Why Many Christians Need Deliverance from Demons

By Michael Fackerell

Introduction

“I saw it happen, but I can’t explain it” – words of a Baptist pastor after a mass deliverance meeting.

This article will be an attempt to explain the phenomemon of deliverance from demons out of Christians from a biblical point of view.

To complement my other writings on this subject of deliverance from demons, I would like to address the theological questions and objections given by many on the issue of whether a Christian might ever need deliverance from demons. 

Over the centuries the church’s understanding of the Bible on many issues ranging from salvation, the born again experience, baptism in water, the operation of the Holy Spirit in the church and the believer’s life, church governance, repentance, eternal judgement, the laying on of hands and virtually every core and foundational doctrine mentioned in Hebrews 6:1-2 has varied. 

The truth as God sees it has remained the same. Only the consensus view held by the majority of professing Christian (people who say they are Christians) has changed greatly on many issues. I’ve seen it in my own lifetime and you may have seen it also. Some of the changes have brought people closer to biblical truth and some popular changes have also led people away from the truth.

The Bible says: “Test all things. Hold fast to what is good. Avoid every form of evil.” (1 Thessalonians 5:19)

The power of tradition is very strong. So let’s be open. We must stay within the confines of Scripture, but not necessarily within the confines of our own preconceived notions about Scripture. Jesus warned the Pharisees that they  were “making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down” (Mark 7:13)

Jesus said, “And these signs will follow those who believe. In my name, they shall cast out [expel] demons. They shall speak with new tongues.” (Mark 16:17)

Why don’t we see more demons cast out by Christians today? Is it because all demons went into hiding after Jesus rose from the dead? Is it because there aren’t enough demons to go around and it would be extremely unlikely for a Christian in this modern age to come anywhere near one?

Or perhaps it is because we have traditions that blind us to the power of the Word of God and make us ignorant of the reality of the power in the name of Jesus.

There was a time when most “Bible believing Christians” also thought that speaking in tongues was fake or of the devil in spite of the second half of Mark 16:17. This is no longer the case today, but it shows how strongly held beliefs, practices and ways of interpreting the very same Bible text can change depending on which teachers we are listening to.

What is A Christian?

According to the modern understanding of what it means to be a Christian, it should be easy to see that most “Christians” could easily have demons because there isn’t even a serious attempt going on to obey God.

There are powerful traditions around the meaning of the word “Christian”.

This word means many things to many people. Some missiologists claim that there are over 1 billion Christians in the world today. By this definition, anyone who thinks that they are a Christian, is a Christian. This would include all Roman Catholics, all nominally Orthodox Christians. It would include Liberal Protestants who vaguely believe in a God of unclear gender who celebrates a diversity of sexual practices, a God who has not communicated reliably through the Bible. It also includes people who claim to believe the Bible as some sort of “Evangelical Christian” and yet have no real intention of giving their all to Jesus Christ and obeying the Word of God.

Not only that, but according to popular definitions of a “born again Christian”, according to George Barna, most of those identifying as such believe that Jesus was a sinner.

In an article on christianpost.com  it says:

“While born-again Christians make up about one-third of all U.S. adults and are considered “the backbone of local church activity because of their higher level of commitment to the Christian faith,” the study shows that between 2020 and 2023, the share of those who say they believe Jesus did not commit sins during his lifetime on Earth fell from 58% to 44%.”

It turns out that many people call themselves “born again Christians” but even their intellectual head beliefs vary greatly from even the basic premises of the Bible on all kinds of vital issues. 

And yet, as we will see, correct head knowledge is not even the mark of being a true Christian. Church going is not the defining mark of being a true Christian either.

Being a Believer and a Disciple of Jesus

In the Bible, it says, “the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch” (Acts 11:26). The New Testament rarely uses the word “Christian”. It does so in 2 or 3 places. Normally the New Testament speaks of disciples, believers or followers of the Way.

If we want a biblical definition of a Christian, it is someone who is a disciple of Jesus.

We have departed a great deal from the idea of being an apprentice or practical student of Jesus Christ in our concept of Christianity, and we need to return to it.

And this much is also certain: demons do not want people to return to obeying Jesus and learning from Him through the Holy Spirit.

What is a disciple?

A disciple is someone who is an apprentice learning to do the work of the master. A disciple of Jesus is someone who is an apprentice of Jesus, who learns by disciplining themselves to follow the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, usually through the help of other disciples who have more experience.

A disciple disciplines themself and is disciplined to follow the instruction of someone who is training them how to do things.

An apprentice carpenter watches and learns to do what an experienced carpenter can do. He does not learn carpentry simply by reading books on woodwork, but by actual doing the work of construction.

In the same way, if we are to do the works of Jesus Christ (John 14:12) we need to follow the Holy Spirit against our fleshly impulses and learn to do what Jesus did. A big part of that was casting out demons, and we may need to begin with ourselves if we are finding ourselves locked into a pattern of disobedience and sins of omission (basically – not doing what God said to do).

Most of the time in church history, if people have been “discipled”, they have in practice been discipled in only a very limited subset of the things Jesus was and did.

It often boils down to church adherence, learning to say prayers, read the Bible and hopefully develop some good character qualities like honesty, patience, love and so on. While this is essential, it does not encompass all that the word “disciple” or even “believer” signifies in the New Testament.

Consider the following statements of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.” (Luke 6:40)

“Make disciples … teaching them to obey all things which I commanded you” (Matthew 28:19)

“He who believes in Me, the WORKS that I do shall he do also” (John 14:12)

“These signs shall follow those who believe: in my name they shall drive out demons, they shall speak with new tongues” (Mark 16:17)

If we restrict our definition of “believer” or “disciple” to people who match this description we have narrowed the field considerably. And it goes without saying that this verse does not cover by any means the full scope and meaning of being a believer or a disciple. A disciple is not only marked by supernatural faith but also by a life of love and surrender to the revealed will of God.

Many people who are “Christians” have only partially repented of their sins and darkness. Many have only believed the parts of the New Testament that their Christian community emphasises and accepts. I would contend that whatever parts of our lives have not been surrendered and confessed to the Lord are open doors for evil to dwell in – even “the spirit who now works  in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2).

Every departure from the revealed will of God is a form of “missing the mark” – one of the key understandings of the meaning of the word “sin” in Greek.

People can be extremely stubborn in holding onto their patterns of ignorance, sins of omission and practical disobedience. Sometimes theological tricks are used in the minds of Christians to justify these things. Satan is subtle.

It is very dangerous to keep on wilfully sinning. Hebrews 10:26-39 teaches that there is no sure salvation for those who won’t repent.

We Are on  Journey

The Lord Jesus gives people in the church time to repent. In the Book of Revelation chapters 1-3, where Jesus frequently called the churches to repent, we find these words concerning the woman Jezebel:

“And I gave her time to [a]repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.” (Revelation 2:21)

All the areas in our life in which we haven’t faced the truth about ourselves and turned to the light of Jesus are like ticking timebombs that could create some kind of disaster for us. So we are very wise if we waste no time in responding to Jesus Christ who is wooing us by the Holy Spirit. We need to “hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches” even today, if we have ears to hear.

Can Children of God Be Afflicted with Evil Spirits?

We will move on to consider the issue of whether a genuine follower of Jesus could be afflicted with evil spirits and need deliverance.

There is Scriptural evidence both for and against this proposition, so we need to weigh up everything and understand how to interpret the things we do see.

Sometimes people will make claims that sound reasonable but are not direct quotes of the Bible. For example:

“It is impossible for a demon to be in a true born again Christian who is the temple of the Holy Spirit”. “Light can not co-exist with darkness”. “If someone had a demon, they were not a true born again Christian, for no true born again Christian can be possessed by a demon.”

These statements cannot be said to have the same authority as Scripture, because they are not actually quotations from the Bible. They draw on biblical language styles and sound similar to some things in the Bible, but that is not the same thing.

If you want a Scripture that supports this, you will have to turn to the Book of Mormon.

According to the Book of Mormon, in Mosiah 2:37, it is said that “the Lord has no place in him, for he dwelleth not in unholy temples”

Here is another one.

<h3>”Demon Possessed” is in the English Bible, but not the Greek</h3>

The word “possessed”  is generally a Bad Translation

The King James Bible states concerning the ministry of Philip the Evangelist:

“For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed.” (Acts 8:7)

I’m sorry to say but the King James version for all its beauty and power is not always a perfect translation. It is not the Bible read by the apostle Paul. Let us look at the Greek text. Here is a screenshot of an interlinear Bible.

It just says that many of those having unclean spirits. That is the people of Samaria were having unclean spirits. It doesn’t imply that these people were fully possessed or controlled by evil spirits. The word “possessed” conjures up images of extreme demonisation such as were depicted in the horrible movie “The Exorcist” which depicted a powerless Roman Catholic priest losing against a demon which fully controlled a girl.

People think in these sorts of terms when they hear the word “possessed” and therefore they think it doesn’t apply to them.

Demons are therefore able to hide in plain sight and believers think it is their “sinful nature” or their “mental illness” which is creating all their internal turmoil and robbing them of peace in various ways. Just because we can’t always “see” demons via a gift of discernment of spirits does not mean that they are not there.

“In an Unclean Spirit”

Mark 1:23 says, “Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out”

Here was a “church-going” man who had an unclean spirit. The Bible literally says that he was “in an unclean spirit”. This is the meaning of the Greek word “en”.

This man was under the influence of an evil spirit. He could have been a regular at the synagogue, which was the public church meeting for God-fearing people in the day. The evil unclean spirit was provoked by the presence of Jesus Christ and cries out through the man. It is a very interesting encounter. And we note that Jesus drove the spirit out of the man.

In Matthew 9:32 it says, “As they went out, behold, they brought to Him a man, mute and demon-possessed.”

What is this word demon-possessed in the Greek?

The concept of demon possession is only in English Bibles. Not in the original Greek

You can see that what is translated “possessed by a demon” is actually the Greek word transliterated “daimonizomenon”.

The man was demonised. There is no concept of “possession” implied here. The man is simply infested by demons. 

There can be all kinds of different negative results from demon infestation in a person. Muteness, deafness and other physical conditions are not the only possibilities. Some of the effects are mental or emotional. A lot is going on today that people do not understand, because generally, we do not see into the spiritual realm, and we are operating as beginners in the fields of psychiatry and neuroscience where we really do not understand fully what is going on and how indeed our brains interact with the spiritual realm.

To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And so it is with our modern worldview. Life is more complex than that. It will turn out that Jesus and the Bible diagnosed things correctly.

The point of all this discussion is this: when Christians talk about “a born again Christian cannot be demon-possessed” they are fighting a concept of “demon possession” which is not actually in the original text of the Bible, but only in English translations using words which are loaded with popular misconceptions. On the basis of these misconceived ideas, Christians might want to say that a Christian cannot have a demon.

Biblical Evidence that Christians Can Indeed Have Demons – But Don’t Need to Have Them

With some of the preconceptions hopefully out of the way, I am hoping that we can begin to take a look at what the Scriptures DO say.

But before we do, there is another powerful preconception that we should address.

The Scripture presents the work of Jesus on the cross as a perfect work. Jesus said, “It is finished”. However, this did not mean that the job of evangelism was done, that people had received the truth, or that every Christian was fully sanctified at that time. From our time-bound point of view, the victory of Jesus in our own personal lives was yet to be outworked. After all, we didn’t even exist when it happened, except in the mind of God.

You cannot invoke the idea of “the finished work of Christ” to prove that a Christian cannot have a demon, any more than you can invoke it to prove that all Christians abound in the fruit of the Holy Spirit like love and self-control.

The Word of God says, “by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Just because this is presented in the past tense does NOT mean that it is impossible for a true Christian to be sick. And neither does it mean that it is impossible for a true Christian to have a diseased soul. Yet clearly these words DO mean something. What it means is that from God’s point of view, the work has been provided for and the victory can be appropriated by faith. 

The people of God always had to appropriate their actual victories by a living faith.

“And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour.” (Joshua 6:2)

At this stage the walls of Jericho were still up. The soldiers of Jericho were still alive. The people of Israel were not in the city. And yet God say, “I have given into thine hand Jericho”.

Sometimes when God says it has been done, we still have to take it by faith, by obeying the voice of the Lord.

God may say we have been healed, but the only way to get rid of the symptoms and the disease in our bodies and appropriate a divine healing would be to obey the Holy Spirit and what He is saying.

The same applies to sanctification. Hebrews 10:14 says that “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” Can we use this Scripture to argue that a true Christian is already perfect, and has no need for change?

No, this Scripture is saying that if we are being sanctified, set apart to God, and purified through faith, then from God’s point of view we are perfectly justified and acceptable to God. We are also coming into an actual perfection which will not be complete however immediately on becoming a follower of Jesus or upon being baptised. We are called in Hebrews 6 to “go on to perfection”. But first we have to get our foundations right.

So when the Scripture says in Colossians 1:13 “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love”  it does not mean that our deliverance is complete, and there is no scope for further deliverance for any true Christian.

When we turned from darkness to light, were baptised and received the Holy Spirit, we received a substantial deliverance from the world, the flesh and the devil. But we see even in the story of the Exodus, even after the Passover and the crossing of the Red Sea (which is a type of baptism in water), that the Israelites still had many enemies they needed to defeat both in the wilderness and the promised land. The fight goes on.

The Danger of Receiving Another Spirit

“For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.  For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!” (2 Corinthians 11:2-4)

It is definitely possible for Christians to be corrupted. Why would Paul fear this if he knew it was impossible? There is no correct interpretation of “the finished work of Christ” which guarantees that genuine Christians cannot commit spiritual fornication against Jesus Christ by listening to a different gospel – which will result in them receiving a “different spirit” which they previously did not receive.

The Book of Acts reveals that Christians may receive the Holy Spirit (see Acts 2, Acts 10, Acts 8. Acts 19 for examples). But Paul here reveals that he is afraid that these Corinthian Christians might receive a different spirit. This different spirit might pretend to be of God, but it is actually a deceptive religious spirit. A demon.

Christians can receive demons through receiving false teaching, even after receiving the true Holy Spirit. It is plainly revealed as a possibility here in the Bible. Please accept what the Bible is saying ere, rather than ignoring it and returning to presuppositions and belief systems that oppose the biblical truth we just read.

We are To Cleanse Ourselves from All Filthiness of Flesh and Spirit

“Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” (2 Corinthians 7:1)

Paul tells these Christians in 2 Corinthians 6:16 “ For you[f] are the temple of the living God.” How can Paul tell people “who are the temple of the living God” that they need to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit? 

It must be that the temple of the living God can have filthiness of flesh and spirit in it. Or these words make no sense.

Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) and collectively the church is the temple of the living God. This temple should not be defiled. It should be cleansed. But just as there were times when the Old Testament temple in Jerusalem was allowed to be defiled because of the disobedience of the people, so it is possible that the temple of God can be defiled now. And Paul says we should not touch the unclean thing, and we should cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit – perfecting holiness out of reverence for Christ. This doesn’t happen just because we have a doctrine that says it has happened. There is some action for us to take.

For a start, take an inventory. Is there pornography on your computer or in your heart? Remove it. Is there idolatry, love of money, false doctrine? Get delivered. Is there pride causing God to resist you and your prayers? Humble yourself. This is something for all of us. We are on a journey and the price of freedom (from sin) is eternal vigilance.

If our holiness is not perfect yet, where is the violation? Somewhere, somehow, God’s word or God’s voice is being disregarded! Could it be that another voice is being believed in place of the voice of God? It is very likely.

I would contend that demons are one form of filthiness of flesh and spirit that needs to be cleansed. This is not explicitly stated here. God has hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes (Luke 10:21 in relation to demons). Plenty of people can testify of being delivered of unclean spirits even after their initial repentance and born again experience. However, we will go on to examine further evidence, trusting that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth.

Sin Has a Personality, and Desires. So what is this “Sin”?

So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” (Genesis 4:6)

How can an action of disobedience have a “desire” to take over a person? Only persons have desires. Was God saying to Cain, “You have a desire to sin but you should rule over this desire?” No! God was referring to sin as a hostile personality, like a wild animal, with a will and a desire to take over. This was the spirit of murder seeking to enter Cain and cause him to murder his brother. Cain could have said “No” to this, but he chose not to, and we know the result.

Temptation comes to Christians

“But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” (James 1:14 NKJV). The corrupted Greek manuscripts from Alexandria do not have “and enticed” but the Majority Text and the Textus Receptus of the KJV does. This matters, because something is doing the enticing. Demons entice to sin.

We are speaking here of Christians who have not yet “perfected holiness in the fear of God” because here are Christians who actually have evil desires. But having evil desires is not the same as sinning. Acting on the enticement to follow these evil desires is sin. Following the spirit which entices us to sin leads to spiritual bondage. Don’t do it.

The Lord’s Prayer

Jesus taught his own disciples to pray. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13).

This definitely implies that Christians will regularly need deliverance from the evil one. The question still remains – what kinds of deliverance might we need?

Obviously we can need deliverance from the external attacks of the evil one. But perhaps surprisingly, it turns out that we may also at times need deliverance from evil spirits within.

If you are enslaved to some kind of addiction or sin, there is a very good chance you have an evil spirit. Thankfully, you can get cleansed and delivered, so you don’t have to face a constant internal struggle.

The Devil Made Me Do It

A big lie is that we can’t stop sinning and it is the fault of demons. No. We are responsible for our sins, not demons. We can’t blame them. They offered the temptation, and we accepted the offer. We have to take responsibility. However, once they gain entry, they create a kind of spiritual bondage or enslavement which is not so easy to break. It hurts to resist the chains. Thankfully Jesus can break all these chains if we call out to Him.

Some ministers reject the deliverance ministry entirely because they see Christians failing to take responsibility for their own lives by blaming the devil or their lack of deliverance. Well, we are still responsible. We have to be disciplined. Discipline hurts the flesh. But it is easier when you have more spiritual freedom, which is what God is hoping we will all pursue diligently as we seek His face.

Deliverance is the Children’s Bread

“Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.” [there is that mistranslation again. She was demonized]. But He answered her not a word.

And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.”But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”

But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”

And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”

Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

This woman was from an idol worshiping occultic culture similar to what the Western world is becoming and she had a daughter who was demonised. She knew what the problem was and she knew Jesus could help. So far, she is doing better than many Christians who think it is not a demon but a chemical imbalance, and who don’t think Jesus can help so they don’t persist in prayer.

Jesus describes deliverance from demons as the children’s bread. It is for the people of God’s covenant.

It is normal for Christians to receive freedom from demons, but it is not automatic. Like any bread, you have to eat it. You have to appropriate it. There are ways to appropriate this deliverance, through repentance, through faith and through expelling the demon (usually forcing it out through your breath).

Deliverance is for Christians whenever they need it.

Sickness is often Demonic

Christians might claim they can’t have a demon, but few would claim they can never be sick, even though the Word says, “by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Peter 2:24; Matthew 8:16,17).

In Acts 10:38, Peter describes the ministry of Jesus

“How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him”.

Right there we see that sickness is not of God, but of the devil. Not only that, but in the gospels, the healing of the sick and the casting out of demons went together. For example in Matthew 4:24:

“Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them. “ 

In Luke 13:10-12 it reads:

Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.

This woman had what we would call a hunchback condition or a curvature of the spine. But Jesus recognised it was a demon. When the Pharisees challenged Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, Jesus replied:

“So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” (Luke 13:16)

The conclusion is really inescapable. A true child of God can be bound by a spirit of infirmity. How often is this taking place today, and we don’t realise it? How many sicknesses in the church don’t budge because we are not dealing effectively with a spirit of infirmity?

The devil would prefer that you don’t know that a spirit of infirmity can possibly bind you or your loved ones. That way he can keep your family in misery and suck your time and money away from you so that you can’t do as much to reach out with the gospel.

Ah, But This Was “Old Covenant” …

One of the most diabolical sources of heresy amongst true believers today is the idea that we can safely reject every practical lesson, command or instruction on the way things are from the four gospels on the grounds that “this was Old Covenant” and “everything changed with the cross”.

What a pity if that was actually so? We would have no biblical manual to teach us how to cast out demons or heal the sick except for a single passage in James 5 which applies to church elders – who by the way ought to be able to pray a prayer of faith that actually results in the healing of the sick.

Thankfully, the truth is, we do have a valid instruction manual in the four gospels, which were not somehow out of date by the time they were written down. But Satan did a good job telling many sincere Christians that they were out of date.

The death and resurrection of Jesus and subsequent outpouring of the Holy Spirit was not done to take away all hope of deliverance from disease and knowledge of how to deal with demons, but rather to give us GREATER ACCESS to God by which these things can continue to be done according to the valuable training and instruction given to us by the Holy Spirit in the four gospels, amongst other places.

To follow Jesus, we ought to begin by hearing the Word of God, then by repenting and being baptised, then by receiving the Holy Spirit and then by overcoming Satan through fasting in a wilderness time. After that, we can function in faith and drive out demons and disease. We might have to repeat this pattern a few times. I don’t mean being water baptised again and again but I do mean renewing our consecration to God and the other things mentioned here. 

The lessons in the gospels show us how things could unfold. They are relevant and up to date. The only thing we are surely not going to do is die for the sins of the world. But we will suffer enough so that God’s spirit and life and the gospel can reach others. That is different but somewhat analogous. Paul talked about this in 2 Corinthians 4:10-12

 “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.  So then death is working in us, but life in you.”

We aren’t going to be able to reveal the glory and life of Jesus without profound death to our own selfish preferences and comfort. This is part of what it means to follow Jess.

In any case, Jesus told his disciples “teach them to obey all things which I commanded you” (Matthew 28:19). Not only the things that Peter and Paul were going to write down in letters later on – but the commands and example in the four gospels. This ministry of liberation is needed today in the world, pretty desperately. And we have to begin in the church, amongst the people of God, who have yet to actually receive the freedom promised in Christ.

A Warning Against False Prophets 

2 Peter chapter 2 is not a chapter you will hear much about on Christian Television today. It warns of greedy false prophets and teachers who will promise you freedom to sin (possibly in the name of “grace” – see also the book of Jude). I’m suspicious of these preachers that engage in manipulative tactics to entice people to give them money – while at the same time affirming that there is no need for deliverance from demons for some reason. The passge in 2 Peter 2 warns that if people who were sanctified by the blood of Jesus end up getting entangled in sins and lusts of the flesh they end up worse than if they had never been saved – clearly implying that following false prophets who are after your money can cause you to lose your salvation. Like dogs returning to vomit, backsliders can get corrupted and enslaved by lust. They can get their demons back.

Don’t do it. And if you have been deceived, turn to Jesus again. You may find mercy and deliverance.

The Bible says in 1 John to Christians to “believe not every spirit, but tests the spirits, to see if they are from God”. I suppose this implies talking to spirits at times to find out what they say and where they are from. Believing lying spirits will bring you into spiritual bondage again. We are warned to keep ourselves from idols (1 John 5:20) and not to partake of the table of demons (1 Corinthians 10:20-22).

Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?

Paul implies here that it would be possible for them, if they did the wrong thing and worshipped idols in some way, that they would have “felloiwship with demons”. The Lord’s supper is a dedication and consecration of ourselves to God and to one another through the blood and body of Christ. We shouldn’t do try to do this if we are not serious about living a pure life before God.

Conclusion

I hope this helps address the issue at hand. If you believe you should seek deliverance from demons, I encourage you to read my other books “The Kingdom of God and Deliverance from Demons” and “The Practical Ministry of Casting Out Demons”.

If you want to help me get the gospel out to more people or have time to do more ministry for people, I am open to receiving financial help.