run a little bit richer. And some people who don't know anything about cars have no idea what their mechanic is talking about. You don't have to know all there is about a car to drive one. But if it messes up, having a little more information can be quite helpful. My son drove up yesterday in my old blue pick-up, the old reliable. It really wasn't reliable that day. He telephoned to say that something was wrong. I asked, "Can you make it home?" He said, "Yeah, I think so." So he came home. He said he couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. I opened up the hood to take a look. The vacuum lines were off. Missing vacuum lines cause a car to run really bad. So, I put them back on and it ran fine. Now he could have done that, too. He just didn't know how and did not recognize that as being a problem.

When it comes to ministering deliverance, most people have been doing deliverance. They just called it "spiritual warfare." They've been casting out demons, removing demons. But, there are certain things they couldn't get out until they got very specific.

So today you're having your spiritual auto-repair class. I'm giving you some very specifics of how to look under the hood and take care of some things you may not be able to take care of without looking under the hood. You're just getting a little bit more detailed. But you don't always have to go into detail when you're talking to somebody and helping them get free from bondage.

One time I was ministering to this woman and all of a sudden she said, "I feel like something wants to come out." I said, "Well, let it come out." "Whoa. What was that?" I said, "Well, I guess something just wanted to leave you." I didn't say, well I think there was a little demon there and that little critter just got booted. I didn't have to go into detail. She said, "What happened?" I said, "Well, I guess it just wanted to leave. I think the Lord was just cleaning you out. I think the Lord was just freeing you in some areas in your life. How do you feel?" She said, "I feel freer. I feel cleaner." I said, "That's good isn't it?" "Yes. It's real good."

I didn't have to explain it and you don't always have to explain it. I ministered deliverance in my own church for a while before I started talking about it on Sunday mornings. After awhile I had to teach on it because demonized people would get up and scream and run out of the building and the members of my congregation would ask, "What was that?"

But you don't always have to go into great detail. So just keep that in mind that some people may feel "slimed" if they know those details. Along those same lines, there are times when I have had to undo ministry abuse. Once, one of our women went to another church and she went down front for ministry and she had some inner-healing issues that needed to be dealt with. And there might have been a demon that might have been attached to that. But deliverance wasn't the main thing that needed to happen to her. She needed to get healed in her heart. A lot of times after people get healed in their heart, then they get deliverance. If you do a lot of inner healing first, then darkness leaves. This little thing is pulled out and they don't have any place to stand on because that is dealt with.

She had two people ministering to her -- one woman who had an inner-healing ministry and a man who had a deliverance ministry. That is a real bad combination to put together as a ministry team. He was over there yelling and screaming and rebuking and everything. Of course, she found that very confusing. Then the other woman had her arm around her, consoling her, trying to get to the inner child. The man was still screaming. And finally the guest speaker, Jack Deere, turned to them and asked them to take it to another place. He did this because they were so loud and disruptive. And I had to minister to that woman afterward because of all the abuse that had gone on during the supposed "ministry time." The guy was thinking, "Well, we got to get this demon out." And the woman was thinking, "She is so wounded, you're just creating more wound and more hurt," which actually did happen.

The best thing to do was simply to work through the process of helping this person understand the inroads the enemy had gained into her life, remove those inroads, pull those things out and when that happens, then things leave. Then you can begin rebuking. See, that's the process you go through. But here again, they did not retain the dignity of that person. The guy was yelling and screaming in front of everybody, and that is never a good thing. How is that person going to feel? They are still a person. It is never a good thing to yell and scream at them.

Be relaxed and don't shout. Demons aren't deaf; they're just stubborn. Shouting does not give you more authority. Some people think the more they shout, the more authority they have. But it just doesn't work like that. A lot of times when you're shouting the demon kind of figures you're scared and that is why you are shouting. You don't have to shout. You don't have to yell. You don't have to scream. You can be firm. You can be strong without going ballistic. You can always tell the people who are new at this because they're yelling, screaming and shouting. What we do in our church when that happens, we used to go up and tap them on the shoulder. Then we'd say, "Remember, those little critters aren't deaf. You don't have to do it this way."

I'd also say this: Do more watching than wrestling. In other words, you don't have to wrestle the person down and grab them and tackle them. We've had people run out the back. OK, just let them run out the back. They'll be back. If they really want to be free, they'll be back.