MINISTRY OF DELIVERANCE FROM UNHOLY SPIRITS

DELIVERANCE MINISTRY

Contact: The Rev. Dr. Winfred Vergara (wvergara@episcopalchurch.org)

(First presented in a training seminar at Holy Apostles' Episcopal Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, December 2017)

 

Introduction:

At the outset, let me say that whenever you engage in Deliverance Ministry, you must let your Bishop know or must have his or her permission. This is not only the regulation but also to have proper episcopal support as you embark in this ministry.  It is also desirable to engage in this ministry with a team.

Deliverance ministry is based on Jesus ministry. Deliverance happens in response to human needs, as a platform for evangelism and as a demonstration that the power of God is greater than that of the evil one.

Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath Day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:  

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.  He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-22)

It is possible to describe the three-fold ministry of Jesus as a PHD- Preaching, Healing and Deliverance. Jesus preached the Good News, healed the sick and delivered those oppressed by demons. 

Deliverance can also be applied to liberation from unjust social structures and oppressive social systems. This article however limits its scope to liberation from oppressive spirits or demons.

If healing ministry is like administering medicine, chemotherapy or radiation, then deliverance ministry can be compared to a surgery. In healing, the goal is to cure the disease. In deliverance, the goal is to cut any cancer, any intruder that oppresses the person. In other words, deliverance is a more focused form of healing so that the person may be liberated and experience wholeness of spirit, mind and body. 

The term for healing ministry is “laying on of hands” as if the action is done by the “hand of God.” In deliverance, the image is “the finger of God.” In Luke 11:19-20, Jesus said: “But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the Kingdom of God has come near you.” In Matthew 12: 27-28, the finger of God is the Spirit of God. It pinpoints and touches a specific area of our life: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. The Spirit of God (the Finger of God) may touch you and minister to your needs; touches in the same manner as a surgeon’s knife can touch and cut out any intruder or invader.

Deliverance and the Holy Spirit

It appears in Scripture, that it was not Jesus but the Holy Spirit that exposes demons. Before the Holy Spirit came upon Him, we heard nothing of deliverance. The moment the Holy Spirit came, demons were exposed. So wherever the Holy Spirit comes in power, we will be involved in spiritual warfare.

Matthew 8:16 described the opening of Jesus’ ministry: He cast out demons with His word and healed the person. So healing and deliverance always go together. It pays to have a deliverance ministry prior to healing ministry and vice versa.

In Mark 1:39 Jesus preached the Good News and cast out demons. John 10:10 says that the devil comes to “kill, steal and destroy.” One of the purposes of the demons being the legions of the devil is to prevent people from hearing the Word of God. So we are also commissioned to cast out demons so that the Good News will be heard and vice versa. 

A person does not have to be a freak to be demonized. As in the image of arrows, we are all targets of demons. The standard of wellness is wholeness---no ruptured relationship in spirit, mind and body. Very seldom psychiatrists speak of curing mental illness. They talked about adjustment to the environment. A mentally-ill person gets medicated and adjusts to the new environment. But when he re-enters the old environment, the mental illness returns. Jesus talks not of adjustment but of cure, through being delivered.

Much of what I learned about deliverance ministry came from the teachings of Derek Prince (1915-2003), a well-known Bible teacher from England and from Bill Subritzky (1925-2013), a deliverance minister from New Zealand whom I was privileged to know when I served as priest at St. Andrew’s Anglican Cathedral in Singapore in the 1980’s. Both of them were charismatic Anglicans but their ministries resembled more of the Pentecostal kind. I had attended many of Derek’s lectures and had served as assistant to Bill in some of his deliverance ministries in Singapore.

Derek emphasized that the word “Devil” or “Diablos” is the title of Satan himself but the word “demon” is not Satan but a description of the lesser order of evil. The root word “daemonium” means “to know”. In other words, the demons are the “knowing ones” as in fortune tellers, soothsayers, séances and shamans who provides knowledge not accessible to ordinary humans.

The Greek word “demonized” does not mean possessed. Christians baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) cannot be possessed by evil spirits. Baptizes Christians belong to Christ and owned by Christ but they can be demonized in the form of depression, suppression and oppression.

When I assisted Bill Subitzky in one of his demon-casting ministries, I saw some manifestations of the presence of demonic and how they exited from a person’s body. Bill claimed he could see them but I could not. So he described the demons as “beings without bodies.”  Demons have wills, emotions, voice and all attributes of a person but they have no bodies, so they seek to inhabit others bodies. 

Those who are not baptized as Christians have the danger of being eventually possessed, an extreme condition where a person loses his personality and his will taken over by demons. This must be the condition of the man from Gadarenes who was possessed by a legion of demons (Luke 8:26-39 and Mark 5:1-9).

Essentially, demons have two purposes: to keep non-Christians from knowing Christ personally and to keep Christians from serving Christ effectively. Derek Prince testified that he had a condition of demon-oppression he called a “demon of insecurity.” The root cause of this demon was the initial rejection from his mother who wanted to abort him in pregnancy and failing to do so, treated him as if he were not his child. This demon of rejection would later manifest in him being lonely, miserable, insecure, suffering from self-pity, depression and despair.

Extreme depression has three consequences: passive which leads to suicide, aggressive which leads to murder, and both murder-suicide. Recently we had seen examples of such extreme demonic consequences. In Las Vegas, a man massacred those who were attending a Country Music concert and killed himself; and in Sutherland Springs, Texas another person massacred people worshiping in a church.

Derek described depressive spirit as “like a dark gray cloud” gnawing on him so he decided to administer deliverance on him. Reading Isaiah 61:3 which says “Put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” and Joel 2:32 which says, “Whosoever calls on the Lord shall be delivered,” he pointed a finger on his head and pronounced,  “In the name of Jesus, deliver me from this Spirit.” Gradually, he experienced liberation and achieved wholeness.

Areas of Demon Oppression

Mind: Demons usually target your mind causing you doubt, unbelief, confusion and insanity. Anybody involved in the occult would eventually experience confusion and depression. It takes many years to shake off that demon off your life.

Tongue:  Constant lying and compulsive lying are often symptomatic of a lying spirit. A habitual liar is a fantastic liar. He sits there and tells a story and the story gets stranger and stranger but they seem believable. It’s like a kid who came back with bad grades and the parents were disappointed; he left for a while and came back with a different story to please his parents. 

Gossiping to hurt others is also a lying spirit. A person gossiped about seeing a priest in a cheap motel with a woman. It turned out the priest is Lutheran (so he can marry) and the woman is his wife and they came to visit a homeless family they helped to put up in a motel.

Exaggeration is also a lying spirit as when a TV evangelist exaggerates the healings and results that happen in his rallies which he describes as “evangelistically speaking.”

Sex: Sex is good and desirable in the context of marriage. It is not a sin to be tempted sexually. It is possible that Jesus must have been tempted himself (Hebrew 2:18) but he did not succumb to it. If you’re tempted and fell, stand up and don’t give up. “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it (1 Corinthians 10:13).”

Addictions:  There’s a demon of drugs, tobacco, alcohol, food and shopping. When one becomes addicted that the urge to do it becomes overpowering, then there’s the symptoms of demonic oppression. Two church women were under constant stress. The Episcopalian tried to get relief by drinking Martini and she became alcoholic. The Baptist tried to get relief by going to the kitchen and goring on food and became food-aholic. Both addictions are deadly. 

Recently, we learned of the word “opioids” which is the addiction to both prescription and non-prescription drugs which has grown in epidemic proportion. According to Center for Disease Control (CDC), “From 1999 to 2015, more than 183,000 people have died in the U.S. from overdoses related to prescription opioids.^”

DELIVERANCE FROM THE CURSE

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Holy Spirit” (Galatians 3:13-14).

All the entire work of Jesus on the Cross is a substitutionary sacrifice: Jesus was made sin so we may receive His righteousness; death so we may have His life; sickness so we may have His health; curse so we may have His blessing.

Being delivered from the curse is preliminary to receive blessing of healing, health and riches. It is a logical order: break the curse (the deliverer casts out evil spirits) and receive healing, peace and blessings. 

Curse is real in the same manner as blessing is real. Curse appeared 200 times in the Bible. Deuteronomy 28 has 68 verses of 14 blessings and 54 curses!Deliverance from curses means turning curses into blessings. The following are considered God’s blessings:

 

1.     Exultation – being lifted up, the head not the tail, above not beneath

2.     Good Health – wholeness of mind, body and spirit

3.     Harmony – no conflict

4.     Reproduction- fecundity, fruitfulness, womb, labor, success

5.     Prosperity – success, material blessings

6.     Liberation – freedom to be and to do

7.     Victory- success

8.     God’s favor – when you pray, God answers “yes”

To be delivered from curses means a movement from a condition of curse to a condition of blessings:

a.     From Humiliation into Exultation

b.     From Sickness into Good health

c.      From Family Breakdowns Into Happy Homes

d.     From Poverty into Prosperity

e.     From Defeat into victory

f.       From Oppression into Liberation

g.      From Failure into Success

h.     From God’s Disfavor into God’s favor

On the cross, Jesus exhausted all the curses so that we may have all the blessings. For example, the curse of poverty is described in Deuteronomy 28:48-49 as “hunger, thirst, nakedness, lack of all things.” On the cross, Jesus became hungry, thirsty, naked, lacked all things and buried in borrowed tomb. In other words, he exhausted all the curse of poverty so that we may have all good things. From poverty, he came “to give you life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).”

Some people say, “My sickness, my poverty is a blessing.” If that is true, then it is wicked to go and see the doctor. I say sickness is not a blessing, poverty is not a blessing, and failure is not a blessing. They are a curse---and Jesus wants to set you free from that curse. The key to liberation from the curse and obtaining the blessing is not hearing God’s voice and not doing God’s will.

Indications That a Curse Maybe Present in a Person’s Life

In general, the symptom of being under a curse is a kind of dark cloud that envelopes a person. Two things describe it: frustration and pessimism, a feeling that somehow “I can’t make it.” The following are symptomatic of being under a curse: 

1.     Mental and emotional breakdowns (Deuteronomy 28), which seem to run in family heritage or generations

2.     Repetitive and chronic disease, especially without conclusive diagnosis. It’s like you go to the doctor to have your liver checked but it was actually the gall bladder and then the spleen; it’s like the diagnosis goes ahead of the doctor’s diagnosis or it escapes detection.

3.     Repeated miscarriages

4.     Breakdown of marriage and family alienation (can't hold together)

5.     Continuing financial insufficiency, especially if income seems sufficient, e.g. like a lady whose husband has a million dollar annual income but always short of money.

6.     Accident Prone. Insurance companies believe in this, that’s why they would raise your premiums if you are accident prone.

7.     Suicidal tendency – when these are multiplied in your family history, there is reason to believe you’re in a curse.

Sources of Curses

1.     GOD – Yes, God promises curses as well as blessings. In Genesis 12, God said to Abraham and His chosen seed: “I will bless those who bless you; I will curse those who curse you.”

2.     SERVANTS OF GOD –When Joshua cursed “he who rebuilds Jericho” he laid the foundation of a curse that would afflict anyone who tries to rebuild Jericho. When Gahasi deceived Elisha, Elisha pronounced a curse saying, “The leprosy of Nathan cleaves to you and your descendant forever.” David pronounced so many blessings as well as curses in the Book of Psalms.

3.     PERSONS IN RELATIONAL AUTHORITY – As parents and husbands. God has built authority over their children; Husbands over their wives (you may not agree but that is what Scripture says.) Example: Jacob and his wife Rachel. Rachel had taken a piece of property from their Uncle Laban. Laban came and accused Jacob and Jacob says “It’s not me; whoever has done it, let him die.” He did not know it was his wife, but he pronounced a curse. When Rachel gave birth, she died.  Jacob did not know but he pronounced a curse against his own wife.

4.     SELF-IMPOSED CURSE – Example of the story of Rebecca and Jacob. Rebecca told her favorite son Jacob to deceive his father and to steal the blessing deemed for his brother Esau. Jacob said, “Suppose I receive a curse instead of blessing?” Rebecca answered, “My son, let the curse be upon me.” As you read Genesis 27, there was no other account of Rebecca after the stealing of Esau’s birthright. Did she get the curse? Many people pronounce a curse upon themselves by saying “I wish I were dead.” Don’t raise your hand if you’re one of those who said it. Be very careful of your negative statement made upon yourself. Don’t even say, “I’ll never make it.” If you believe you are a child of God, say, “I can do it, God being my helper.” If you believe you are a servant of God, say: ”I can do all things, through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

5.     SERVANTS OF SATAN –Derek Prince told a story in Africa: One family in Kenya quarreled with another. One paid a witch doctor to put a curse on the other. The witch doctor announced to the village that in such and such midnight, a jackal will howl and the son of the intended family will die. At the stroke of midnight the jackal howled and the son died. It is possible he died of fright, but he died.  In Nairobi, an evangelistic prayer rally was going on and a group of Kikuyu tribe tried to disrupt it. The evangelist stopped preaching and announced over the microphone, “I pronounce a curse on anyone who will try to disrupt this meeting” and the tribe stopped their disruptive behavior.

Causes of Curses

In general, not hearing God’s Word and not obeying God’s Word is a cause of curses. The following are some practices that engender curses:

1.     OCCULT. It is breaking the 1^st and 2^nd commandments by turning to false gods, idolatrous practices and seeking supernatural powers not for Jesus Christ.

2.     SUN WORSHIP. If the sun occupies most of your life such as in sun bathing, it is tantamount to worshiping an idol.

3.     DISHONORING PARENTS. “Honor thy father and thy mother“ is the only commandment out of ten that has a corresponding promise which is “that you may live long in the earth.” (Exodus 20:12; Ephesians 6:2). On the contrary, if you do not honor your father and your mother, it will not be well with you. That does not mean you would not go to heaven when you die, it means that on earth you will have troubles, not have real blessings in your life, not to live life to the full and possibly a short life.

4.     RELYING ON THE FLESH AND NOT ON GOD (Deuteronomy 17:5) This applies to many church goers and leaders who depend on their carnal desires and ambitions in running their organizations and not in reliance to the Holy Spirit.

Steps to Gain Deliverance from the Curses

Galatians 3:13-14: The basis of our belief in deliverance is what Christ has done for us on the cross. There is no other escape from the curse but Jesus Christ. Therefore, ask the Holy Spirit to pinpoint what areas of your life that there is a curse. If you are really sincere and your heart is tuned to God, He will show you the way. The following are the steps towards deliverance:

1.     Establish a scriptural basis.

2.     Confess (renew) your faith in Jesus

3.     Commit yourself to obedience

4.     Confess every known sin of yourself or any of your ancestors (forgive)

5.     Forgive any person, lay down resentments

6.     Renounce all contact with the occult (idols, Ouija board, talisman)

7.     Release yourselves in the name of Jesus

ALTAR CALL PRAYER: (I will lead in this prayer but you will say the details yourself and then in Christ’s name I will release you from the curse; and then you will experience new life. Others will experience it gradually. The Bible tells us “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you will release on earth will be released in heaven. Be released of any dark shadow in your life in Jesus’ Name.)

PRAYER OF DELIVERANCE: (Jesus said “whoever comes unto me, I will not cast out.” So don’t be discouraged. Make direct contact with Jesus now.)

“Jesus, my Lord and Savior. I believe you are the Son of God; You are the Way, the Truth and the Life. I believe You died on the cross for my sins; and that you rose again from the dead. I believe I have been forgiven and receive the promise of eternal life.”

“Now Lord Jesus, You know my problems in life, the frustrations, the things that I cannot even name, but You know them and I thank you, Lord Jesus, that You were made a curse, so that I might be delivered and receive the blessings.”

“I turn from all known sins; I turn from everything satanic; I turn from all occult involvement; and I forgive every person who have harmed me or wronged me. I forgive them all as I would have God forgive me. “

“And now Lord Jesus, in simple faith, I receive your forgiveness. I receive the cleansing of Your blood and in Your Almighty Name. I release myself now from any curse that overtook my life or over my family. I release myself now, in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

PRIEST: (Concluding Prayer): And now Lord Jesus, as Your representative in this congregation, I invoke Your blessing upon those who made that prayer, the blessing of the Lord. In the Name of Jesus, the people are blessed here tonight. Let every shackle, every unseen fetter, every curse be removed---and let the blessings come, let the blessings flow and overflow. In the Name of Jesus.  Amen and Amen.