Spiritual Warfare - Lesson 22

Dr. Gerry Breshears
Spiritual Warfare
th251-22
When I Find a Demon, Now What?
Lesson Transcript

I've done an assessment, and we have what sure appears to be a demonic influence. First thing I want to clarify is this whole issue of demonic possession, because that becomes a trigger word. And it's very, very, very controversial. Can a Christian be demon possessed? And the problem comes, in the American word, "Possessed." And if you look up in a good dictionary, you'll find there are three meanings for possessed. One of the meanings is owned. One of the meanings is dominated. And one of the meanings is influenced. Possessed, ownership, domination, influence. Three basic meanings of the term. And when I look across the different approaches of spiritual warfare, from evangelicals, everybody agrees, you cannot be owned as a believer. You're out of darkness, into light. Everybody agrees, you cannot be owned by a demon. And everybody agrees that you can be influenced by a demon. Even the most ardent, classic model is going to say, "Christian will be tempted." Jesus tempted, we're tempted, the warnings in scripture, really clear. I can be tempted at the world of flesh, and the devil. And everybody agrees on that. Ownership, no. Influence, yes. How about domination?

And that's debated. That's debated. Can a Christian be dominated by a demon to the point they lose control of a piece of their life? Or can a demon speak through the voice of a believer, who has the Holy Spirit, and temple of the Holy Spirit? And that's a point of debate. Some people know it can't. Other people say, "Yes, it can." And my question always like that, "Okay. What does the Bible say?" And the Bible doesn't speak to that. And those who say, "It's never there, in scripture, that a believer is dominated by a demon. A demon never speaks through an believer." The fact that the Bible doesn't say it does happen, doesn't mean it can't happen, in my judgment. It means the Bible doesn't speak to it. Can a Christian be dominated by a demon? There's not a biblical answer to that. We find, in Acts chapter five, that Satan fills the heart of Ananias. In my understanding, the Holy Spirit filling us is a directing, and an empowering kind of stuff.

The Holy Spirit can direct us in certain ways, like Acts 16, where Paul doesn't go to Bethania, he doesn't go to Mysia, he does go to Macedonia. That's a direction, directing. And he can empower us. But I don't think the Holy Spirit dominates us. But that's what happens, is Satan fills his heart. He directs him, and empowers him. And that can be temptation and energizing. I think those things happen. My answer to the question, "Can a believer be dominated by a demon," is to say, can a wife be dominated by an abusive husband? Yeah, for sure. Nobody's going to deny that. It's been around pastoral scopes, that happens regularly. That's a human being. Could a demon do similar kinds of things? And my answer is, I think he can. My most dramatic answer to that is... I had a tough Texan pastor. He really was a tough Texan. He was an aggie, if you're into that sort of thing. And he came to Portland to do seminary. And we got to be friends in the process. He was a part-time pastor, part-time seminary student.

And he had some of the most sick, addicted behaviors ever. I have rarely run into somebody as sick a sexual relationship as he had with a woman. And he was also into pretty significant alcohol abuse, and also significant into some real anger issues. I referred him to a Christian psychologist friend of mine. And she was working with him. And we had a release of information. She contacted me, as we normally did, just to keep track. Because I'm doing some spiritual stuff with him, and she was doing the psychological stuff with him. And she said, "Gerry, I'm not getting anywhere with this guy. Something's happening. I don't know if he's not cooperative, or just what it is, but it's not working." And she's really good. Okay. I just had it in mind. One day I was sitting in my office, and we were working on a particular spiritual issue, and I was pushing hard. And he's a tough Texan, a tough nut to crack. And I was pushing hard in this particular spiritual issue. And all of a sudden, his face changed completely.

And I heard a different voice from him, sitting in the chair in my office. And the voice was, "He's ours. You can't have him." This tough Texan. And 30 seconds later, after this whole episode began, he's slumped in the chair in my office, weeping, "What was that?" I was pretty sure what it was, and so was he. And it was demonic. And it did dominate him. And we did get rid of it. Not right then, because we didn't have time to do it. We did it about 10 days later. What do I do when I run into something like that? Can a Christian be dominated by demon? I think they can be. I don't often hear demons speak through mouth of believers, because frankly, I don't want them to speak through the mouth of anybody. I don't let them do that. This guy caught me off guard. Because I've told a demon to be quiet. One of the things I do when I run across something like that is I lay groundwork. And this is critically important. Now, I'm talking about believers here. I'll talk about unbelievers in a bit.

What I do is lay groundwork, that you're a child of God. You're not in darkness. You are in light. Satan has no [inaudible 00:06:29]. What I do is, I have Bill read his Bible out loud, ask simple interpretive questions. I have Bill read, because I want him active. I have him read his Bible, and that can be on a phone, but paper is even better. I even do it out loud, so I can see what's going on, and then ask simple interpretive questions, because I want him to impact the scripture. Let me unpack that a little bit further. If I take Colossians 1, for example... And, pretty much, all the time, I will go to Colossians 1, because, in three verses, it lays all kinds of groundwork. If I go to, let me get it up here, Colossians 1, Colossians 1:12, "Giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light." We did this biblical theology.

"He's rescued from the dominion of darkness, brought to the the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." I have Bill read his Bible out loud, ask simple interpretive questions. I have him read it through that. And I have him do it out loud, because I want to hear the tone of voice. I'm surprised how often, somebody who has demonic involvement in life, that they'll actually skip certain words, or change certain words, because of the demonic influence in their life. I've had people say, "I can't read the Bible." "Oh, really? Could you open one right now?" "Yes. Okay." That's a really simple question. "Could you open it right there?" And then, I'll point to something. "What's that word right there?" "Light." "Okay, what's that word right there?" "Kingdom." "Okay. You can read the Bible." And I try to overcome these, because something's going on when they just can't read the Bible. Because they can. But there's a spiritual impediment going on. I had him read it. And then, I just ask simple interpretive questions.

"I don't want a dictionary definition. When you see the word 'Light,' what does that do to you?" "Oh, light. What's something pure." "Okay, great. When you see the word 'Kingdom,' what does that mean to you?" "Oh, kingdom. That means somebody's in charge." "Okay." And pretty much, anything they give me, as long as it's authentic, I'll accept it. I'll say, "Okay, what's kingdom of light then?" "That's somebody in charge of something good." "Okay, great." And I keep doing that kind of thing. "What's an inheritance?" "I don't know." "Yeah. What's an inheritance?" "I don't know. That's something you get when somebody dies." "Okay." And see, what I'm doing is, I'm having them interpret what it's saying. And I start with meaning of nouns. And then, I may come up to something like "Qualified." That's a verb. We parse a verb. Past, present, or future. "Qualified. I guess that'd be past." "Okay. Good. Command, factor, promise." And most people have not thought like that, so I have to laugh at it.

Isn't it terrible that you came to, say, a seminary prof to do this, and then they keep pressing, "You could do this?" And pretty regular... Can you read that one more time? Because I want to get the whole thing into their mind, "Qualified, past, fact." Okay. I keep doing that kind of thing. I come down to, what, a referent of pronouns. "In this particular passage, who is 'He,' in verse 13?" And typically, people give me the [inaudible 00:10:12], "Oh, he's Jesus." And instead of correcting them, I've... "Could you read it again?" And they read it. "Giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light, for he has rescued." Okay, who's the "He?" And, pretty quickly, "Oh, that's Father." "Okay." See, I think everything in this passage is important. And I wanted to get the fact that it's Father who did this for us. Because, a lot of times, people that are doing the demonic things really have bad, bad, bad father issues. Rescue, command, fact, promise, past, present, future. Past used to be true. Past is still true.

And the point is, I want to say that you are rescued, and you're still rescued, demeanor of darkness, and brought in the... And I did this in the biblical theology section of it, so I'll not go through the whole thing here. But the whole point is, I want Bill to read. I want him active. See. And that's the difference between me and the power encounter, is they put Bill on the passive side. And then, the deliverance person deals directly with the demon. And Bill has been put aside largely, I absolutely not want to do that. Scriptural command is for the believer to resist and stand firm. It's Jesus who quotes Bible out loud to the devil, and commands it to get away. I want the believer, I want the person I'm working with, I want to equip and empower them to do their spiritual work. Now, I may need the help, and I usually do, but I want them to do it. That's key factor in what I'm doing. You're a believer in Jesus Christ. You have this authority.

Let's get you to do what you can do, because I want to empower you to do that. Because I believe the demon will be back later. I work him through this kind of thing. I have Bill read his Bible out loud. I want to equip him to do his work, the commands for the believer. I want to do it in his Bible, because he takes it home with him, even if it's on his phone. It's the same spot. He pulls up his particular Bible app, and looks at it. And he can make notes on it, in his phone. And I encourage him to do that sort of thing. It's familiar. You can do this at home, is my whole point. You don't have to come here with me to do this. And I'll often say, "Okay, I want you to read this verse out loud, three times, every day, for the next week, just to reinforce what we do here." I want him to do it out loud, basically, because I want him active, but it's also multisensory.

And I think the more senses you can get involved in something of this, the more likely it is to have impact in your life. I want him to see it. I want him to feel it as he talks. I want him to hear it. I want every possible sense involved. I may have him write some things down, just to get an activity involved in the process. And then, I want to hear the tone of voice. I want to hear if there's confidence or doubt. And a lot of times, tone of voice tells me a lot about what's going on inside, and I can pursue that. And then, I want to ask him simple interpretive questions. And my commitment is, when I'm doing this thing, I never make a factual statement, almost never. And when he says something wrong, I ask him to read it again. And the point of it is, I want him to argue with God, not with me. Because Bill can argue with me and win. But it's hard to argue with God. And scripture is the voice of God. And I really believe that. I'll ask things like...

"You've got darkness. You've got light." I often use hand motions to get multisensory thing. "Are you in the darkness, according to this passage? Are you in light?" And if they're reading the passage, been rescued and brought, "I'm in the light." Okay. Let's proceed a little bit, ask them some of their questions. But part of what I will do is, I'll ask them where the direction of the question is the wrong direction. One of the favorites that I've learned is, I look at who has qualified you. And I say, "Okay, tell me, according to this passage, what do you have to do in order to qualify for this inheritance?" And I'll just say it again. "What do you have to do... According to this passage, what do you do to qualify for this inheritance?" "I guess I have to give joyful things." "Okay. Can you read that one more time?" And they read it. And I may do a couple of things. "Okay. Now, according to this passage, what do you have to do to get this inheritance, to qualify for it?" And they start fumbling and fishing?

"I have to believe in Jesus." "Could you read that one more time?" And this passage, and that kind of stuff. And I've had it happen, about the sixth time, it will... "I guess I don't have to do anything." See, they're still fishing. Read it again. And maybe the 12th time they come back, "It says right here, Father qualified me." Okay. Now, we're doing it, because you're seeing it from the passage. You're not fishing for my affirmation. Because I want them to hear what this says, is that Father has already qualified you for this inheritance. It's not something you have to work hard to get. And those kinds of things I do... And the point of it is for them to personalize and integrate this teaching into their life, because the foundation is, you're not in darkness. You're not in authority of Satan. You are in light. You are under the authority of Christ. That's the foundation. You have redemption. You've been brought out of Egypt. You have forgiveness of sins. Those are true.

And whatever passage I do, and that may vary depending on the particular issue they bring, is I'm trying to get them to integrate that, and lay the foundation of our position in Christ, our identity as child of God. Our authority is seeded with him and the heavenlies. I almost always will take the person to Matthew 4 and help them see how Jesus deals with the demon. That's laying the foundation. As child of God, I do have this authority. I can act on it. I'm not helpless. And then, depending on the issue, I may go in other kinds of areas. And I don't have to have all this stuff memorized. I can use helps. I can Google something. I guess, these days, I might use some sort of artificial intelligence, or something to help out with that. But that's what I'm looking for. And once I've laid that foundation, then I will help them make the reality, that I am seated with Christ and the heavenlies. I don't have to put up with this demonic influence. I don't have to believe this lie anymore. And I begin to unpack that kind of thing.

From Colossians 1, I am in light. I'm totally under the authority of Jesus, not in the authority of the demons. Matthew four, I have them understand that I can speak scripture out loud to the demon. And then, once I've laid that foundation, now, I have something to work from. And what I will do in most cases is... I have some three by five, four by six cards in my office. I'll get one of those cards out. And either, I will write some stuff down, or better yet, I'll have them write some things down, just basic truths that are takeaways from the... Laying the foundation. And I have them write down... "Okay, we're going to speak some scripture to this demonic voice. What scripture you think would be the best one to do?" And it may well be something from Colossians 1, "I'm child of God." It may be Ephesians 5:8, "You were darkness. Now, you are light in the Lord. Therefore, live as children of light." "I am light in the Lord," something like that.

Colossians 2, "You've been forgiven, the debt is canceled, triumphed over disarmed," whatever it is. And I have them write down some of those kinds of things, partly because I'm going to use it in the next step of the process, and partly, they're going to take that card home with them. Because I really believe in equipping for long-term type stuff. That's the crucial thing, is laying that foundation. Now, a question comes up, and it's a good question, what happens if the person is not a believer? My base idea is, I can power up and command a demon to leave, and get away from an unbeliever. I can do that. I have that authority to do that. But what happens is, if I do that, I have this confidence, that five minutes after the person leaves, the demon's back. And I'm afraid I'm going to put them in that Matthew 12 type thing.

It may be back with seven worser spirits. They're not a believer. They don't have the authority to command the demon to get away if they're not a believer. Generally, this is not 100%, I don't kick a demon out of an unbeliever, or away from. Because I just don't have the confidence to work out. Now, I may be more careful about this. I am more careful than some of my friends, but I don't. But here's what I do. It's a funny story. One of our students in our counseling program at the seminary was doing his internship in an inpatient drug rehab program, chemical addiction rehab program for teens. There are a number of teenagers in this facility. And he was in there as one of the intern counselors, and doing the good work that he was doing. And he called me up one day and says, "Hey, Gerry, can you come down and help me out?" I said, "Tell me what you got in mind. I never say yes until I know what they got in mind."

He said, "We've got this guy in here. He's 16 years old. And he's got a nasty, nasty chemical problem. And I'm absolutely confident, demonic stuff involved in that. He's told me about what's happened, because he's been calling up demons to get more thrills out of life, and that sort of thing. He said he'd be willing to talk to Father Gerry." And I said, "I'm not Father Gerry. I'm not a Roman Catholic priest. I never want to come into false pretenses." I agreed that I'd come as grandfather Gerry. Facility director was okay with this. He wasn't a Christian, but he was into helping the kid, 16 year old. But he was willing to talk to me. We got all the permissions in place. The intern, my friend, introduced us. And then, he left the room. And it's just this guy and me talking. I did, "What is your story?" Kind of stuff. And he told me some amazing stuff. Oh, man. What this kid had done at 16 was...

Put your hair on end, and a lot of self-destructive stuff, which is why he was in the lockup, inpatient thing, and some real serious drug and alcohol issues. I heard his story. And we talked about it for a while. I did my reflective listening and such, just to see what was going on. Clearly demonic stuff, no question about it. He was identifying it. Because he really liked the demons. Because they gave him big thrills. But it was a problem too. "Okay." I said, "Would you be willing to read scripture with me?" Because he knew I was there as grandfather Gerry. "Yeah." He didn't have a Bible, so I brought one with me. I laid it out. And we started reading Colossians 1, doing my "Bill reads out loud," simple, interpretive questions. And we started working through it. And I was just asking, What does scripture say?"

But as we worked through it, more and more, over a period of time, and he began to read it and interpret it, it went from "What does Bible say" to "I say." And I saw a transformation happening. And I was just stoked, big time. And what ended up happening was, out of that, I said, "Do you want those demons there?" He said, "You know? I don't." And I used these truths we'd done, from Colossians 1, and a couple other things we had looked at, but mostly Colossians 1. And this unbelieving 16 year old looked at those demons and commanded them to get away. And they did. And we were in there together for over three hours. The door's closed the whole time. When he finished up and walked out...

I knew there was somebody out in the hall, if something came up. And here's my friend waiting for me. And he talked to the kid, and sent him off to whatever he was doing next. And he looked at me, "How did you do that? He's never talked to anybody more than about six minutes. You were over there three hours." And I told him what had happened. I was listening to him, interacting, respecting him. As we got into scripture, the Holy Spirit was at work. He was ready for work, because of the work they had done in the rehab program. And we dealt with the demonic stuff on the spot. But in the process, he became a believer in Jesus Christ, that gave him the authority to do that. Never saw the kid again.

He was released not long after that. I have no idea what happened after that. But see, that's what happens there. As a believer, he could tell the demons to get away, and he did, and work in scripture together. That's a spiritual work, believer or unbeliever. If I'm working with an unbeliever, I'll still have them do scripture work. Because I want to hear what scripture says, even if they don't believe it. Because they are seeing me as a pastor. I never pretend to be anything other than a pastor. That's what I do. That baseline kind of thing is to establish identity in Christ. I believe the demons can dominate, but the person can be empowered in such a way that they can deal with the demons, and deal with them powerfully. That's my goal. That's what we do.