Introduction

Today’s post-Enlightenment, post-modern Western theology might concede that there may be a few people out of every thousand or so actually “possessed” or tormented by demons, but it’s certainly not something that “proper folks” (i.e., you and me) need to bother with, much less study and understand.

Christ’s seeming preoccupation in the Gospels with confronting demons and casting out sicknesses, and granting authority to His disciples to do the same, as recorded in each of the synoptic Gospels (Luke 9:1; Luke 10:17-18; Mat. 10:1; Mark 5:3), usually gets short shrift from the pulpit, probably because, frankly, it’s a bit embarrassing to us proper folks.

Really, what relevance does demonic oppression have to my life today, other than as fodder for the latest Hollywood haunted house/teen victims flick?

But when we go to the Scriptures in desperation because of our own personal travail and the torment which so relentlessly besets us or our loved ones, and humbly seek understanding from the Holy Spirit, He will graciously give that understanding to us. (James 1:14)

And what He reveals through opening our minds to the Scriptures is that in delivering us out of the Kingdom of Darkness and into the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Col. 1:13), Christ has provided the home base from which all the “very great and precious” Promises of God (2 Pe. 1:4), including the healing of our minds and bodies, can be fully accessed.

Note that I say that He HAS PROVIDED for our accessing these promises – meaning, they are now legally ours for the taking. It is up to us whether we actually “take” them and thus realize their benefits.

Keep this concept in mind as we go forward, as it will help to clear up a lot of the fuzzy thinking endemic to this subject.

***

“The Most High God is to be feared, a Great King over all the earth.” (Ps. 47:1) He is also a King who rules lawfully and who abhors lawlessness, because a Kingdom is based on respect for the King’s authority and word as law, and will not survive unchecked lawlessness. Accordingly, we read that “the foundations of His throne are Justice and Righteousness.” Ps. 89:14.

Everything the Lord does is done legally, always, which is why we are to pray “thy will be done.” If it were otherwise the Lord would be undermining His own authority, and He will never do that.

For example, Jesus never advocated political rebellion, but exhorted men to render to Caesar what was Caesar’s and to God what was God’s. Likewise, our salvation – His rescue of us out of the Kingdom of Darkness, was all done quite legally.

Jesus said this: “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” (Jhn 8:34) Since everyone born into this world, every son or daughter of Adam, sins, we are all slaves of sin, at least until we have been freed from sin and made alive with Christ. (Rom. 6:6-11)

As Paul noted, he was (and we have all been) “sold into bondage to sin” (Rom. 7:11). It was a legal transaction in the Garden of Eden whereby Adam and Eve voluntarily presented themselves to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, and thus became slaves of the one whom they chose to obey – Satan. (Rom. 6:12-20)

A slave owns nothing of his own – all is owned by his slave master. Consequently, the stewardship over the earth given by God to Adam now belonged to Satan. Satan thus became, as Christ called him, “the ruler of this World.” (Jhn. 14:30; Jhn. 16:11) A slave does not even own his wife and children.

We, the offspring of Adam the slave, are therefore born as Satan’s property. Coming out of the womb, then we all are “the children of the devil” (1 Jhn 3:10), and “the seed of the serpent” (Gen. 3:15) As a result, the “iniquities of the fathers are passed on to the third or fourth generation.” (Ex. 34:7)

In other words, demonic footholds are established in the offspring of all us sinners at conception because of the spiritual doorways opened by the sins of the fathers, through which the Enemy travels, a principle so fundamental that it is even in God’s very name.

This is not a politically correct view, to say the least. Even people in church will look at you askance if you point this out.

But again, it all comes down to what or who is our authority – our own finite mind, or the Word of God. For the Word of God, from the mouth of Jesus Himself, is quite clear:

24 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

…

36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” 37 He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40 Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, 42 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

The apostle John provides further support:

By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. 1 John 3:10

Therefore, as children of the evil one, coming out of the womb, we follow “after the course of this world” in the manner prescribed by “the Prince of the Power of the Air”, who is a very powerful creature named Satan (Eph. 2:2).

Paul also elaborates on this theme in Gal. 4:1-7 (quoting in part):

…while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things* of the world. 4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, 5 so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. 6 Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. 8 However at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods.

*Paul often referred to our demonic captors/overseers as “the rulers and authorities”, “the rulers of this age”, or “the elemental things”.

Slavery practices in the natural realm tell us that slavery was often a brutal institution. Slaves are kept in bondage through fear and intimidation, brought about through the liberal use of scourging.

This supernatural scourging by our spiritual slave master, Satan, the Ruler of this world, results in emotional torment and physical disease. The Holy Spirit characterized the affliction from the disease suffered by the woman in Mark 5 with the issue of blood as “masteix”, more properly translated from the Greek as a “scourging.”

Disease and sickness, then, are the effects of the tail of Satan’s whip repeatedly striking us, his slaves. To rid ourselves of disease or other torment, we need to get out from under Satan’s whip, which can only happen if we get out of, and enforce our freedom from, his slave kingdom.

Accordingly, the whole apparatus or superstructure of the Kingdom of Darkness, although brutal, is quite legal – the result of Adam and Eve’s exercise of the free will granted to them. Because of this, apart from Christ, all human beings are the condemned of God – traitors and rebels utterly without hope because we are without a legal way out of our condemnation before God and our slavery to Satan.

Now, knowing this, the Lord was faced with an apparently impossible task if He was to truly fulfill His heart’s desire to rescue us. For the only way for someone to legally escape slavery is to be voluntarily freed by the slave master, Satan, and the Lord knew that was never going to happen, or to die out to the slave kingdom, for “he who has died is freed from sin” (Rom. 6:7) and no longer bound by the legalities of the law pertaining to slavery. Recall that the Law “only has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives.” (Rom. 7:1)

And, of course, as Paul further explained in Romans 6 and 7, that’s exactly what the Lord did – He killed us spiritually (“united with Christ in the likeness of His death” on the cross – Rom. 6:5) so that we would no longer be under the jurisdiction of the domain of darkness and the law of slavery (Col. 1:12). In effect, the Father bought us out of slavery with the blood of Christ and, through spiritual death with Christ, effectually and instantaneously “disappeared” us out of Satan’s kingdom so that we might immediately thereafter be “born again” into the Kingdom of His beloved Son. (Rom. 7:4)

Accordingly, now that we have died out to slavery in the domain of darkness and been born into the Kingdom of God, we “have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again but a spirit of adoption as sons, and so we call out ‘Abba, Father!’, for “the Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are now children of God…” (Rom. 8:15)

Talk about “flipping the table” on our oppressors! One moment we were slaves in Satan’s kingdom at the mercy of his plantation foremen, and the next moment we were killed and buried with Christ and then reborn in the spirit into His Kingdom and family and raised with Him to the right hand of God, exalted far above our former slave masters. (Eph. 1:15-21; Eph. 2:6)

We, the slaves, had now become the masters – instantly. And that continues to happen to thousands of people every day, to the glory of God and to the “open shame” and humiliation of the slave masters (Col. 2:15) or, as Paul often called them, “the rulers of this age.” (1 Cor. 2:8)

As we see, the Lord’s rescue of us was not unjust to Satan. Even though there is flagrant rebellion and supernatural war between God’s Kingdom and Satan’s, the Lord has not treated Satan unjustly. He didn’t force Himself into Satan’s kingdom and steal his property.

In fact, the same way we first got enslaved is the precise way that we were rescued out of slavery. From Romans 5:

15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s (Adam’s) trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness (by Christ) leads to justification and life for all men [who receive and believe it]. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

To summarize the above – we were all constituted sinners by nature because Adam, the first man, our physical progenitor, was constituted a sinner by his choice in the Garden to follow Satan. He could only pass on to his offspring (us, and all men) what he was – no more, no less.

Thereafter, through the miracle of God through Christ, as described in the Scripture above, we who believe the Gospel were likewise re-constituted as righteous by nature by one man – our spiritual progenitor, Christ.

And we further note: “if the rulers of this age (i.e., the slave masters) had understood this, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (1 Cor. 2: 8) For it was all a “mystery”, a “hidden wisdom” which “God had predestined for us before the ages to our glory”…and His. (1 Cor. 2:9)

In other words, Satan himself had not figured this out before he facilitated the crucifixion of the Lord of Glory. Think about that for a moment…

In sum, then, we have been legally set free from our former oppressors. They have no more legal jurisdiction over us as we are no longer legally their slaves – their legal rights over us are no longer in effect. It is like a black slave in the American South who escaped from a slave state to a free state back in the 1800s. Once out of the jurisdiction of the slave state, his former slave master in the slave state could no longer legally oppress him.

Or like the Hebrew slaves who escaped out of Egypt and the clutches of Pharaoh, their former slave master, by going down to metaphorical death at the bottom of the Red Sea, only to re-emerge on dry ground on the other side – all free men.

And thus we are legally free and the story ends, right?

WHY, THOUGH LEGALLY FREE, WE ARE STILL OPPRESSED

Not quite, as we still experience equal or worse oppression by our former slave masters! Why?

Because the slave master is a criminal and criminals don’t obey the laws.

Satan wasn’t about to acquiesce in this instant “flipping of the tables.” He was and is still furious over the whole affair. He decided to do the only thing he could do. Just as with many whites in the South in the late 1800s, he decided not to recognize the law or the rights of the newly freed slaves!

Satan figured the best strategy was to pretend that nothing had changed, to continue right on with his, now illegal, oppression, just as if he were still the slave master of all who had been freed by Christ (just like many Southern plantation owners after the Emancipation Proclamation). Satan did not and would not acknowledge the new reality of his subservience to his former slaves unless and until forced to do so.

As a result, the newly freed slaves had every legal right to be free but, in failing to insist upon their rights as free men, experienced none of the benefits of freedom.

And so it is to this day, except for the few believers who actually fight back in the authority over our enemies Christ has given us. (See Mat. 10:1; Luke 9:1; Luke 10:18-19)

Again, as with any criminal who will continue his lawless ways until stopped by a superior power, Satan will not stop until he is forced to stop.

And that is the purpose of deliverance ministry – to use the legal rights and Kingdom authority won for us by Christ at such a great cost, to stop Satan in his tracks.

But this is where the Western church has completely dropped the ball. This is where we all hesitate and get mired in unbelief and doubt. Thus, Satan’s oppression, disease and affliction march on, killing and stealing from the people of God who have little true knowledge of the fact that Christ has won their freedom from Satan. The whip against our backs only becomes more severe, as Satan is emboldened by our theology of helplessness.

Why is there such helplessness among us believers today?

Recall that the Israelites were brought out of Egypt, out of slavery, so that they could be brought into a land of plenty and security. The land of Canaan had been promised to their forefathers by the Creator God some 430 years previous to the exodus on Passover. In other words, the sons of Abraham had legal title to Canaan beyond the Jordan.

The Promised Land, however, was occupied, and its occupants were, in fact, giants. And these giants stood between the Israelites and the fulfillment of God’s promise to their forefathers to bring them into the land of peace, rest, and plenty. This is where, as described fully in Numbers 13 and 14, the Israelites rebelled so grievously against the Lord.

And the giants didn’t seem to care too much about the fact that the Lord had given title to Canaan to the Israelites, and that therefore the giants were squatters with no legal right to the land. None of them were packing up the bags and moving on. As with Goliath, their attitude was “come on and take it from us, if you dare.”

Despite the Lord’s promise of title to the land and victory over the giants, and His demonstration in Egypt and against Pharaoh of His ability and willingness to supernaturally overcome any obstacle, the Israelites in unbelief balked at the banks of the Jordan. They accused the Lord of bringing them to a place where not only would they be killed, but their wives and children would be slaughtered. They even talked about returning to Egypt. (Num. 14:2-4)

On the heels of that slander and insult, the Lord thundered that He was ready to destroy them all and build a new nation all over again starting with Moses. Had not Moses interceded and appealed to the Lord’s concern over His own reputation, we can assume that is exactly what He would have done. (Num. 14:10-21)

This is where today we find most of the Western church is apparently camped out – in the wilderness refusing to cross the Jordan and go into the land, not believing that the Lord will give us victory in Christ’s name over the giants of hate, anger, lust, depression, unworthiness, and all manner of diseases. In fact, our theologians have validated this unbelief with a high-sounding name: cessationism.

To the Wilderness Jews, the Lord had provided both legal title to the Land and the authority over the Giants living there. He had given the Enemy into the hands of His people so that no one would be able to stand before them. (Josh. 1:1-5)

It was just a matter of them actually believing this truth, walking into the Land and raising their sword against the Giants and appropriating what had been provided to them and therefore what legally belonged to them. David understand that when he confronted Goliath, referring to him as an “uncircumcised Philistine.” (1 Sam. 17:26) To David, the issue was not Goliath’s size, it was his lack of legal right to the land and therefore to “defy the armies of the Living God.”

Like the Wilderness Jews, this is where we find ourselves today when faced with disease or emotional torment. Unlike Joshua, and unlike David, we hesitate, because we are burdened down with a theology of helplessness/cessationism which strips the Gospel of all power and the promises of God of all credibility.

We are just “sinners saved by grace”, we are told – spiritual cripples, worms unworthy of healing or wholeness, but nonetheless faintly hoping that the Lord might deign to throw us a bone now and then.

To today’s church, this attitude is extolled as true spirituality and piety, when in reality it is rank unbelief, slander, and thoroughly odious to the Lord of Hosts who has supernaturally birthed us spiritually (see above) as royal offspring, Princes and Princesses, and raised us to His right hand and seated us there with Christ in a position of awesome Kingdom power and authority – authority which He expects and has given us the responsibility to exercise. (Mark 16:17)

We fail to understand that we glorify the Father, the Son, and their Gospel when we walk in our new identity, bought at so great a price, as members of the royal family, and we dishonor them when we plead for them to do more, or cry out or complain that we are no better off now than if Christ had not come.

The authority to apprehend our healing, to take it back from the Giants, has been given to every son of God. The writer of Hebrews makes it quite clear that the conquest of the Promised Land, which represents life in Christ, is a necessity and the obligation of every believer and not to be missed, in order to fully realize the benefits Christ bought for us, especially His rest. See Hebrews 4 (all)

Every one of us now who are in Christ, as the Midianite kings exclaimed to Gideon, are “like the sons of a King.” (Jdg. 8:18). A King’s son carries the authority and prestige of the King. He does not dishonor his father by cowering and complaining before the enemies of the Kingdom, before those who would seek to deny him his birthright, his possessions, his rightful honor and glory as a Prince. To do so would give aid and comfort to the King’s enemies, foment disrespect toward the King, and ensure the demise of the Kingdom.

The Apostolic Tradition, the earliest source providing us with detailed information about the catechumenate, makes it crystal clear that in the early church deliverance from unclean spirits was ministered to every new believer for a period of time prior to baptism to ensure the person’s freedom from the Enemy. The great majority of the early church fathers attested to this practice, not only in the Roman church but in the churches of Syria, Jerusalem, Egypt, North Africa, Asia Minor, and others. Unfortunately the only aspect of this practice that still survives in today’s catechumenate is the specific renunciation of Satan and his ways.

The success of our enemies today, the giants in the land now standing as the obstacles to our healing, rescue, peace, and rest, is due to our unbelief and resulting inaction – our disobedience in failing to cross the Jordan and confront the tormenting giants in our lives with the authority we have been given over them (Mat. 10:1; Luke 9:1; Luke 10:17-18), just as with the wilderness Israelites in Numbers 13-14.

That disobedience is grounded in our choosing to believe an alternative reality that excludes deliverance ministry as practiced by Christ and his disciples, and denies the relevance and opposition of these malevolent and invisible enemies, perhaps because we don’t want to appear unsophisticated to our post-modern peers. Perhaps because we are just as fearful and cowardly as the Wilderness Jews were….

Or, perhaps, there are much darker explanations.

*****

My fault…or God’s?

Over the years mostly well-intentioned theologians have sought to explain the disconnect and the failure of the promises of God to pan out for many Christians with what can best be described as invented doctrines like dispensationalism, cessationism, and the modern redefined concept of “sovereignty”.

These doctrines all have one thing in common: as with the Israelites in the wilderness, they essentially end up assigning responsibility to God for the failure of the “very great and precious” promises (2 Pe. 1:4) and the presence of personal torment and suffering in the lives of believers.

But this is because we are our (fore)father’s children. When confronted by God in the garden with the results of his disobedience, Adam blamed God: ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ (Gen. 3:12)

According to Adam, the disaster birthed out of his disobedience was God’s fault.

If these modern explanations are true, then in my view, Jesus has changed His mind about wanting us free and healed, despite the Scriptures saying that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hbr. 13:8)

God is dealing with mankind differently now than then, we are told. His miracles are not for us today. It’s sort of like going for the first time to a great restaurant you’ve read about and then hearing from the waiter when you sit down in anticipation that the best things on the menu are now (and for the rest of our lives) out of stock.

Or, we are told, they may or may not be in stock, because God being God, He can do whatever He wants whenever he wants, and that may mean violating a clear and obvious Scriptural promise He has made. If a man did that we would call him a liar.

When God does it some theologians euphemize it as “an exercise of His sovereignty,” thinking that perhaps God needs their help to excuse what most might see as utter fecklessness if engaged in by a human being.

None of these explanations pass muster. God has sovereignly chosen before time to be always faithful to His Word. And in His Word is where we find His will declared. And He has not and will not ever change it.

*****

Why Some of Us May Actually Prefer the Promises to Remain Unfulfilled

But the subtle, dark appeal of these invented doctrines, is what really goes to our deep heart, and it is this:

If God has essentially left me defenseless against disease and demonic oppression, if He is really holding back, as the Serpent told Eve, and as Eve believed, if He is not then “all in”, then maybe, just maybe, I don’t have to be “all in” either.

And in the depth of my rebellion, if I never really wanted on my most fundamental level of existence to surrender fully to this God as my God for eternity, then that just may be A-OK for me.

In fact, if that is the state of my heart, then I will lock on to these aberrant portrayals of the Gospel and the work of Christ as essentially deficient and heartless, like a shipwrecked man to a broken mast, preserving my flesh as the sovereign of my life.

Because what the self-justification wrought by these slanders on God’s character does, is enable me to still be the god of my life, not Him, and therefore I do not have to submit my finances or my other life choices to his rule, while all the while doing enough to ensure an admission ticket to heaven at the end of our days, or so Satan whispers to me.

In my deep heart I think that if the cost of that unwritten, unspoken compromise or deal is the failure of the “very great and precious promises”…so be it, if that leaves me on the throne of my life.

I have subtly made the calculation, with Satan crunching the numbers for me, and I decide at the end of the day that I am good with it…

This line of thinking should make us all weep…

As a result, the diagnosis is wrong, the prescription ineffective, the promise lies unfulfilled, and the torment continues.

But, as the writer of Hebrews said: “…[B]eloved, we are convinced of better things in your case…” (Hbr. 6:9)

And to access those things, we must boldly go into the Land, confront the giants, and claim our freedom in the authority Christ has given us. Josh. 1:1-9. This is the purpose of deliverance ministry, and why we all need it.

It IS the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to “set the captives free”…

THE END