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About Jesus Steve Sweetman My Journey Through The Ecclesiastical Maze Part 18 Demons
Divide The Maze The idea that a Christian
can or can nott have a demon living in him has separated Christians over
the years. Who knows, the
whole debate might well be demonically inspired itself.
Around 1972 one of my
friends listened to a teaching tape on Christians being influenced by
demons. A number of us
listened to the tape and got inspired to enter the deliverance ministry.
Along with this tape we read a little red covered book entitled,
“Out In The Name Of Jesus”. I
can’t remember the lady’s name who wrote the book, but we followed
its teaching to the letter. This little book
formulated the deliverance ministry into a easy to understand and
concise package. It taught
us how to detect and cast out demons we came in contact with.
The book taught that Christians could have a demon living inside
them, and before we could cast a demon out of a person, we had to ask
the demon for his name. By
so doing we supposedly ended up having a little chat with the demon
before we got rid of him, something Jesus never did, but we didn’t
understand that as yet. We’d spend up to nine
consecutive hours casting numerous demons out of various people, or at
least that is what we thought we were doing.
I can recall one occasion casting 118 demons out of a girl.
So to follow the formula set out in the book we first explained
to the girl what would happen. She
began to react somewhat violently towards us as the book said could
happen. So four of us guys
held her down on the floor. While
she was laying on her back on the floor, I held her ankles to prevent
her from kicking us but she literally threw me a foot or two across the
floor. Once we got her under
control, we began asking the demons for their names.
They would tell us their names and we’d cast them out.
The last demon we cast
out was number 118. He said
he was a lying spirit. That
made me think, something some people say is dangerous in itself. Since
this demon claimed to be a lying spirit, I asked him if he was lying to
us, or if he was telling the truth.
I couldn’t quite figure out if I should believe a spirit was
telling the truth when he claimed to be a liar.
I don’t know if we cast
118 demons out of this girl or not, but I do know that there was
something going on that seemed more than human. She
had physical strength beyond her ability, and she was healed of a severe
case of asthma that she had from childhood. I could tell you many
stories, but I won’t since I might lose any credibility that I have
left. I’ll just tell you
one more story. One time we
chased a girl three blocks down the street who was acting like she was
being influenced by a demon. We
finally caught up to her and tackled her to the ground in the outfield
of a baseball game that was in progress.
Now I know you’re thinking that she wasn’t the only one
acting strange or demonic. We attended a church in Well, it all sounds a
little crazy doesn’t it? I
look back on those days in amazement.
I know we went overboard. I
know we relied too much on that little red covered book and not enough
on the Bible. The Bible often takes second place to other books in the
ecclesiastical maze. But on
the other hand, I know there are demons, and they don’t all live in Paul tells us that our
fight is ultimately against this demonic world.
(Ephesians 6:12) I
know the spiritual world around us is real, even though we don’t see
it with our physical eyes. We
as individuals are the battleground for satan.
The church is a major battleground as well.
We need to take this battle seriously, with scriptural
understanding and wisdom. We
need to live and be guided by the Holy Spirit, and not just our own
humanistic way of thinking.
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