Spiritual Warfare - Lesson 23

Dr. Gerry Breshears
Spiritual Warfare
th251-23
Process of Getting Rid of a Demon
Lesson Transcript

Well, foundation, have Bill read his Bible out loud, simple, interpretive questions. Now what? We've identified a demon through the assessment process and Bill has looked inside and yep, that's a demon. Or Bill maybe already knows it, that it's a demon. But we identified the demon. We have identified his position, not in darkness, yes, in light. Satan, no authority. Jesus has authority. And I may well go with Ephesians, "Jesus is seated on the throne of the Father and the heavenlies we're seated with him in Christ showing the authority that we have." We've gone back to Matthew 4 and what Jesus does, quotes the Bible out loud to the devil, tells the devil to get away in Jesus' name and then come back to Jesus. So I've got a process. I've written down, or they have written down some stuff on a four by five card or three by five card, whatever I have, and it's sitting in their lap.

And then, okay, now what? Because this is the process. When I look at the pattern of Jesus, His basing is be quiet, get away, get out. His process is you deaf and mute spirit, come out of him and never come back. His base process is, I mean, that's it. That's what he does. The one time he ask for a name is exceptional. And He doesn't use the name, name. So my basing is that. The thing I'm doing at that spot is I am helping Bill do the work. And this is a place where I'm a little bit different than what Jesus does. And this is a point of difference, say between me, Sam Storms for example. He's more inclined to do the work himself as the pastor. I'm more inclined to help the person do the work. And that's a difference in the methodology between us, but not in fundamental theology.

So what I do is I want to help Bill do his work. I want him to do the assessment. I want him to do the one. So what I do is I say, okay, we've got this down. You've got this thing in front of you who you are in Christ. This is the kind of thing I want to say to this demon. And then I say, okay, I always tell people upfront, I always tell people upfront, I never want to surprise the person if I can possibly help it. I want to tell them upfront and I want them to at least be cooperative in the process. Now sometimes, and I'll talk about this in a bit, sometimes the person can't do it themselves for various reasons, and I do it, but I always want them to be cooperative. And the reason is if they don't want to get rid of the demon, even though I power up and get rid of it, it'll be back in a few minutes. If they want it there, it's there.

So I had one occasion where a counselor friend of mine was dealing with a guy and it was clearly demonic, no doubt about it. And he asked me to come in in session in a counseling office and do the work. And so I sat down with the guy, went through the basic foundations, position in Christ, that sort of thing. And then when I came into the spot and I told him what I was going to do, let's address the demon and tell it to get away. I got this very strong agitation. I said, what is happening here? And I couldn't figure out what was going on. And he got really upset, stood up and wasn't yelling, but pretty close to it, "This is demon as my only friend and you want me to get rid of it." And he was really angry that I was wanting to get rid of his only friend. Ended up storming out of the session and my friend, the counselor was actually worried because he had dealt with some suicidal type stuff and my friend was afraid he was going to go out and kill himself. He didn't.

But what I realized at that spot I had assumed, because I was with my friend who was a Christian counselor, that he wanted to get rid of the demon. I didn't check it. And that's what I say when I'm doing things, I want the person's cooperation. I want them to know what we're doing. I want them to know the direction we're going in advance and agree to it so we can do this together. And I've just run into some hard stuff otherwise. Now I may be too cautious at this point, but maybe I am, but that's still where I come out.

So I've got Bill sitting here. He has written down some things on a three by five card. And then I tell him what I'm going to do and what I tell him is, "I'm going to pray a basic truth prayer. I'm going to pray that the Holy Spirit would show you what he needs to see. I'm going to pray that the power of Jesus Christ would be with you, that we seated with him in the heavens and such. And then when I finish, I'm going to ask you to pray similar kind of prayer, just the truth of who you are in Christ. And then I want you to look in your inner world, your thought life, your imaginations. I want you to look at the voice and I want you to speak scripture to it. I want you to tell it to get away in Jesus' name. And then whatever word you use is up to you, I don't care about that, but I want you to do that. What do you think?" And they say, yes. Okay, we do that.

And when I pray these prayers, I pray them in ordinary tones of voice. In fact, I try to get as much emotion out of my voice as possible. And I try to my dominating spirit, I'm an Enneagram eight and high D on the DISC and all that sort of thing. I try to get my dominating spirit out of it. So I speak in gentle, low emotion tones of voice when I do this because it's authority of Jesus. It's not my emotion, it's not my strong personality.

So I just pray a simple truth prayer, "Look Jesus, Bill is the child of the Lord Most High. He's a precious son in the kingdom of light. He is light in the Lord." I'm just reciting basically scriptural truths at that point. And then I pray, "Holy Spirit, will you show us what we need to see? Will you show Bill what he needs to see as he looks inside? Will you direct his attention to where he needs to be? Lord Jesus Christ, thank as you promised to be with us now and forever. And I just pray that you'd be with Bill as he does this work." Something like that, not nearly that fast to, I do it more slower tone of voice. And then it takes a minute or so. And okay, Bill.

And I ask him in front, "Do what you can out loud, but if..." I let him know if it's better not to say anything, then don't. And I have him look inside and do that. And more typically, there's not a simple pattern. More typically I find when people get involved in it, they stop saying things and just because when they start confronting a demon directly... Oh, another thing I will do before I start there is many times I will do what Jesus does. I'll command the demon to be silent in the name of Jesus. I may have Bill do it too. But I will often do it. I command the demon, "You must be silent. I command you in Jesus' life to say nothing. You must release Bill now." And then I called Bill forward. At several points of this process I may do this, "Demon, you must be silent. You must release Bill now. Bill, I want to talk to you and you only. Demon, you must step back and let Bill go. Bill, step forward. I want to talk to you and you only. Demon, you must be silent. Bill..." And then I can go ahead.

What I'm trying to do is push the demon back, bring Bill forward and to break its impact. So sometimes a demon can really be dominating in a person's life. And I find that to be helpful too. If I sense something's going on, I'll do that at any point. And then when Bill is praying, Bill is doing his inside work, sometimes he's doing things out loud, sometimes he's not. And I'm a continuation. I think spirit speaks. And so I am quietly in my spirit, "Holy Spirit, show me what I need to know with this process." Because if Bill stops talking, sometimes I find there's tension going on. He's clearly spiritual wrestling. Other times he's not really doing much of anything.

And I just go with whatever comes into my mind at that spot. And if it comes into my mind, "Holy Spirit, go with Bill. Show him what he needs to see. [inaudible 00:09:13] take away any misperceptions." And I'll just pray those very quietly, slow tone of voice, not to distract, but just to empower what he's doing. And the goal is for him to look at that voice, speak scripture to it, and I like out loud, but if he can can't, I don't worry about it. And then to command the demon, whatever it is, to go away, get away, get out, whatever appropriate for him. Because again, I don't care whether the demon's inside him or outside, I'm talking the imaginative world. And if it makes sense to him that the demon can be inside, then it's get out. If he's the sort that thinks no, a demon can't be inside a believer, okay, get away. From my perspective, the outcome is the same and I'll go with whatever he believes if he has a strong belief.

And so what I've found happen in this kind of stuff is that when the person looks inside, they're seeing or feeling things. And again, demons hate to be looked like in Jesus' name and they react. And that's why I'm just helping him do that.

And so now a real story, I was working with Bill, real serious anxiety disorders, and we had identified a demon that was building his fear based on a real fear was taking up the whole nother level. When he started addressing the demon, about 30 seconds into it, he stopped talking, but he was just really tense. I mean, I didn't know what was driving him, but the struggle was coming out in the way his body was doing. He just leaned forward into his lap and was completely silent, but there was a bit of shaking. And so I was just waiting, praying quietly, occasionally.

And after a long, I mean long, it seemed like five minutes. I mean five minutes seemed like about two hours. I just watched him and he just relaxed into his lap. And after a little bit he sat back up and looked at me, but he wasn't looking at me. He was kind of unfocused. And I just waited quietly, wasn't saying anything. And then he just, and looked at me and I said, "What happened?" And I could just see in these inner world just kind of pushing around and with a very puzzled look on his face, he said, "It's gone." And I in the moment said, "What's gone?" And he gave me this really, you idiot, he didn't say it, but, "The demon." And he started laughing and I started laughing. It's gone, like what happened?

And he started telling me what had happened. As he looked inside, this thing suddenly got big and powerful and he was seeing it inside. And I said, "Well, what'd you do?" He said, well, I spoke the verse to it and it got really angry." "Okay, and then what?" "And I said, you got to get out." And I said, "What'd it do?" It said, "I don't have to. And I remember what you said, don't argue with it. Just teach it like a two-year-old. Sit down now, Johnny. I don't have to. Johnny sit down now," because I'd use that analogy. And he just looked at the demon, "You have to go in Jesus' name, I command you." And he just insisted and suddenly the demon just disappeared. It became smoke or something. I mean his description. And then when its power and presence was gone, was when he relaxed. And we just then started laughing and started praising God for what was happening. And it was one of those very dramatic kinds of things. The whole process of him actually getting rid of it was just a few minutes.

But then what I do is I come back and reinforce what happened. Okay, now what did happen? I reinforce on this kind of stuff. And one of the things I always do in a situation like this is I always say, what will happen if the demon comes back? And in Bill's case, he looked at me with a very strong, "I don't want it to come back." I said, "Yeah, I get that. But it might. What will you do if it does?" And I talk about it, it'll just show up. "Hey, I'm a nice guy now. I learned my lesson. Let's be friends," or something like that. I mean, who knows what a demon might do? And he said, "Well, I don't want it back." "Okay, so what are you going to do if it comes back?" "Well, I've got my card here with all stuff on it." "Exactly. You are prepared at two o'clock in the morning when this thing comes back to respond in the same way, quote scripture, command it to get away, I want nothing to do with you. And then bring your attention back to Jesus."

And he did, and I kept track of him for a while. This is a few years ago. And the demon did try to come back later on, and it did try to play the I'm your good friend type card. I'll be a help to you type card. And he didn't buy into it at all, but it released him. He still dealt with fears. It wasn't like everything went away, but that dreadful anxiety that he was really wrestling with, the panic attack type stuff was just largely gone. And I just rejoice in that because there was a demonic part of the bigger psychological issue. And he had come from a fearful family, so there was some family stuff involved too, but normal pastoral and normal counseling type stuff can deal with that. That's the sort of stuff that I try to do in these situations.

Gosh, I've got a bunch of stories. One of the... Well, I'm trying to think what story to use here because sometimes... I wish you could be there for something like this. I don't know how to do that because I don't set these things up. If I can do it, if I can work with somebody and have a pastor or parent present, I'll do that where I can. Especially if it's a pastor, because if you can empower them, that can be really helpful. And like, "Oh, that's what you do." One of the things that a friend of mine, who, I mean this is a veteran pastor and he's a good friend. And we were talking one day and he knows I do this deliverance type stuff. And we were talking and he said, "You know, Gary, I've been in ministry 30 years and I've never seen anything demonic." And I looked at him as a friend and I said, "You have absolutely seen demonic, you just didn't recognize it." "Ah, I don't think so." I said, "Well, okay."

He had, after service one day, and he's in a good church, and a woman came up to him and is describing, "Pastor, I have these terrible nightmares and just like almost every time I sleep, I have these terrible nightmares," and described them as demonic kind of nightmares. And my pastor friend who's never seen a demonic thing happen, listened to her, read her a couple scripture verses about Jesus will be with you, that kind of stuff. Prayed with her and sent her off, but gave her my contact information because she had talked about demonic stuff, but he knew it wasn't a demon because demons don't do that kind of stuff.

And he told me what he had done. And I thought, oh gosh. And it just annoyed me to no end. Why do you have to outsource this? Why can't you have the basic things I'm trying to invest in you? Thank you for doing this. I met with the woman and her husband in his office when he wasn't there and the secretary was outside. And so I sat with him and I did what I've told you. She's a believer. And her husband was there and talked about background and what was going on. And she described the dreams and they were awful.

And so I laid the foundation, position in Christ, that sort of stuff, brought out the four by five card and gave that to her. So she's sitting there with this thing in her lap and same kind of stuff. Details always vary, but the principles are similar. I had her look inside and I was just praying quietly, "Holy Spirit, show her what she needs." She looked inside and within 30 seconds she is in what I took to be a full on panic attack. She is weeping, she's shaking. I mean, oh my. And I'm praying because I believe that there's demonic stuff going there, and I'm praying, "Demons, you must release her now. You cannot..." And I just rejection to the demons, rebuking them and praying, "Holy Spirit, power for her." And again, quiet tone of voice, slow cadence breaks, between because it's not my emotion, that kind of stuff. Just empowering her.

And this went on for quite a long time. And her husband, I typically don't touch people when they're doing this sort of thing because that could be a distraction. But he had his hand on her back. Maybe it was around her shoulders, I don't remember, but not embrace kind of thing, but just an act of support sitting next to her. And after, I don't know, quite a while, it was fairly long, 10 minutes maybe, which is a long time for this sort of thing. She had that same kind of thing relaxed and was able to calm down and look at me. And after a bit, I just asked her what happened, and she was describing what she saw on the inside and it was gross.

And I said, "Well, what did you do?" And she said, "Well, I could hear you outside and that was such a help to me. I knew I was not alone. And I just demanded that these things get out." I said, "Well, what happened?" "Well, they got out." "Good," I said, "We did..." Amazing often when you up laughing when you hear that kind of thing because it's just pure joy. And then after she calmed down a little bit and did some stuff, got her something to drink and that sort of thing, relaxed a bit. And I said, "There can be layers of these kinds of things. I think if you've got some energy, it might be wise to take one more shot at this and just see if there's another layer of this stuff." But she agreed, "Yep, let's deal with stuff."

So we went again, laid similar kinds of foundation and truth prayers and that kind of stuff. She went back and looked inside again, and within another 30 seconds we're having a full on panic attack, same thing, maybe even worse. And I thought, oh man, because there can be layers of things. And so I'm doing the same kind of thing, quietly praying. Her husband is freaked out. He didn't know what's going on and this is way beyond his experience. And this time it wasn't as long, it wasn't 10 minutes, it was three or four minutes. And again, she calmed down and relaxed a bit, looked up at me, but something looked a little bit different. I said, "Well, what happened?" And she described what it was like. She said she looked inside and Jesus was there and I was so taken that he's there.

And what I'd taken as a panic attack was an exaltation attack. I didn't know what was going on, but I was saying the same kind of prayers. And then we really started laughing because she experienced the visible presence of Jesus in her inner world. And I just liked the phrase exaltation attack. I mean, it was one of those super happy memories there in the office of this pastor friend.

I came back to the church to do something, I don't know, a month or so later. And she came up, as I would expect just to give me an update of what happened. And the crazy thing was I didn't know her husband was not a believer. They were Asian and they had a Buddhist background, both of them. She'd become a believer in Jesus. He was still basically a practicing Buddhist. Certainly not a believer in Jesus. But because of what he saw in his wife and the income he had been baptized between the encounter in the pastor's office and when I got back. And so he came back and now we really laughed because this guy had become a believer in Jesus Christ because of the freedom and feeling had come through Jesus.

Now, I wish I could say the nightmares completely went away. They didn't, but they were way different. I mean, brain impact and all the stuff she'd been through and their abuse as a child and such was a lot more work to do with that. But the demonic empowerment and the terrors that that brought, that was taken care of. And with help, she was able to sleep fairly well. And the dreams were not the horrible demonic kinds of things, but she was still having nightmares because of the trauma. So she was doing trauma-informed counseling, and I just encourage her to keep doing that. I've been back to the church several times and she always comes up and says hi. And she's in a way, way better space today.

But see, that's a piece. Demonic is at piece of it. And same principles, the details vary a lot. The fun with this one is her husband became a believer in the process. And so now the whole household believing in Jesus and practicing His goodness.

So that's the how and why I do this kind of stuff. Things vary a lot. But that's some stories for you. I got a couple more, but let's take a break before you do that. Okay?

Before we go on break, I know you defined this earlier, but it's so central to what you're doing. I want to make sure I understand it. What do you mean by look inside?

We all have an inner imaginative life. And I actually don't have to explain too much to people when I say... When you're having your internal dialogue with yourself, when you're imagining beautiful things or something like that, there's an inner world to all of us. That's where I want you to look. And it's not a space in my brain or something like that, but it's looking inside. And for most people, that's what they're doing. Now, sometimes the demon is outside. I don't care where it's at. But that's that imaginative world where you hear things just in your memory and associations. That's what I'm looking at. And sometimes I have to work with people to get there. If they're real cognitive, sometimes they don't have an imaginative world or think they don't, but they do. But that's where that internal dialogue comes on, where you're talking to yourself. And people get that pretty quickly. So it's a Psalm 42, my soul kind of stuff, where you're preaching to your soul kind of thing. It's that piece of our experience.