Question

I happened to be getting my hair cut and my hairdresser was relating different experiences of his and he began by saying that he was on some trip with some friends and he started having “Word of Knowledge” from the Lord and he got these visions and stuff. Then he went on to say that the Lord was giving him a Word of Knowledge that this friend of his, who supposedly is a Christian, was dealing with demons that were inside of him of lust and homosexuality and different things, and he began talking about how he really feels that if you have a spirit of anxiety or anything it's not of God, so therefore it’s of the devil. He was saying that he feels that he needs to deliver all of these people of demons. I told him that I didn’t really agree with him because I feel that, you know, it’s a case of sin and the flesh and everything and I didn’t agree that demons could be inside of a Christian, living inside of a Christian, if the Holy Spirit was there. And I think by the time I left he thought that he had to deliver me of a spirit of a demon of rebellion or something, I don’t know, but is this something that you’ve come across?

Answer

Yes, there was a guy back in Florida by the name of Don Basham, who propagated this quite extensively in several books and it was picked up by some other people, I think Derrick Prince and a few other people in a very sort of fringe charismatic group got into this. And I wrote about this in one of my books, that this guy was looking for the demon of postnasal drip, you know and really crazy stuff. 

Now, I don’t want to underplay the demonic world and it may well be that demons are involved in all that kind of stuff, but the ridiculous part of it is to assume that this guy can run around telling the demons what to do. You know, I mean, I’ve tried to cast demons out of people when I was younger and foolish, now I’m old and foolish, but, I tried to do that and they wouldn’t go anywhere. I mean, I remember Jerry Mitchell and I, we had a girl there and she had all kinds of demons and they kept talking and yelling, and we tried sending those demons everywhere. We sent them to the pit, to Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, we sent them to the desert, we sent them everywhere and they didn’t go! They didn’t go anywhere. We had absolutely no authority over demons. We are not apostles, we can’t heal the sick and we can’t tell the demons what to do. And the fact of the matter is we really don’t need to do that because the only reason a person would be under that kind of demonic influence would be if they had, by virtue of sin in their life, given access to that. It’s as simple as James says, “Resist the devil and he will flee!” OBEDIENCE! It’s the whole issue. 

So, to me it’s superfluous to go around casting devils out of people. In fact, in the entire New Testament, in the life of Christ, He did that and of course in Matthew 10 he says I give you power over disease and the power to cast out demons, but apart from the apostles that was never done. There is never any indication in the epistles of Paul where he says to people in the church go around casting demons out. If someone is sick, cast demons out, or if someone’s anxious cast the demons out, if somebody’s nose runs, cast the demons out. 

I believe that all of our spiritual warfare is bound up in Ephesians 6, where they have the armor of God. You put on the armor of God and you resist the devil, ….we’re wrestling with principalities and powers and so forth…but the answer to that comes in spiritual readiness, in holiness, in virtue, in obedience and all of that kind of thing. But that is a preoccupation of certain sort of far out charismatics, in fact more than we would probably like to admit. And the fallacy of it is, one that everything is the result of a demon. Now, you read Galatians 5 and you don’t see that. But the works of the flesh are these, and then it lists all of the things that are the works of the flesh. Can he cast out the flesh? Not hardly, so that’s ridiculous to reduce everything to that kind of a simple thing. He no doubt, is a victim of bad teaching, like so many people are, and may mean well, but he may get himself into a situation that would be spiritually very dangerous if he thinks he can confront demons on their level and tell them what to do. He may wind up having more problems with them, than the people he is trying to help. But, it’s not an uncommon thing.

Question (continued)

Everything seems to be an attack, anything that happens, like a trial, seems to be an attack.

Answer (continued) 

That's the second point I want to make, that is, that there is a certain sense of irresponsibility built into that view, which says, “I’m not really responsible for the problems in my life, demons are.” That’s not where God lays the responsibility. I have no fear of being possessed of a demon. I have no fear of being overrun by demons. I really believe in my heart and you, if you think about it, would believe it too, because of the nature of the ministry God’s given us, that if the demons could take over my life, they would. Do you believe that? I believe that, if the demons could take my life, they would. I remember when this girl kicked my until my shins bled and this voice kept screaming out of her, “Get him out of here, not him, not him, anybody but him…,” screaming at me, so I know that the demons know whose side I’m on. And if they could take over, they would. I know they would. They’d do the same with anybody who is in a position of spiritual leadership. They want to stop the kingdom. But I don’t have any fear of that. 

What I fear in my life is not demon invasion, what I fear is that I would be disobedient and sinful, so my objective is not to run around looking for demons that I can send to the pit. My responsibility is to look at my own life and to be sure that I am obedient to God. To always believe that everything that goes wrong is an attack of the devil in a sense is irresponsible. And it’s unwise, because you are really not looking where the real issue is. So there is a vulnerability there. 

This is a typical illustration of the absolutely disastrous plethora of terrible teaching that exists in the name of Christianity. If there is any one thing that literally drives me right up the proverbial wall, it is the junk that I hear being taught. It’s frightening to me and I don’t know how the Lord can allow it, but there is so much of it. And you know the Christian radio…we can all say we are thankful for Christian radio, but Christian radio has given a platform to the biggest pile of bologna that’s imaginable. I mean, I listened to a fellow, and he may love the Lord, I don’t know, but I listened to a guy this morning who comes on before I do on K-Bright (KBRT?). I could not believe what he was passing off as Biblical scholarship! It was absolutely irresponsible! He made one statement, for example, he said I want to refer to the book of John, which of course does not really major on the miraculous. That is an absolutely inane statement! The gospel of John, the whole thing is a record of a series of miracles! But, this guy doesn’t even know and he is passed off as an expert! He teaches a course in how to heal at Fuller Seminary. So, I’m appalled at this and it’s a terrible burden on my heart that. Sometimes I wish that they’d wipe all Christian radio, I mean, that would send us away too. Of course my real wish is that they’d just wipe out some of it and not all of it. (laughter from audience). It’s really tragic and you know we see it in our radio ministry and tape ministry because of the tremendous amount of mail we get from people asking questions. There are so many confused people. And you know, how many of you people have come out of a background of confusion where you didn’t understand the Word of God? Right?  I mean just out of curiosity how many of you came out of that kind of a background where you were taught the wrong things of God. The devil knows what he’s doing! He is not attacking Christianity, he’s joining it. I mean, that’s the subtlety of it. He disguises himself as an angel of light. So, I mean, I didn’t mean to preach at you, you are a nice girl.

Question (continued)

Thanks! Can I have two points clarified then? Christians can’t be possessed by demons…or controlled?

Answer (continued)

Let’s put it this way. Demons could get inside Christians and do a lot of damage, because in Acts 5 Peter said to Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?” Satan himself, filled the heart of Ananias, who was a Christian. I don’t like to use the word possessed because that speaks of ownership and we were bought with a price and we belong to Christ, but demons don’t have to stop outside our ear. Somehow they can be very active. We wrestle, that’s hand to hand combat, with principalities and powers Ephesians 6:12 says. So I don’t know what you mean by possessed. I think demons can get in Christians and mess them up if they give them place; if they give them opportunity for that. But I think the solution to that is not exorcism. The solution to that is obedience. Confession of sin. I have said to people, which is worse? To have a demon fouling up your life or to be disobedient? People will always say, “Oh, to have a demon!”. I say no it’s the same thing, because the solution is the same! Confess you sin, turn from it and walk as you ought to walk. So that’s a hard question to answer because I don’t want to assume that….well, people say, you can’t have the Holy Spirit and a demon in the same place. Well, you could have the Holy Spirit and sin in the same place. Right? So, let’s not use the word possessed because that speaks of ownership and we belong to Christ. That we don’t want to forget. But let’s say the demons can be very, very hard on Christians if they give place to them by sin.

Question (continued)

And we can’t, in today’s age, exorcise demons out of people? Is that what you’re saying?

Answer 

I don’t think there are any formulas to do that and that’s what exorcism was. Using formulas, saying certain words, secondly I don’t think we can, in an apostolic, miraculous way, command demons out of other people. I don’t think we can do that. Jesus could, because He literally could cleanse a person of their devils and He passed that on to His apostles, but I don’t think it went past that. The signs of an apostle were those. The signs of an apostle were miracles, healings, and mighty deeds 2 Corinthians 11:11.