Deliverance Ministry

This paper is about the hardest part of spiritual warfare: what to do when someone is not only tempted or troubled, but appears to be under the power of an evil spirit.

That is not a modern question. The Gospels are full of it. The apostles met it in Samaria, in Philippi and in Ephesus. The church of the second and third centuries spoke of it openly and challenged its pagan critics to come and watch. And it has been mishandled in almost every century since, sometimes by being ignored, and sometimes by being turned into a show, a business, or a cruelty.

Where this ministry stands

The position of this paper is simple to state. The gifts of the Spirit and deliverance from evil spirits are for today, and guests on my show testify to both. Every gift is tested by the word of God and kept within the limits the word sets. The Lord Jesus said, "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils" (Mark 16:17), and nothing in Scripture withdraws that word.

And because it is for today, it must be guarded. The same Bible that records Jesus casting out devils records seven men beaten by a demon for using His name like a spell (Acts 19:13-16), and Jesus warning that some who cast out devils in His name will hear Him say, "I never knew you" (Matthew 7:23). The permissions and the guardrails come from the same pages, and this paper teaches both.

What this paper is

It is the companion to the foundations paper, Spiritual Warfare: The Enemy, the Armour and the Victory of Christ. That paper covers who the enemy is, Christ's victory over him, the armour of God and how every believer resists. Read it first if you have not. This one assumes it.

Seven parts follow:

• Part 1 — Jesus and the evil spirits: what the Gospels show, and how His practice differed from the exorcists of His day.
• Part 2 — the apostles: the commissions, the Acts record, and why the letters say so little.
• Part 3 — the early church: what Christians of the second to fifth centuries actually did, in their own words.
• Part 4 — later history: drift, reaction, and revival, from the Middle Ages to Nairobi in 2000.
• Part 5 — discernment: spiritual, medical, or both?
• Part 6 — ministering deliverance: a biblical pattern for a local church.
• Part 7 — the guardrails, text by text.

A word about me

My story, in my own words: "When real life hit — a lost job, a pregnant wife, constant fights — I went looking for peace anywhere I could find it. New Age, crystals, astral projection, tarot, angel numbers. None of it held." "I decided to read the Bible for one reason: to disprove it, so I'd have an excuse to stop going to church for good. It did the opposite." "I came to faith in 2022, and my wife came to faith a month later."

Every verse here is from the King James Bible. Read it free in the 1611 Reader at kylelauriano.com/library, and keep a KJV with Strong's Concordance beside you.

This part matters because every Christian practice of deliverance must be measured against the One who did it first. Where our methods look like His, they are on safe ground. Where they look like something else — the magicians of His day, or the entertainers of ours — they are not.

The first exorcism in Mark

Mark's Gospel puts a deliverance at the very start of Jesus' public ministry, in a synagogue in Capernaum:

“And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.” (Mark 1:23-27)

Four things stand out, and they recur through the Gospels.

The spirit recognised Him. Evil spirits knew who Jesus was before most people did. They feared Him: "art thou come to destroy us?"

He silenced it. "Hold thy peace." What the spirit said was true — He was the Holy One of God — and Jesus still did not let it speak. Mark repeats the point: Jesus "suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him" (Mark 1:34). Luke too: "And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ" (Luke 4:41). The Son of God did not accept testimony from the pit, even true testimony.

He used a short command. No ritual, no long prayer, no name of a higher power, no object. "Come out of him." Matthew sums up His practice in five words: "he cast out the spirits with his word" (Matthew 8:16).

The people saw authority. What amazed the crowd was not the drama — though there was drama — but the authority. "With authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him."

Exorcism in Jesus' world

That amazement makes more sense when we know what exorcism usually looked like in that world. It was not unknown. Jesus Himself referred to Jewish exorcists: "And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out?" (Matthew 12:27). Acts mentions "certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists" travelling from town to town (Acts 19:13).

Josephus, the Jewish historian writing near the end of the first century, gives an eyewitness description of one such man. In the Antiquities he says that Solomon had left behind incantations and "the manner of using exorcisms, by which they drive away demons, so that they never return," and that he himself had seen a countryman named Eleazar "releasing people that were demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers." Eleazar held to the sufferer's nostrils a ring containing a root of a kind Solomon had prescribed, drew the demon out through the nose, "and when the man fell down immediately, he abjured him to return into him no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed." To prove it had worked, he set a basin of water nearby and commanded the departing demon to knock it over.¹

Set that beside Mark 1. Eleazar used a ring, a root, the name of Solomon, recited incantations and a public demonstration for a Roman general. Jesus used a word. Eleazar's power was borrowed and technical. Jesus' authority was His own. That is the difference the crowd at Capernaum noticed — "what new doctrine is this?" — and it is the difference every Christian practice must keep.

The Gadarene man and "What is thy name?"

The most dramatic deliverance in the Gospels is the man among the tombs on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

“And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.” (Mark 5:2-9)

Here, for once, Jesus asks a question. Some modern deliverance teaching builds a whole method on it: interview the demons, demand their names, their numbers, their "legal rights", their ranks. This paper does not teach that, and the passage itself shows why.

First, notice the order. Jesus had already commanded the spirit to come out (verse 8) before He asked the name (verse 9). The question was not a technique for gaining power. He had the power already.

Second, the answer served the onlookers, and us. "Legion" — the name of a Roman unit of several thousand men — tells the reader the size of the bondage and the size of the deliverance. It is a revelation of how great a thing Christ did, which is exactly the point Jesus made afterwards: "Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee" (Mark 5:19).

Third, it is never repeated. Nowhere else does Jesus ask a spirit anything. Nowhere in Acts does an apostle ask a spirit its name, its rank, or its rights. Nowhere in the letters is such a thing taught. One question asked once by the Son of God, who already had the authority, is not a pattern for His servants. The pattern is the one the whole New Testament shows: silence the spirit and command it out.

And the result: "they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind" (Mark 5:15). That is what deliverance looks like at the end. Not a performance. A man at peace, dressed, sane, and sitting with Jesus.

The boy the disciples could not help

Mark 9 is the passage every honest minister of deliverance needs, because it begins with failure. A father brings his son, who "hath a dumb spirit; And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not" (Mark 9:17-18).

Jesus asks the father, not the spirit: "How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child" (Mark 9:21). The father's faith is weak, and he says so: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9:24). Then Jesus "rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him" (Mark 9:25). The boy falls as if dead, "But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose" (Mark 9:27).

Afterwards, in private, the disciples ask why they failed. "And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting" (Mark 9:29). Matthew adds another reason: "Because of your unbelief" (Matthew 17:20), and then, "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting" (Matthew 17:21). Both verses stand in the 1611 and the Received Text; many modern versions drop "and fasting" from Mark 9:29 and omit Matthew 17:21 or put it in a footnote. You can see these and other differences at kylelauriano.com/library/changes.

Three lessons for anyone who ministers:

• Failure is possible, and it is not the end. The disciples had cast out spirits before (Mark 6:13). This time they could not. Jesus did not tell them the method was wrong; He told them their faith and their prayer life were.
• Prayer and fasting are preparation, not performance. Jesus did not pray or fast on the spot. The prayer and fasting are a way of life that makes the servant ready. Nobody fasts at a demon.
• Some symptoms look medical. Foaming, gnashing, falling, rigidity — Matthew's account has the father call his son "lunatick" (Matthew 17:15), a word for seizures. The Gospel says this boy's condition was caused by a spirit. It does not say every seizure is. Part 5 returns to this.

The woman bound eighteen years

Luke 13 records a woman "which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself." Jesus said to her, "Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God" (Luke 13:11-13). Then He told the synagogue ruler that she was "a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years" (Luke 13:16).

This is not a dramatic exorcism. There is no crying out and no convulsion. There is a word, a touch, and a woman praising God. Jesus treated her bondage as Satan's work and her release as healing. Deliverance and healing in the Gospels often run together, and are often quiet.

The empty house

Jesus also gave a warning about what happens after a spirit leaves:

“When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.” (Matthew 12:43-45)

The house is "empty, swept, and garnished" — cleaned up, but unoccupied. Deliverance that is not followed by the Holy Ghost, the word, repentance and the life of the church leaves a person worse off. That is why Part 6 puts the gospel at the beginning and discipleship at the end of any deliverance.

A sign of the kingdom

Finally, Jesus told us what His exorcisms meant: "But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you" (Matthew 12:28). Deliverance is not an end in itself. It is a sign that the King has arrived and the strong man is being plundered. Every deliverance in His name points away from itself, to Him.

This part matters because it answers the question whether deliverance was meant only for Jesus' earthly ministry. It was not. He passed it on. But how the apostles practised it, and how little their letters say about it, both teach us something.

The commissions

When Jesus sent out the Twelve, deliverance was part of the mission from the beginning. "And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease" (Matthew 10:1). Luke records the same: "Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick" (Luke 9:1-2).

Two features of that sending matter for today.

It was tied to preaching. They were sent "to preach the kingdom of God." Deliverance was a sign accompanying the message, not a ministry floating free of it.

It was free. "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give" (Matthew 10:8). There is no fee for deliverance in the New Testament. Part 3 shows the early church held that line.

The seventy were sent out later with the same authority, and came back rejoicing that "even the devils are subject unto us through thy name." Jesus answered, "Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven" (Luke 10:17-20). Power over spirits is real. It is not the thing to rejoice in.

And after His resurrection, the great commission in Mark carries the same promise to "them that believe":

“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” (Mark 16:15-18)

Mark 16:9–20 stands in the 1611 and in the Received Text. Many modern versions bracket it or add a note doubting it; you can see that difference at kylelauriano.com/library/changes. This paper receives it as Scripture. (It does not teach anyone to handle snakes or drink poison as a test. The promise of verse 18 is protection in the course of the mission, as when Paul was bitten on Malta and suffered no harm in Acts 28:3–6 — not a dare.)

"He followeth not with us"

One small episode guards against a kind of pride. "And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me" (Mark 9:38-39). Deliverance is not the property of one group, one ministry or one method. Where Christ's name is truly honoured and the fruit is good, we do not have to control it.

Acts: Jerusalem and Samaria

Acts records deliverance as part of the church's ordinary witness, without fuss. In Jerusalem, "There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one" (Acts 5:16). In Samaria, where Philip preached Christ, "unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. And there was great joy in that city" (Acts 8:7-8).

The same chapter introduces Simon the sorcerer, who was baptised, saw the apostles' power, and tried to buy it. Peter's answer stands over every money-making ministry since: "Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God" (Acts 8:20-21).

Philippi: the spirit that told the truth

At Philippi, Paul and his companions met a slave girl "possessed with a spirit of divination", who earned her owners money by fortune-telling.

“The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.” (Acts 16:17-18)

This passage is a lesson in apostolic method.

• Paul did not accept the spirit's endorsement. What she cried was true. It was also free publicity. Paul would not have the gospel advertised by a demon, any more than Jesus would.
• Paul did not act at once. "This did she many days." He was not hunting spirits. When he acted, he acted out of grief for her, not excitement.
• Paul did not converse. He did not ask the spirit's name or rank. He spoke one sentence to it.
• Paul acted in Jesus' name. "I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ." The authority was Christ's, and Paul said so.
• It cost him. Her owners had Paul and Silas beaten and jailed (Acts 16:19–24). Real deliverance does not always make friends.

Ephesus: the sons of Sceva and the bonfire

The fullest account of deliverance in Acts is at Ephesus, the city of Artemis and of magic. "And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them" (Acts 19:11-12). Luke calls these "special" — unusual. They are God's work, not a technique; Acts never tells anyone to repeat them, and selling "anointed cloths" has no warrant here.

Then comes the warning:

“Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the LORD Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.” (Acts 19:13-16)

The sons of Sceva had the right name and the wrong relationship. They treated "Jesus" as one more powerful word in the exorcist's kit, the way Eleazar used Solomon's. The spirit knew the difference. The name of Jesus is not a formula; it is His authority, and it belongs to those who belong to Him.

And the result was not a better technique but repentance:

“And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.” (Acts 19:18-19)

Notice who confessed: "many that believed." These were already believers, who had kept their magic books. Their deliverance from the old life was confession and a fire. "So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed" (Acts 19:20).

The quiet of the letters

Here is something every student of this subject notices. After Acts, the New Testament letters never describe an exorcism and never give instructions for one. Paul names "discerning of spirits" among the gifts (1 Corinthians 12:10). He tells the Ephesians to put on the armour, to stand and to resist. James says, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7). Peter says the same (1 Peter 5:9). John says, "try the spirits" (1 John 4:1). But there is no letter that says, "When a believer has a demon, cast it out like this."

Graham H. Twelftree, whose In the Name of Jesus: Exorcism among Early Christians (2007) is a major scholarly study of exorcism from the New Testament to the end of the second century, frames his book around exactly this puzzle: whether the Synoptic Gospels' emphasis on exorcism, or the lesser attention in John and Paul, better reflects what early Christians believed and did.²

This paper does not need to settle the scholarly debate to draw a pastoral conclusion. The letters are written to churches — to believers. In them, the evil one is resisted, not exorcised. That fits what the foundations paper showed from 1 John 5:18 and 1 Corinthians 6:19: the believer belongs to Christ. The exorcisms in the Gospels and Acts are, as far as the text tells us, of people outside the church, or people being brought into it. The believer's warfare is mostly the armour; the church's deliverance ministry is mostly at the door.

This part matters because the Christians of the first centuries after the apostles were not shy about deliverance, and their own words are still available to us. They show what the ministry looked like when it was close to its source — and, already, where it began to drift.

Justin Martyr: a public fact

Justin, a philosopher who became a Christian and was martyred in Rome around AD 165, wrote two defences of the faith addressed to the Roman authorities. In the second, he pointed to something his readers could see for themselves:

“For numberless demoniacs throughout the whole world, and in your city, many of our Christian men exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed and do heal, rendering helpless and driving the possessing devils out of the men, though they could not be cured by all the other exorcists, and those who used incantations and drugs.”³

Notice three things. The name used was "Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate" — not a magic word, but the gospel in a phrase, the historical Jesus who died. The people doing it were "many of our Christian men" — ordinary believers, not a special caste. And the contrast was with "the other exorcists, and those who used incantations and drugs" — the Eleazars of the Roman world.

Irenaeus: freely, without reward

Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, writing around AD 180 against the Gnostic teachers, listed the gifts still active in the church:

“For some do certainly and truly drive out devils, so that those who have thus been cleansed from evil spirits frequently both believe [in Christ], and join themselves to the Church. Others have foreknowledge of things to come: they see visions, and utter prophetic expressions. Others still, heal the sick by laying their hands upon them, and they are made whole.”⁴

Two features matter. First, the fruit of deliverance was conversion: those freed "frequently both believe, and join themselves to the Church." Deliverance led to Christ and to the body of Christ. Second, Irenaeus contrasted the church with the Gnostic wonder-workers precisely on money. The church exercises these gifts "neither practising deception upon any, nor taking any reward from them," because "as she has received freely from God, freely also does she minister."⁵ That is Matthew 10:8, kept.

Tertullian: the challenge

Tertullian of Carthage, writing his Apology around AD 197, made the boldest claim of all. He invited the Roman magistrates to test the matter in their own courts:

“Let a person be brought before your tribunals, who is plainly under demoniacal possession. The wicked spirit, bidden to speak by a follower of Christ, will as readily make the truthful confession that he is a demon, as elsewhere he has falsely asserted that he is a god.”⁶

He offered his own life as the stake: if the "gods" did not confess they were demons, the magistrates could "then and there shed the blood of that most impudent follower of Christ." And he explained where the Christian's authority came from: "all the authority and power we have over them is from our naming the name of Christ, and recalling to their memory the woes with which God threatens them at the hands of Christ as Judge."⁷

Tertullian's confidence is striking, and so is his source of power: the name of Christ and the coming judgment. But notice one point where his practice went beyond the New Testament: the spirit is "bidden to speak by a follower of Christ." Tertullian wanted the demon's confession as an argument for pagans. Jesus and Paul silenced spirits even when they spoke the truth. Here, already at the end of the second century, we see the first step toward treating demons as witnesses — a step this paper does not take.

Minucius Felix: the torments of our words

Minucius Felix, a Roman lawyer whose dialogue Octavius dates from around the same period, described the same practice from the pagan side of the conversation: the demons "confess concerning themselves, as often as they are driven by us from bodies by the torments of our words and by the fires of our prayers." When adjured "by the only and true God," he wrote, they "either at once leap forth, or vanish by degrees, as the faith of the sufferer assists or the grace of the healer inspires."⁸

His phrase "either at once ... or by degrees" is worth holding on to. Even in the second century, Christians did not claim that every deliverance was instant. Some took time.

Origen: no spells, and plain people

Origen of Alexandria, the most learned Christian of the third century, answered the pagan critic Celsus, who had accused Christians of using magic names and incantations. Origen's reply is the clearest statement in the early church of what Christian deliverance is not:

“For it is not by incantations that Christians seem to prevail (over evil spirits), but by the name of Jesus, accompanied by the announcement of the narratives which relate to Him; for the repetition of these has frequently been the means of driving demons out of men, especially when those who repeated them did so in a sound and genuinely believing spirit.”⁹

The name of Jesus "accompanied by the announcement of the narratives which relate to Him" — that is, the gospel story: His birth, death, resurrection. Christians, Origen said, "employ no spells or incantations, but the simple name of Jesus, and certain other words in which they repose faith, according to the holy Scriptures."¹⁰

Elsewhere he made a second point that should humble every celebrity deliverance ministry. Christians cast out demons "without the use of any curious arts of magic, or incantations, but merely by prayer and simple adjurations which the plainest person can use. Because for the most part it is unlettered persons who perform this work; thus making manifest the grace which is in the word of Christ, and the despicable weakness of demons."¹¹

Origen also recorded a warning drawn from Jesus' own words: the name had sometimes worked "when it was pronounced even by bad men," which "Jesus Himself taught (would be the case), when He said: Many shall say to Me in that day, In Your name we have cast out devils."¹² A result is not a credential. "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (Matthew 7:22-23).

Cyprian: holiness and power

Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (martyred AD 258), wrote to his friend Donatus soon after his own conversion. He described the power given to believers — to heal, to make peace, and "to force to avow themselves the impure and vagrant spirits that have betaken themselves into the bodies of men whom they purpose to destroy, to drive them with heavy blows to come out of them." But he put a condition at the front of the sentence: "if you keep the way of innocence, the way of righteousness, if you walk with a firm and steady step, if, depending on God with your whole strength and with your whole heart, you only be what you have begun to be."¹³

That is the early church's version of James 4:7. Submission first, then resistance. A holy life is the ground on which spiritual authority stands.

Baptism: renouncing Satan

By the third century, deliverance had become part of how the church received new converts. The church order called the Apostolic Tradition — traditionally ascribed to Hippolytus of Rome, though scholars now dispute its authorship and date — describes candidates for baptism being examined on their lives, and then: "from the time that they are separated from the other catechumens, hands shall be laid upon them daily in exorcism and, as the day of their baptism draws near, the bishop himself shall exorcise each one of them that he may be personally assured of their purity." At the baptism itself, each candidate was told to renounce, saying: "I renounce thee, Satan, and all thy servants and all thy works."¹⁴

There is something right here and something that drifted. What is right: deliverance is tied to conversion and baptism. Coming to Christ means a clean break with the old master, said aloud — "I renounce thee, Satan." That renunciation is a wise thing for any new believer coming out of the occult to say before God and the church. What drifted: a daily ritual exorcism of every catechumen, whatever their background, administered by the clergy, turned a ministry of the Spirit into a rite of the institution.

By the middle of the third century, exorcist had become an official minor order in Rome. A letter of Cornelius, bishop of Rome around AD 251, preserved by Eusebius, lists the church's staff: "forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty-two acolyths, fifty-two exorcists, readers, and janitors."¹⁵ Easton, the translator of the Apostolic Tradition, notes that in that document healing was still recognised as a charismatic gift with "no ordination," but that "healers in the specialized form of 'exorcists' form a minor order in Rome a generation later."¹⁶

What began as "many of our Christian men" in Justin had, within a century, become an office.

Antony: despise them

Athanasius's Life of Antony, written around AD 360 about the Egyptian desert monk, became one of the most widely read books of the early church. Much of it concerns Antony's long struggles with demons, and it contains sound counsel alongside much that later readers have found strange. Three of Antony's sayings are worth keeping.

On their weakness: "Since the Lord visited earth, the enemy is fallen and his powers weakened."¹⁷ On the weapons: "by prayer, fasting, and faith in the Lord their attack immediately fails."¹⁸ And on not listening to them, even when they seem to talk sense: "let us neither hear them as being strangers to us, nor give heed to them even though they arouse us to prayer and speak concerning fasting."¹⁹

The last is exactly the New Testament pattern. Not even good advice is to be taken from an evil spirit.

Augustine: miracles still, and relics

Augustine of Hippo was no enthusiast. He could grant that miracles "were necessary before the world believed, in order that it might believe." Yet late in life, in Book 22 of The City of God (finished around AD 426), he wrote: "Even now, therefore, many miracles are wrought, the same God who wrought those we read of still performing them, by whom He will and as He will."²⁰ He gave examples from his own region, including deliverances: a household troubled by evil spirits freed after a presbyter's prayer, a young woman of Hippo "immediately dispossessed of a devil," and a bishop who "once prayed for a demoniac young man whom he never saw, and that he was cured on the spot."²¹

Augustine's testimony matters because he was a careful witness. But his chapter also shows the drift of his age: many of his cases happened at martyrs' shrines and through their relics. The New Testament knows nothing of that, and this paper does not commend it. The God who answers prayer does not need a bone in a box.

What the early church teaches us

Gathering Part 3 together:

| What they kept | Where they drifted | | --- | --- | | The name of Jesus Christ crucified, with the gospel story (Justin, Origen) | Asking spirits to speak as witnesses (Tertullian) | | Ordinary believers, "unlettered persons" (Justin, Origen) | An ordained order of exorcists (Rome, c. 251) | | No spells, no incantations (Origen) | Daily ritual exorcism of all catechumens (Apostolic Tradition) | | No money taken (Irenaeus) | Shrines and relics (Augustine's era) | | Fruit in conversion and church membership (Irenaeus) | | | Holiness as the ground of authority (Cyprian) | | | Renouncing Satan at conversion (Apostolic Tradition) | | | Not listening to demons (Antony) | |

The left-hand column is the New Testament, practised. The right-hand column is what happens when a ministry becomes a system.

This part matters because the mistakes of later centuries are still being repeated, and because God has also been at work in surprising places. A short survey helps us recognise both.

Ritual and reaction

Through the Middle Ages, exorcism in the Western church became more and more a matter of the clergy, the liturgy and the sacraments, with formal rites and holy objects. The Reformers reacted against much of this, but they did not deny the demonic. Luther held that evil spirits could and should be driven out of the possessed by prayer, and the Lutheran confessional writings name the word of God, the name of God and prayer as what drives the devil away. Some Lutheran churches kept an exorcism formula in the baptism service for centuries; in the Danish-Norwegian church it was used until 1783.²²

In England the reaction became law. In Elizabeth I's reign, English Protestants who were uneasy about "conjuring" (directly commanding) demons turned instead to exorcism by prayer and fasting alone, and one practitioner, John Darrell, became famous for his dispossessions until the bishops clamped down on the practice in the late 1590s. The Church of England's canons of 1604 then outlawed exorcism without a specific licence from the bishop (Canon 72). The historian Francis Young notes that no such licence was ever granted after 1604, and that the canon remained in force, in theory, until 1969.²³

There is a lesson in Canon 72. Public exorcism had become a divisive controversy, and the answer the church chose was not better practice but practical prohibition. When the church will not handle deliverance biblically, people go elsewhere to have it handled badly.

Blumhardt: "Jesus is the victor"

One of the most striking cases in Protestant history comes from a Lutheran village in Württemberg. Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805–1880), pastor at Möttlingen, spent nearly two years, from about 1842 to the end of 1843, in prayer and pastoral struggle over a young parishioner, Gottliebin Dittus, whose condition he came to believe was demonic. The account later published by his biographer Friedrich Zündel describes Blumhardt and two village elders meeting to pray: "we searched through the Bible, determined not to go any further than Scripture led us. It never entered our minds to perform miracles, but it grieved us deeply to realize how much power the devil still has over humankind."²⁴

According to that account, the struggle ended around Christmas 1843, on a night when a voice cried out through Gottliebin's sister, "Jesus is the victor!" — words that became Blumhardt's motto. What followed was not a deliverance ministry but a revival: villagers came to him confessing their sins, and Blumhardt reported, "One after another, they are coming to me and confessing their sins."²⁵ He later ministered at Bad Boll, and he died in 1880.²⁶

Blumhardt's case is worth knowing for what it shows: a pastor who would not go beyond Scripture, who stayed with a suffering woman for a long time, who prayed with elders rather than alone, and whose work bore fruit in repentance across a whole parish. It is also worth reading critically. His account includes dealings with what he took to be spirits of the dead, and a great deal of sensational detail that later readers have questioned. We can honour his perseverance and his motto without adopting every belief he formed in the fight.

Missionaries and the mission field

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Western missionaries who had been taught to doubt the demonic met it in other cultures. John Livingston Nevius, an American Presbyterian missionary in China, published Demon Possession and Allied Themes in 1894, collecting cases he and others had observed and comparing them, point by point, with the cases presented in the New Testament.²⁷

Nairobi, 2000

By the late twentieth century, deliverance and "spiritual warfare" had become major movements in global Christianity, with new teachings about territorial spirits, spiritual mapping and strategic-level warfare. In August 2000 the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization and the Association of Evangelicals in Africa brought thirty practitioners, missiologists, pastors and theologians together in Nairobi for a consultation called "Deliver Us From Evil." Their statement is one of the most balanced documents on the subject, and its warnings read like a checklist for this paper:²⁸

• It affirmed that "Christ has decisively defeated Satan at the cross and through the resurrection," and warned that "when we separate the cross from spiritual conflict, we create a climate of triumphalism."
• It cautioned practitioners "to avoid making spiritual conflict into Christian magic," and warned against the idea that "a particular technique or method in spiritual conflict ministry ensures success."
• It warned "against an overemphasis on spirits that blames demons for the actions of people."
• It called for care "to ensure that the exercise of spiritual authority not become spiritual abuse."
• It said, "We need to distinguish the psychological from the spiritual when it comes to ministry and counselling," adding, "Failure to do so can do harm."
• On territorial spirits, it said "there seems to be little biblical warrant for a number of the teachings and practices," and recorded disagreement rather than endorsement.
• On believers, it recorded that there is "no direct evidence that demons need to be cast out of believers," while allowing that a believer may be afflicted, and admitted, "We were unable to resolve this tension in our consultation."

Clinton E. Arnold, a New Testament scholar who has written widely on the subject, organised a short book around the same three disputed questions — what spiritual warfare is, whether a Christian can be demon-possessed, and whether believers are called to engage territorial spirits — in 3 Crucial Questions about Spiritual Warfare (1997).²⁹ These are the live questions of our time. Part 7 gives this ministry's answers.

This part matters because the worst harm done in the name of deliverance has come from getting this question wrong. A demon treated as a disease is left in place. A disease treated as a demon can kill.

Scripture distinguishes

The Gospels do not see a demon behind every illness. Matthew's summary of Jesus' ministry lists the categories separately:

“And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.” (Matthew 4:24)

Jesus healed most sick people by healing, not by casting out spirits. Some illnesses had a spiritual cause (Luke 13:16; Mark 9:25); most, as far as the text says, did not. Luke, who records many deliverances, was himself "the beloved physician" (Colossians 4:14). Paul told Timothy to take something for his stomach: "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities" (1 Timothy 5:23). He did not tell him to rebuke a spirit of indigestion.

What the Gospels show of the demonic

When Scripture does describe evil spirits at work in a person, certain features appear. They are worth knowing, not as a diagnostic checklist, but as a picture.

• A reaction to Jesus. Spirits cry out, recognise Him, and fear Him (Mark 1:24; 5:7; Luke 4:41).
• Knowledge the person could not have. The slave girl at Philippi had "a spirit of divination" (Acts 16:16); the spirits knew who Jesus was before the crowds did.
• Self-destruction. The Gadarene man cut himself with stones (Mark 5:5); the boy was thrown into fire and water "to destroy him" (Mark 9:22).
• Strength beyond the natural. "No man could bind him, no, not with chains" (Mark 5:3).
• A link to the occult or idolatry. Divination at Philippi, "curious arts" at Ephesus (Acts 19:19).

None of these alone proves anything. People in psychosis can hurt themselves. People in mania can seem unnaturally strong. People in some dissociative conditions speak in other voices. That is exactly why the Lausanne statement called for "a diagnostic approach that allows practitioners to discern the difference between DID personalities and spiritual entities" as a frontier still needing work.³⁰

The gift of discerning of spirits

Scripture's answer to the difficulty is not a technique but a gift: "to another discerning of spirits" (1 Corinthians 12:10). And it is a gift given "to profit withal" (1 Corinthians 12:7) — in the body, among others, for the good of the church. Hebrews speaks of mature believers "who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil" (Hebrews 5:14). Discernment grows with maturity, and it is exercised with others, not alone.

John gives the test every discerner must apply to any spiritual claim, including claims made during a deliverance: "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God" (1 John 4:1-2).

Rules a church should keep

From Scripture and from the hard lessons of history, a church that ministers deliverance should hold to these rules:

• Medicine first where there are medical signs. Seizures, hallucinations, voices, severe mood swings, confusion, sudden personality change, eating disorders, self-harm and suicidal thinking all need a doctor, and often urgently. Prayer is not a substitute. If someone is in danger, call 911; for thoughts of suicide, call or text 988.
• Never tell anyone to stop medication. That is a decision for the person and their doctor. Faith is not proved by throwing away pills.
• Both can be true. A person can have a real illness and also be under spiritual attack. The doctor and the elders are not rivals.
• Do not diagnose from a distance. No one should be told "you have a demon" by a stranger online, or by a preacher on a stage who has never met them.
• Do not make it the default. If deliverance becomes the explanation for every struggle, people stop repenting, stop forgiving and stop seeking help. The Lausanne statement's warning against "an overemphasis on spirits that blames demons for the actions of people" applies here.

This part matters because it is the practical heart of the paper. What follows is not a technique that guarantees results. There is no such thing. It is a pattern drawn from the texts in Parts 1 and 2, with the wisdom of the early church in Part 3, for a local church that wants to help an oppressed person in Christ's way.

Who ministers

The New Testament gives deliverance to "them that believe" (Mark 16:17), not to a guild of specialists. Origen's "unlettered persons" were right in the line of Justin's "many of our Christian men." No believer should be told he is too ordinary to pray against the enemy in Jesus' name.

But where the case is serious, it belongs in the church's care. James tells the sick to "call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him" (James 5:14). Blumhardt prayed with the village elders. A wise church will ask its elders, or mature believers they appoint, to minister — at least two or three together, of good character and sound doctrine, accountable to the church.

Some should not lead this ministry:

• New converts. Paul says an overseer must be "Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil" (1 Timothy 3:6).
• Those living in unconfessed sin. Cyprian put "the way of innocence, the way of righteousness" first; the sons of Sceva are what happens otherwise.
• Those who enjoy it. Paul was "grieved" at Philippi. Anyone who finds deliverance exciting, or wants an audience, is not ready.
• Anyone who charges for it. "Freely ye have received, freely give" (Matthew 10:8).

Preparation

Jesus said a certain kind "goeth not out but by prayer and fasting" (Matthew 17:21). The preparation is in the life of those who minister: regular prayer, the word, humility, confession, and fasting as a discipline before God. Not a show fast, and not a formula: "But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret" (Matthew 6:17-18).

Brittany Sivels told her story on The King Is Coming Show (TKIC #52): two decades in homosexuality and lust — and then, in her telling, a three-day fast that changed everything. Watch it in her own words: youtube.com/watch?v=JJ0SsSLQgEg Brittany's account of what happened to her, shared as her testimony — weigh it for yourself.

Step 1: Listen, and rule out the obvious

Before anything else, sit down with the person — and, if they are a child, with their parents. Ask what is happening, for how long, and what they have already done. Ask about health, medication, sleep, substances, trauma and family history. Ask about involvement in the occult, other religions' spiritual practices, or drugs. Jesus asked the father of the boy, "How long is it ago since this came unto him?" (Mark 9:21). He asked the father; He did not ask the spirit.

If there are medical signs, see Part 5 and get the person to a doctor. This is not a detour. It is part of the ministry.

Step 2: The gospel first

If the person is not a believer, the first need is not deliverance but salvation. The early church's deliverances led to conversion and baptism (Irenaeus); the Apostolic Tradition put renunciation of Satan at the font. Jesus' own warning about the empty house (Matthew 12:43-45) means that driving out a spirit from someone who will not receive Christ may leave them worse.

So preach Christ. "Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21). Scripture puts the way of salvation this way: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). And Peter, to the first converts: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2:38).

Many people seeking "deliverance" find that what they needed was the new birth. The strong man is bound by the Stronger, and the house is filled.

Step 3: Confession and renunciation

The believers at Ephesus "came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds" (Acts 19:18). Help the person confess specific sins to God — especially occult involvement, idolatry, unforgiveness and sexual sin — and, where wise, to the elders: "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed" (James 5:16).

Then help them renounce: a plain statement before God that they turn from Satan and every practice of darkness, as the early church's candidates said, "I renounce thee, Satan, and all thy servants and all thy works." The words are not magic. They are repentance made audible, and a public break with the old master.

Then deal with the objects. The Ephesians "brought their books together, and burned them before all men" (Acts 19:19), books worth fifty thousand pieces of silver. Tarot decks, spell books, charms, idols, Ouija boards, occult jewellery: get rid of them.

And forgive. Unforgiveness gives "place to the devil" (Ephesians 4:27). Many people find that the hardest part of their deliverance is letting go of what someone did to them.

Step 4: Prayer and command, in Jesus' name

Then pray. Pray to the Father, in the name of the Son, for the person's deliverance: "deliver us from evil" (Matthew 6:13). Pray with the elders, laying on hands if the person is willing.

Where there is a clear manifestation of an evil spirit in a person who is not a believer, or who is coming to faith, follow the apostolic pattern: a short, direct command in the name of Jesus Christ. Paul's words at Philippi are the model: "I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her" (Acts 16:18). Jesus' own word was "Hold thy peace, and come out of him" (Mark 1:25). No long speeches, no shouting contest, no list of names, no "legal grounds".

During the ministry:

• Do not converse. If a spirit speaks, do not answer it, question it, or believe it. Silence it, as Jesus did, and keep praying.
• Do not perform. No audience, no camera, no stage. Paul's deliverance at Philippi was in the street because that is where the girl was, not because he wanted a crowd.
• Do not harm. No one is ever to be struck, held down, shouted at for hours, deprived of food, sleep or medicine, or kept against their will. If the person asks to stop, stop. If there is danger to anyone, call for help. Deliverance that injures is not of Christ, who "went about doing good" (Acts 10:38).
• Be patient. Minucius Felix knew that spirits sometimes "at once leap forth" and sometimes "vanish by degrees." Blumhardt's struggle lasted nearly two years. Not everything happens in one meeting.

Step 5: If nothing seems to happen

Sometimes there is no visible change. That may mean the problem was never demonic. It may mean there is more to confess or forgive. It may mean, as Jesus told the disciples, that this kind needs more prayer and fasting. Or it may mean that God is doing something we cannot see yet. Do not blame the person's faith, and do not promise a date. Keep loving them, keep praying, keep them in the church, and keep them with their doctor.

Step 6: Fill the house

After any deliverance, the work is not done. The house must not be left "empty, swept, and garnished." The person needs:

• The Holy Ghost. "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18). Jesus promised: "how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" (Luke 11:13).
• The word. A daily reading plan, the armour of Ephesians 6, Scripture memorised. "Thy word have I hid in mine heart" (Psalm 119:11).
• Baptism, if they have not been baptized (Acts 2:38).
• The church. Regular worship, the Lord's table, a small group, and a mature believer who checks in every week.
• Ongoing care for health, relationships and any addiction.

Step 7: Give glory to God

"Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee" (Mark 5:19). The fruit of deliverance is testimony to Christ, not to the minister. Irenaeus's measure is still the right one: did they "believe, and join themselves to the Church"?

Jackie VanTine shared a testimony of faith, deliverance, and marriage under Christ on The King Is Coming Show (TKIC #16). Watch it in Jackie's own words: youtube.com/watch?v=wjU6N7arAbA Jackie's account of what happened, shared as testimony — weigh it for yourself.

Praying for a believer under attack

What about a Christian who is under heavy spiritual oppression? This ministry does not treat a born-again believer as a person owned by a demon (Part 7 explains why). It does take attack seriously. The pattern is the New Testament's: help them submit to God and resist the devil (James 4:7); confess and renounce anything that has given the enemy a foothold (Ephesians 4:27); forgive; put on the armour (Ephesians 6:10-18); let the elders pray over them (James 5:14-16), rebuking the enemy's attack in Jesus' name; and surround them with the church. Jesus' prayer for Peter is the model: "Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not" (Luke 22:31-32).

This part matters because the abuses of deliverance ministry are not a side issue; they are the reason many churches will not touch it. Each guardrail below is drawn from Scripture, not from caution for its own sake.

A believer cannot be possessed

The guardrail: A born-again believer can be tempted, deceived, oppressed, harassed and attacked by evil spirits. He cannot be owned, inhabited and controlled by one.

The texts: The believer has been delivered "from the power of darkness" and translated "into the kingdom of his dear Son" (Colossians 1:13). He is "sealed with that holy Spirit of promise" (Ephesians 1:13). His body is "the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you" and "ye are not your own" (1 Corinthians 6:19). Paul asks, "What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God" (2 Corinthians 6:16). John writes, "He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not" (1 John 5:18). And again, "Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4).

The honesty: Some evangelical teachers argue that believers can be "demonized". The Lausanne consultation could not resolve the question. But it also observed that there is "no direct evidence that demons need to be cast out of believers," and that matches the silence of the letters (Part 2). Attack, yes. Ownership, no. And a ministry that tells struggling Christians they are secretly owned by demons does great harm to their assurance.

No conversations with demons

The guardrail: We do not interview, question, negotiate with, or take information from evil spirits.

The texts: Jesus "suffered not the devils to speak" (Mark 1:34). Paul would not accept even a true testimony from a spirit of divination (Acts 16:17-18). The devil "is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44). The one question in Mark 5:9 was asked by the Lord after He had already commanded the spirit out, and is never repeated (Part 1). Antony: "let us neither hear them ... nor give heed to them."

No formulas

The guardrail: No words, phrases, objects or rituals have power in themselves. Not "I bind you", not "pleading the blood", not anointed cloths, not holy water, not a set number of repetitions.

The texts: The sons of Sceva used the right name and were overpowered (Acts 19:13-16). Origen: "Christians employ no spells or incantations." The blood of Christ is our standing before God, received by faith (Revelation 12:11; Romans 8:1) — not a charm to be said over rooms. The Lausanne statement warned against "making spiritual conflict into Christian magic."

Binding and loosing in context

The guardrail: We do not teach prayers that "bind" Satan or spirits by formula.

The texts: The words appear twice. To Peter: "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:19). And at the end of Jesus' teaching on church discipline: "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 18:18). In both places the subject is the church's authority through the gospel and in discipline, not demons. Where Jesus speaks of binding "the strong man" (Matthew 12:29; Mark 3:27), He is describing what He does.

No curses, and none "returned"

The guardrail: We do not curse anyone, and we do not "send curses back" to those believed to have sent them.

The texts: "Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you" (Luke 6:28). Paul: "Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not" (Romans 12:14). And: "Avenge not yourselves" (Romans 12:19). The comfort for the frightened: "As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come" (Proverbs 26:2). And: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13).

Family patterns, not "generational curse" rituals

The guardrail: Families pass on sins, habits and wounds, and those must be faced honestly. But we do not teach that believers carry inherited demonic curses that must be broken by special prayers.

The texts: The second commandment speaks of iniquity visited "unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me," and of mercy "unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments" (Exodus 20:5-6). Ezekiel answers the proverb of inherited guilt directly: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son" (Ezekiel 18:20). For one in Christ, Galatians 3:13 settles it. What a believer does with a family's patterns is repent of his own share in them, renounce any occult practice he inherited, forgive, and build a different house.

No commanding or praying to angels

The guardrail: We pray to the Father in the name of the Son. We do not command, summon, dispatch or pray to angels.

The texts: Angels are "ministering spirits, sent forth" by God (Hebrews 1:14). Their worship is forbidden (Colossians 2:18; Revelation 22:8-9). Even Michael the archangel said only, "The Lord rebuke thee" (Jude 1:9).

Territorial spirits

The guardrail: We do not teach "spiritual mapping" or prayer campaigns to identify and pull down named territorial spirits as the key to evangelism.

The texts: Daniel 10 does show spiritual powers connected with nations — "the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me" (Daniel 10:13). But Daniel did not identify or address that prince. He prayed to God, and God sent help. Nowhere does the New Testament tell the church to map or engage regional spirits. Paul's strategy at Ephesus, a city full of spirits, was to preach Christ, and "So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed" (Acts 19:20). The Lausanne consultation found "little biblical warrant" for much of this teaching.

No guarantees, and no number codes

The guardrail: We never promise a result, a date or a "breakthrough guaranteed."

The texts: The disciples failed in Mark 9. Paul's thorn was not removed (2 Corinthians 12:8-9). Daniel's twenty-one days (Daniel 10:13) describe what happened, not a formula. The Lausanne statement warned against the claim that "a particular technique or method in spiritual conflict ministry ensures success." Numbers in Scripture are part of its history and prophecy, not a code for unlocking spiritual power.

No money

The guardrail: Deliverance ministry is never sold. No fees, no "seed offerings" for freedom, no paid sessions.

The texts: "Freely ye have received, freely give" (Matthew 10:8). Peter to Simon: "Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money" (Acts 8:20). Irenaeus: the church ministers "neither practising deception upon any, nor taking any reward from them."

No abuse

The guardrail: No one is to be physically harmed, restrained, humiliated, isolated, or kept from medical care in the name of deliverance. Children are never subjected to deliverance without their parents, and never in any way that frightens or harms them.

The texts: "And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will" (2 Timothy 2:24-26). Notice: even those "taken captive" by the devil are to be treated with gentleness, patience and meekness. "Let all things be done decently and in order" (1 Corinthians 14:40). And: "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace" (1 Corinthians 14:33). The Lausanne statement: spiritual authority must "not become spiritual abuse."

No unsourced fear

The guardrail: We do not spread claims about the hidden demonic origins of holidays, objects, music or brands unless there is real evidence.

The text: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Fear-mongering is not discernment, and it is one of the enemy's own weapons.

Rejoice in the right thing

The guardrail over all the others: "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven" (Luke 10:20).

A ministry that is excited about demons has lost its centre. A ministry that is excited about Christ, and about sinners coming home, will handle demons rightly when it meets them.

Deliverance from evil spirits is part of the New Testament. Jesus did it as a sign that the kingdom had come. He gave His disciples authority to do it. The apostles did it in Jerusalem, Samaria, Philippi and Ephesus. The church of the next three centuries did it so openly that its apologists challenged the Roman courts to come and see. Christians have reported it since, at Möttlingen and on the mission field, and many testify to it today.

And it has been abused in every age. It has been turned into a spectacle, a profession, a business, a ritual and a cruelty. It has led people to talk to demons, fear curses, chase formulas and stop taking their medicine.

The way between those two failures is not a new method. It is the old one, read plainly from the text:

• Christ at the centre. His name, His cross, His resurrection — "Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate."
• The gospel first. Deliverance at the door of the church, with repentance, faith and baptism.
• Short commands, no conversations. "I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her."
• Holiness, prayer and fasting as the life of those who minister.
• The church, not the stage. Elders, accountability, patience.
• The doctor beside the elders.
• Freely given.
• Glory to God.

A next step

If you lead or serve in a church:

• Read Mark 1, Mark 5, Mark 9, Acts 16 and Acts 19 together, slowly, in the 1611 Reader at kylelauriano.com/library.
• Talk with your elders about how your church will respond when someone comes to you in this kind of trouble — before it happens.
• Make sure you know a doctor or two your church trusts.
• Go back to the foundations paper and make sure your own armour is on.

An invitation

If you are the one who is oppressed, hear this: you are not too far gone, and you do not need a famous minister. You need the Lord Jesus Christ, who "went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil" (Acts 10:38). Tell Him the truth. Tell a pastor you trust. Get rid of what needs to go. And let the Stronger Man do what He came to do.

Free truth. No pressure.