Sunday, September 8, 2013
Presence of God in Deliverance
As I remain faithful to Jesus and obey Him to do mission and making disciples of all nations, He empowered me and my deliverance team to glorify Him. I prayed to Jesus to give me opportunity to do mission and ministry during my sabbatical year. He just gave me opportunity after opportunity. How Jesus Christ of Nazareth empowered me and my deliverance team in my second encounter really humbled us. We really experienced the empowerment and His presence with us. This time, it happened in Miri (my last deliverance ministry was done in KK), we did three times of deliverance, last Saturday (29th June), Monday (1st July) and Tuesday (2nd July). Each time it took us more than three hours. I shall describe the great two months experience and the precious lessons learned.
The Encounter – 29th June Saturday
That Saturday my fellow pastor called me to join him to do pastoral care to a middle aged lady to find out whether she was demon possessed or not. The moment I got into the church van, we prayed for forgiveness of our sins; precious blood of Jesus to cleanse us and protect us from harms of the devils, diseases and accidents. We also prayed for Jesus to empower us to discern the spirits. Along the journey going to the lady’s house, from the pastor’s description like how the demon manifested, I said before seeing her, I could confirm that she was demon possessed.
Our team consisted of three matured ladies (church leaders), my fellow pastor and the husband of the demon possessed lady. Even before we arrived, the husband told us the demon already knew. As I was still outside the gate of the house, and about to enter the door, the demon spoke out in English (the sister is not well versed in English as told by her husband; and the demon knew that I speak in English) and asked me, “Who are you?” in a very loud fierce voice. As if the demon wanted to scare me and stop me from approaching it. I was not bothered and not feared at all as I know Jesus has empowered all of us His disciples to defeat the devils of all kinds.
The demons never stop using scare tactics throughout. I just walked straight to the lady with smiling face. Then, the demon, in a very fierce look and with great anger, shouted out my name in mandarin with the pastor title. As if it wanted to scare me and tell me to back off. (I am the leader of the team and I will continue to do follow up with my fellow pastor.)
I am well equipped to do deliverance. Last year, I even gave a seminar on how to do deliverance to about 30 brothers and sisters at Kingfisher Methodist Church (Mandarin congregation) last September, 2012. Eventually, I joined a team to do deliverance on a youth. We delivered him from possession of 29 devils. I am aware from the teaching of the bible and from experience, the demons always lie, scare, pretend, using fierce looking, shaking, manifest themselves through a different voice, twisted face, great strength, controlling the physical body, and enter someone’s body because of footholds.
With all the empowerment from the Spirit of Jesus, I was not scared at all. In fact, I told myself and taught others, demons should be scared of the disciples of Jesus because we are filled by the Spirit of Jesus. At first, I planned to worship, and then, counsel her. As we worshipped in singing “In the Cross” in Mandarin, we observed that the demons in the presence of God, struggled. The demons inside her struggled as she sang the song. I could not proceed with my counseling. I went straight to confront the demons and asked the demons in the name of Jesus to tell me their names one by one.
While I confronted the demons in the name of Jesus, my team members prayed and sang the cross song. The lady’s husband helped to hold her and sat her down. Praise the Lord, we all experience unity in team work. They obeyed all my instructions.
The demons had no choice in the face of Jesus, when we bind and commanded the identified spirits in the name of Jesus to leave her body. Most of the spirits after some struggles, like shaking her body; begging us to let them stay; crying, shouting and looked pitiful, then came out. A vomit is a sign that showed that at least one demon is out. Some of the spirits who were chased out were spirits of lie, pretension, hatred, self-pity, divorce, human beings (a few of them), Thai god, China spirit (coming from a flower jar purchased) and many other spirits which names I could not remember. The demons teased, intimidated, scared and challenged us all the time.
There was one spirit which was most stubborn and refused to come out. I asked in the name of Jesus to tell me the reason for refusing to come out. It said it wanted her and her husband to be divorced, only then, it would come out. I reckoned the spirit as the spirit of divorce. Praise the Lord, before the deliverance, under the leading of the Holy Spirit I had asked her husband about their husband and wife relationship, he said there was no problem. Therefore, I could tell the spirit of divorce that their marriage was blessed by Jesus; they love one another; Jesus bind their marriage; and they would not be divorced. Only after quite a few bindings, the spirit of divorce came out.
We came to learn quite a few footholds in the house and on the lady herself which caused the demons to enter her body. Most of these were as a result of interpersonal conflicts and bad feelings towards one another; a flower vase that contained syiling; some clothing that was given by particular individuals who had bad relationship with her; some cooking utensils given by certain close family member; some belongings like two golden rings with jades as decoration and a few other items. When these things were shown to her, the demons inside her manifested. A few of these things actually were directed and pointed by her that they contained something not right. The demons actually tried to stop her from revealing these items, but she overcame the demons and pointed out item by item. I could see the demons tried to zip her mouth and not allowed her to tell us the items which became the footholds for the demons to enter her.
I believe that these items must have been cursed, worshipped or some kind of black magic must have been done to them. For each of these items, I asked the demons what was the relationship between it and the demon. Each of the demons just reveal the relationship and I bind the demons and commanded them to come out one by one. We really experienced the power of the name of Jesus Christ. Any refusal for the demons to come out, I always said Jesus ordered them to leave her.
Before the binding and commanding for each demon to leave the body, I always identify the demons. I observed that a vomit was a sign that at least a demon had come out.
The vomitings were a lot and I roughly estimated that the first encounter at least 30-40 demons had come out. In the end, after more than 3 hours, it was late afternoon, about 6pm. I needed to go for a wedding dinner and we were all tired. But, I made it a point to stop and concluded there were many more demons which were not out yet. We need to come back again. I remember to pray a prayer that cut the soul tie with all the lingering spirits. I commanded the spirits not to follow us home. I prayed for the precious blood of Jesus Christ to cover and protect us. I also requested all of us to go back home to pray and discern the causes for these demons to go in.
I had also advised the lady to see a psychiatrist just in case the demons have caused some damage to her mental health. Before this, she was actually on psychiatrist medication. I also cannot rule out the possibility that her mental health problem could have caused the demons to enter.
The demons actually manifested during her first visit to the psychiatrist. She was asked to come back later. In fact, it was after our intensive deliverance where she was better. Then, the psychiatrist prescribed the medicine for her. I made sure her husband gave her the medicine dutifully. He did it very well. I must say he was very instrumental for her recovery. He showed a great understanding and patience towards his wife.
On the other hand, she was able to do all the house work well even in the midst of going through the deliverance. In other words, the family still functioned normally in the midst of the great spiritual warfare.
1st July, 2nd July, and Follow up With Seven Steps To Freedom
1st and 2nd July deliverance were still very intense and it was still full of confrontations using power enter. It means we bind and command. Altogether, I counted, each time we spent 3 hours to do the casting and each time we casted out at least 30 to 40 demons. In the third meeting, even she herself could do it by herself.
A few more household things were identified for connection with the demons. However, this time, I made the decision not to throw them away because there may be no end to it. These things were linked to those whom she had offended. We found that there was a very strong stubborn human spirit which refused to come out. We always asked for the spirit, it always said the name of the human spirit. Eventually, we discovered through encounter that she had not truly forgiven the person whom she had bad relationship with.
In view of the numerous demons which were still inside her, and we also found that there might be no end to the deliverance as a certain stubborn spirits would not come out. We also realized that we all got tired if we came to do the deliverance continuously everyday like this. With the leading of the Spirit of Jesus, I discussed the change in the course of our action. We switched to the truth encounter and we were prepared to do a marathon spiritual warfare against the demons inside her body.
I purposely discussed our change in front of the demons which were present inside her body. The demons actually smiled through her face. I decided to change the strategy because I sensed that she might not realize a certain truth and she herself had given footholds to the demons that still allow them to stay inside. Another practical reason for the change was it caused tiredness to the team members, especially, my fellow pastor who was feeling the stress and the deliverance ministry affected his overall ministry. We decided to take turns to come to minister using material written by Neil Anderson which he emphasized very much on truth encounter. The material is Seven Steps To Freedom. It contains the counseling element that brings out the truths about bondages. And we only did the weekly follow up. We did not want to fall into the trap of demons that tempted us with longer intensive confrontations which did not result in a total freedom. Our change of strategy proved to be correct.
On 22nd August, I did the fifth step of the material. As we entered into the house, I saw a smiling face on the lady’s husband and he declared to all of us his wife was freed totally. I looked to his wife’s face and it also showed her freedom from demonic possession. She was able to smile also! Before this, each time I entered the house, she would tell me that she hated me and she would stare at me and gave me a hatred look.
How she was finally delivered from the demonic possession? As I looked back, on 17th August, I did step five with her and I also gave a lot of counseling in view of the step. This step is all about forgiveness. I got her to pray to forgive all the people who had offended her. There was this particular person whose spirit actually haunted her and she had difficulty forgiving. I believe this was the human spirit that was so stubborn and refused to come out. Then, I knew why it did not want to come out because she had not forgiven the person. I got her to pray the prayer of forgiveness for this person many times until she forgave him totally. Interestingly, each time she prayed to forgive him, a demon came out. I believe she was able to understand the truth of the harm of unforgiveness after I explained to her. This definitely set her free from the demonic bondage of unforgiveness.
In that meeting, I also found that she got angry easily and I believe it was a foothold that allowed the demons to remain inside. I address the need to handle her emotion of anger. She was reminded not to be so perfectionist and control her anger by counting one to ten. I even asked her husband and her only daughter to check on her and remind her if she did not control her temperament, then, the demons will come back to attack her. She improved a bit after that day. I believe this helped her freedom from the demonic possession also.
On 17th August, I still anointed her with the blessed olive oil according to James 5 as usual and commanded the demons that disturbed her eyes to come out after the fifth step. Before this during the intensive deliverance, the demons even covered her eye sight and disturbed her vision. I had to keep casting out the demons from the eyes. I believed the demons took control of her eyes because she always gave the hatred look to people whom she did not like. Her husband said that with that anointing of the eyes and deliverance and the fifth step, she was freed from the demonic possession. No wonder all the family members were smiling in satisfaction.
I still continued the 6th Step and she was very steady and I found no more manifestation in the course of the prayer. I declared her free! However, my fellow pastor would still continue with the 7th Step. Their church will do the long term follow up with her. I reminded them that they should channel her to a fellowship and continue to grow from there.
Precious Lessons Learnt
In the deliverance ministry that lasted for about two months, there are precious lessons which I learnt:
1. The Spirit of our Lord led us to name the spirits which we had thought of. These spirits had never occurred to our minds and we bind and command them to come out, they came out. If we were not sensitive to the leading of the Spirit, then, we could not do the job.
2. I decided not to fast despite the difficulty because we need strength to do deliverance. Furthermore, I use it as the last resort.
3. The Spirit of our Lord led me to prayer which I had never done before. I prayed for the Holy Fire, and the sword of the Spirit to come down to cleanse her. The demons inside always struggled, shook and came out.
4. The demons were not only scared of the resurrection of Jesus, His judgment, and the likes of the above, they were also very scared of the light of God, the holiness of God and the righteousness of God.
5. The demons were always under the authority of Jesus.
6. I believe the psychiatrist medication also helps in the deliverance.
7. There is a place for the power and truth encounters to be operated along side in a deliverance ministry.
8. Material like 7 Steps to Freedom is excellent complement in deliverance.
9. Follow up on the demon possessed is part of the deliverance ministry. One must do the ministry until he or she is cleared of the possession. It cannot be given up half-way.
Prayer Points:
1. Praise the Lord for the great leanings in the last 2 deliverances. I was very humbled by Jesus. Do pray that more pastors would be trained to do deliverance.
2. Pray that Jesus will empower me to conduct the deliverance seminar in Miri on 6th September. Pray that the church concerned will set up a future deliverance team.
3. Do continue to pray for me as I am still at the fifth chapter of my book.
4. Pray that Jesus will grant me the wisdom to do the vision for Ulu Belaga Penan Mission.
5. Pray for my daughter Grace who is studying A level at KL Methodist College that she will overcome the English language difficulty and do well.
A Faithful Disciple of Jesus,
Pastor Law Hui Seng
(Sabbatical, 27th August, 2013, Miri)
Poated By Teresa Han
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