What is Deliverance Ministry?

This. What about Deliverance Ministry? Deliverance Ministry, what I mean by that, involves the practice of casting out demons. Now, I’ll be honest, obviously this is not a common practice around here at Brook Hills. At the other hand, I have been and pride of context around the world where this is a common practice.

Most recently, this last year spent some time in India. Without going too specifically into some of the circumstances that I found myself in, this was a very common thing and saw it being practiced in a variety of different ways. I know that there are a variety of different situations around the world. And again, I’m not saying to know all of those experiences, but I want us to think through the truth of God’s word that allows us to think through these experiences. Now, an example, when it comes to examples, clearly beyond any shadow of a doubt, Jesus and Apostles and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts, we see them casting out demons.

What Do You Think About Casting Out Demons?

So based on all that we’ve seen, what are we supposed to think about casting out demons? Well first, I think in some of these emphasis, there’s a number of positives that come from highlights of demonic activity. Deliverance Ministries remind us of the reality of the spiritual world around us. Remind us not to forget, not to be engrossed in an empty rationalism. Deliverance Ministries challenge the idea that personal problems can be reduced to purely psychological, social, physiological, or circumstantial factors. There’s definitely something deeper going on here. There is a battle waging for our souls. And along those lines, Deliverance Ministries often emphasize prayer and other biblical modes of spiritual warfare.

Two Arguments for Deliverance Ministry

And there there’s a variety, there’s a whole spectrum. So these are good things. At the same time, I do think there are potential problems. One is extremism. Going to extremes, much like C.S. Lewis warned against. Fanaticism, confusion, I think fundamentally causing confusion about major issues like the gospel by focusing on minor issues that take center stage. Experientialism, letting experience determine truth and let instead of letting truth, interpret experience and then blame shifting. What I mean by that is, the devil made me do it kind of mentality. There are two main arguments for Deliverance Ministry and they’re pretty simple. Number one, Jesus and the disciples did it.

The Bible Never Forbids It

And number two, the Bible never forbids it. So, do you want to be like Jesus? The Bible doesn’t say not to do it. So unless we’re prejudiced against the supernatural, then of course, okay, seems pretty rock solid. Let’s engage in this. And when I look at scripture and I look at much of the picture that’s associated with Deliverance Ministry, I think there are two major errors in these arguments for Deliverance Ministry.

First, Deliverance Ministry advocates often fail to distinguish between moral evil and natural evil. Casting out demons in cases of moral evil, something that is not taught or illustrated anywhere in scripture. What you’ll find in literature and thinking about this subject in our day is that almost all of Deliverance Ministry is focused on casting demons out of people and issues of moral evil, sin. There’s a whole catalog of demons that need to be cast out, anger, lust, pride, fear, unbelief, and so on and so on.

But as we have seen, this is not what Jesus is doing, New Testament. It’s not in the Old Testament, it’s not in the gospels, it’s not in the letters of the New Testament. We don’t see it. Don’t have time to go through Acts eight and Acts 26 here, but the picture is, in response to moral evil, it’s not casting out, it’s calling people to repent. It’s what’s going on with Simon, the sorcerer here in Acts eight. It’s the picture of how people were coming to Christ among the Gentiles in Acts 26. So, there’s a failure to distinguish between moral evil and natural evil, we’ve talked about that.

Second, often they fail to account for the discontinuities that exist between us and Christ. Now, we talked about some of the differences between the Ministry of Christ and our ministry. Jesus is doing some unique things when he is speaking to wind and waves, calling people to get up and live, taking coins out of fish’s mouth, bringing down food from heaven. He’s doing some unique things. He’s revealing his identity in the way he’s bringing about healings. And the thing is, he never gives us a command to cast out demons, we talked about that.

Two Cautions Regarding Deliverance Ministry

Instead, he preaches the gospel. Repentance, faith, love, and he says nothing about how we need to cast out demons of ourselves or others as we grow in Him. The focus was on repentance and faith. As a result, that just sums up where we were earlier. I would put before us two major cautions regarding Deliverance Ministry. Number one, there is no direct command in scripture to do Deliverance Ministry. Even to relieve suffering. But there are numerous direct commands in scripture to do personal ministry using the word of God to call people to repent of sin and turn to Christ.

The only place that you could go to is Mark chapter 16, which is a whole another evening worth of discussions to have when we talk about snakes and deadly poisons. So, probably not the best text to go to. There’s not a command in scripture to do Deliverance Ministry, even to relieve suffering. But there are commands everywhere to do personal ministry using the word of God to call people, to repent sin and turn to Christ. That was the way of the Old Testament saints. It was the way of Christ, it was the way of the New Testament church, repent of sin, turn to Christ.

And this is the picture. I hope, I pray, I’m not trying to simplify things to accommodate a western worldview that’s uncomfortable with this or that. But look at scripture, Jesus clearly does not put focus on, we need to go out and do this or that, and the New Testament letters from Romans to Revelation don’t address this. And this is where the New Testament, much like the Old Testament was not accommodating occultic worldviews around it. We would think we would expect there to be more, but there’s not.