Diagnosing Demonization, #5

Posted by owner on March 8, 2010

The Exorcism Itself

So far in this series we’ve looked at symptoms that suggest possible demonization. We’ve looked at the kinds of questions we need answered to help us identify possible sources of demonization. We’ve noted that often we need to seek healing for the person from the trauma associated with the events which gave the demon access to the personality. Now we come to the exorcism itself; to the casting out of demons who have attached themselves to victims.

Before we begin

First, however, I should note that exorcism is a cooperative process. At a minimum the person seeking help should (1) want to be rid of hid demons, (2) be willing to forgive those whose actions may have open the door to his demonization, and (3) be committed to turning away an sins associated with the demonization. While demons can be exorcised from non-Christians, anyone without a personal relationship with Christ has no defense against re-infestation. So encouraging an unsaved person to accept Christ is an important element. We want to explain to such a person that the power of Jesus which enables us to cast out demons is available to protect the delivered person who establishes a personal relationship with him as Savior.
While the ministry of exorcism is especially for believers, we should not refuse it to those who are not Christians, in honor of the God who makes his sun shine on the wicked as well as on the good.
It’s best to gain agreement to the three commitments above before proceeding with an exorcism. If the person is unwilling to be free of demons, to forgive, or to decisively reject associated sins, suggest he or she return when he or she is ready.

A look at the process

J characterized exorcism as a cooperative process. Ideally as we talk with an individual and identify the root of his or her symptoms, we will pray with him or her for inner healing.

For example, a person comes to you who says he loses control when angry and fears he’ll harm his wife or children. In talking with him we discover that he was the victim of his father’s rages as a child. We realize that a spirit of anger and a spirit of violence entered his life through his father’s instrumentality. We ask him to choose to forgive his father for this sin against him. If the man is also angry at God for permitting his father to abuse him, we encourage him to forgive the Lord as well, assuring him that God does love him and has always loved him, but does not overrule human choices. We assure him that God hurt with him as he was abused. Even so, the man must take responsibility for any resentment and anger against his father, confess those sins, and accept God’s forgiveness, just as he confesses and accepts responsibility for his own abuse of his wife and/or children.

With this step of inner healing completed we can address the spirit of anger and the spirit of violence, and any other spirits we sense may be present. By forgiving his father and confessing his own sin the man has removed what some call the “legal basis”* for the demon’s attachment to his personality. We can now command the demons in Jesus’ name to leave the man, and never return to him or to his family.
[In this example I’m ignoring the possibility that the demons were inherited from the father. The question of familial spirits,[evil spirits who follow a family from generation to generation, is an issue I’ll take up in a future post.]

With the spirits of rage and violence cast out, we bless the man with calm and with patience as we continue praying for him.

Then we may go on to deal with other issues, such as an addiction to pornography, etc. We focus on spirits of lust and addiction, and follow the same process. We seek to identify events which may have given the evil spirits access, such as early sexual abuse, or perhaps repeated sampling pornography or sexual promiscuity. Again we help the victim deal with the damage through forgiveness, confession, and repudiation of the underlying sin, and minister forgiveness of the guilt and shame he feels.

At this point we command these evil spirits to leave, casting them out in Jesus’ name, using the authority God has given to his people. We then pray and bless the man with purity, and with the joy of sex within marriage which is God’s gift to human beings.

Summing up

Note that the process I’ve described has four vital elements. (1) We need to identify the root problem and its sources. (2) We need to deal with those root problems spiritually, with our focus on forgiveness, confession, and repudiation. (3) We need to cast out the demons in Jesus’ name. (4) We need to bless the individual with the opposite trait of that energized by the demons.

With this said, I need to underline an important point. I’ve referred to “spirits of violence” and “spirits of lust,” etc. This language may give the impression that all we are really doing is psychological manipulation. This is not the case.

These “spirits of” are demons: discrete, self-aware, self-motivated, evil individual beings. They are persons, despite the fact that they are spirit beings. In this era they go by the names of the torments they inflict on humans, and each individual demon seems to have a specialized job or function. So when I write of a spirit of rage, or a spirit of violence, or a spirit of infirmity, I’m not using psychological jargon or describing a state of mind. I’m referring to real entities, spirit beings, demons, who attach themselves to human beings and delight in amplifying rage or lust or other sins, and who delight in exacerbating illnesses and infirmities.

The Apostle Paul is very clear when he says that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, and when he describes our struggle as against principalities, powers and rulers in the heavenly realms.

The truth is that God has given us spiritual weapons for this warfare. Weapons like forgiveness, confession, repentance and repudiation. And the greatest weapon of all, the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and with that Name the authority to cast out demons.