Signs, Wonder, and Deliverance - CONTEND Conference Session 2

Thank you, brother, I'm happy to say that so far at the conference,

I have detected no nopes from many of the other brothers who have spoken, which is a good thing, so.

It's my task in this session to speak about signs and wonders which characterize supposedly the charismatic movement and deliverance, deliverance ministry as it is seen today.

And a couple of key questions that we want to answer are, first, can

Christians have demons? We want to answer that. And also we want to answer, why was there so much demonic activity in the time of Jesus?

When we read the gospel accounts, why was there so much demonic activity in that time?

Should we expect to see the same kind of demonic activity today?

And should we be casting out demons? Is exorcism normative for the life of the church today?

Should I be casting out demons when I go to Starbucks or when I pump gas?

Should this be normative in my life? Am I called to do that? So let's begin by answering this question.

What are signs and wonders? What are signs and wonders? We often consider these generally under the term miracles, though that term is not common in our

English translations of the scriptures. Tom Pennington notes that the Old Testament authors used

Hebrew words, translated signs, wonders and power.

The Hebrew word for signs means pledges or attestations of the divine presence.

The first occurrence of sign is in Exodus when God commissions Moses as his servant to deliver the nation of Israel from Egypt and gives him the ability to perform signs.

Exodus 417, you shall take in your hand this staff with which you shall perform the signs.

The Hebrew word for wonder means a special display of God's power that causes one to wonder.

It strikes all in the person who witnesses it. God referred to the plagues he brought on Egypt as wonders that would be multiplied in the land of Egypt.

In Exodus 11, verse nine, the Old Testament writers also used a

Hebrew word translated power when they spoke of miracles. This word can refer both to human and divine power.

But when used of miracles, it refers to the power of God in the acts of deliverance and judgment.

Nehemiah 1, verse 10, they are your servants and your people whom you redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.

Now, in the New Testament, we see the very same thing. John 20, 30 and 31, he writes this.

Therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.

But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

We said that signs were the attestation of the divine presence. Peter declares in Acts 2, verse 22, men of Israel.

This is on the day of Pentecost. He he stands up to preach and he says, listen to these words,

Jesus, the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles.

And wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know, you saw them.

He says that the signs were the attestation of that Jesus was who he really said he was, he was attested to you by signs.

Peter also says in Acts 2, 43, he mentions wonders. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.

Again, Tom Pennington writes, when Paul stated that miracles were part of the apostles credentials, he used the word signs and wonders and added miracles.

In 2nd Corinthians 2, 12, he says the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles.

And the Greek word for miracles means a deed of power. So we see the same thing in the

Old Testament and in the New Testament, signs and wonders and displays of power.

So these signs and wonders and deeds of power are performed by God through men.

And what is their purpose? Well, their purpose is almost self -explanatory in their label.

A sign serves as a sign, a wonder induces wonder, a deed of power impresses the viewer.

They are given for the purpose of authenticating the messenger of truth, the man of God.

That is their purpose. When Moses inquires of the Lord in Exodus 4, he says in verse one, what if they will not believe me or listen to what

I say? The Lord responds. He performs a sign through Moses, causing his staff to turn into a serpent and back again and says to Moses that they may believe that the

Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has appeared to you.

You will you will perform these signs that they may believe.

There are other purposes for God's miracles, such as the compassion he has upon his people.

But we are focusing now on their authenticating purpose. They authenticate the man through whom

God is speaking and whom God has sent. Another example of the authenticating purpose of miracles, there are many of them in the

Old Testament, but I really like one in First Kings chapter 13. Verses two through six, it says this, you're free to just just listen, he he cried against the altar.

Well, the man of God, he he goes to Bethel and crashes Jeroboam's idolatrous festival.

He's making a false god at Bethel and the man of God crashes the party and he goes there into the midst.

And it says he cried against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, oh, alter, alter.

Thus says the Lord, behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name.

And on you, he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you and human bones shall be burned on you.

Then he gave a sign the same day, saying, this is the sign which the Lord has spoken.

Behold, the altar shall be split apart and the ashes which are on it shall be poured out. Now, when the king heard the saying of the man of God, which he cried against the altar in Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, seize him.

But his hand, which he stretched out against him, dried up so that he could not draw it back to himself.

The altar also was split apart and the ashes were poured out from the altar according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the

Lord. The king said to the man of God, please, and treat the Lord your God to pray for me that I may that my hand may be restored to me.

So the man of God entreated the Lord and the king's hand was restored and it became as it was before.

And so we see very plainly here, the word is accompanied by a sign to authenticate the man of God, that he is speaking the word of God, that he is sent on behalf of God.

Now, let's consider Jesus and the apostles for a moment. People tell me all the time that because Jesus did something, we should be doing the things that Jesus did and to an extent that is certainly true.

We are to emulate the character of Jesus. We have been predestined to be conformed to the image of the sun.

That does not mean that we should be imitating all of the signs and wonders and miraculous deeds that Jesus performed.

But they say that because Jesus did something, we should be doing it, too. And I, as someone who doesn't say that, you, as someone who probably doesn't say that must be afflicted or perhaps inhabited by a religious spirit.

Sometimes I think people really need to be reminded that they are not Jesus. They are not the apostle

Paul. And hopefully that will make sense as we move through this talk. So let's take a look at what

Jesus did. And a great place to go is the Gospel of John, who who structures the first half of his gospel with seven signs that Jesus performed.

And you remember that we read John 20, 30 and 31 earlier.

He says he's performed many other signs which are not contained in this book. But these have been written under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit. I have recorded these. To what purpose? So that you may believe. Jesus first watered the wine in John, chapter two,

Jesus heals the noble man's son in John, chapter four. Jesus heals the man at the pool in John 11.

Jesus feeds 5000 people in John five or John six.

Jesus walked on water in John six. Jesus heals a man born blind in John nine.

Jesus raises Lazarus from the grave in John 11. In the synoptics, of course, include many other healings and the casting out of demons.

Now, what many who are caught up in the charismatic movement and deliverance theology today, they focus on healings and the casting out of demons.

This is their their focus. This is their emphasis. This is their ministry.

But the question, why don't they have any teachings or seminars or conferences about walking on water or about multiplying food?

I mean, there are a lot of hungry people in the world today as a missionary in West Africa.

I've seen them. They're hungry. I've scraped the bottom of the bowl for rice with with the street kids in West Africa.

They're hungry people in the world today. If believers are expected to do the miraculous things that Jesus did, why is nobody multiplying food and feeding the hungry?

Well, because believers are not expected to imitate the miraculous power of Jesus ministry.

Jesus is is doing these things that are, to borrow a phrase from Mosman, unique to his messianic office.

And what is their purpose? To authenticate him and his gospel.

He multiplies food, says, I am the bread of life. It's the purpose of the miracle to attest to who he is.

I am the bread that came down from heaven. And what's common among these signs recorded in John is the belief of his disciples and the witnesses that follow the signs.

John is telling you what their purpose is. He is telling you why he is. He is recording these for you after he fed the five thousand and John 6,

John 6, 14 says. Therefore, when the people saw the sign which he had performed, they said, this is truly the prophet who is coming to the world.

Why is it that among those trapped in the charismatic movement, our imitation of Jesus is limited to healing and casting out demons?

Why is nobody turning water into wine? The answer is the same.

Believers are not expected to imitate the miraculous power of Jesus ministry as if it belongs to them.

Jesus is doing these things that are unique to his messianic office, authenticating the

God, man, his message and his mission. And so that you may believe in him.

Some charlatans, however, are bold enough to try to appear as though they are imitating

Jesus power and we get stuff like this. It's not my hard work.

Apparently, it's obviously a it's a trick.

And recently, after I was converted, I remember watching a video of a guy claiming that he has raised over 500 people from the dead.

And but like multiplying food and turning water into wine, this is raising from the dead is not emphasized either in the charismatic movement.

And perhaps you remember the debacle at Bethel in Redding, California, several years ago, one of the leaders on the worship team, her daughter died suddenly in the night.

She was two years old. Her name is Olive. And somehow everyone became convinced that God was going to raise this child from the dead if they prayed hard enough.

And so they rallied for what must have been at least a week's time praying, singing the hashtag

Talitha Kumi was making the rounds on social media from Mark 5, meaning

Little Girl Arise. Bethel gave a statement during this time, saying, quote, We believe in a

Jesus who died and conclusively defeated every grave, holding the keys to resurrection power.

We need it for our little Olive who stopped breathing yesterday and has been pronounced dead by doctors.

We are asking for bold, unified prayers from the global church to stand with us in belief that he will raise this little girl back to life.

Her time is not done. And it is our time to believe boldly and with confidence wield what

King Jesus paid for. It's time for her to come to life.

They also say Bethel Church believes in the stories of healing and physical resurrection found in the

Bible, like in Matthew 10, 8. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons freely received, freely give.

Now, this tragic story highlights the catastrophic damage of poor hermeneutics and false teaching, particularly the belief that we are called to imitate everything that Jesus and the apostles did.

And the scene at Bethel became so hysterical in those days that they stopped praying and started demanding that God raise this little girl from the dead.

They started taking authority and demanding her to come back to life because that is where their hermeneutic leads.

And it is quite tragic. Of course, she did not rise from the dead.

Now, no one living today can command someone to rise from the dead, but some do pretend.

Watch this clip. It's not very good acting.

The only believers who were expected to perform signs and wonders and miracles in the same way that Jesus did were the apostles of Jesus and those very closely associated with them upon whom they would lay their hands.

And they they didn't even do all the things that Jesus did, but they performed many signs and wonders as Jesus told them they would.

And the purpose of these signs and wonders, like when Peter commanded the lame man at the beautiful gate to rise up and walk or when

Paul raised Eutychius from the dead, was likewise the same purpose as the signs that Jesus performed to authenticate and authorize these men as apostles of the

Lord Jesus Christ and the message they proclaimed in their preaching and in their writing.

So we've we've pointed out that false teachers and those trapped in false movements do not tend to focus on certain signs of Jesus, but primarily on healing and so -called deliverance.

We must inevitably notice that an important distinction lies between healing and deliverance and, say, walking on water or multiplying food.

It's really hard to fake walking on water and probably near impossible to convince someone that they are walking on water.

And if you were to pass around a never ending basket of bread in a room of 10 ,000 people.

That is something demonstrable, that is something measurable, that is something very difficult to counterfeit.

But through false teaching. It is not so difficult to pretend healing and deliverance and even to convince people that they are being healed and delivered.

You might hear testimonies all the time about someone's back pain or knee pain or wrist pain being healed in a service.

And well, God can heal anyone today of whatever he wants to. We don't deny that fact, but these charlatans command back pain to go and and lengthen legs in the miracles that we see from them today simply are not on on par with what we see in the apostolic age.

The miracles that are reported today are not the same. It's what we see recorded in the

New Testament. Instead, we see things like this and leg lengthening.

And everybody watch this now say this in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, let it grow, let it grow right now in Jesus name.

What are we going to do now? It's longer. It is longer, right? It's longer, right?

This one say name and Jesus name and Jesus even out, even out. Oh, I'm now if we were to see an actual healing, something that an apostle would do, an actual leg lengthened, a healing like we see recorded in Scripture, of which there can be no doubt, certainly a leg would need to be, you know, we're not talking about a tilted pelvis here.

We're talking about maybe two, maybe even three inches shorter than the other.

What happens when one of these healers encounters such a person? This is

Daniel Adams. Beautiful day. Got my Bible. I'm ready to go. Oh, you live more

Jesus. You know what's wrong with it? It's about three inches shorter. Oh, yeah.

I'm sure you can. You sit right here for me real quick. We're going to see a little bit. Well, let's see.

No, no, no. It's OK. It's not like the doctor where it's painful. OK, this is a great physician.

His name is Jesus. Father, I thank you for this girl's leg.

I command this leg right now. Grow out all the way. Bones be recreated. Joints be recreated now.

Now all the way. All the way. I think we may have gained like an inch.

They're faking it. They're deceiving people in any inch that appeared to have been gained was simply a manipulation of the angles of the legs, which is how they do this trick.

Adams was caught right there. Someone on his team didn't didn't filter correctly.

The people who were able to come to him. My friends, the ability to perform signs and wonders and miracles was given to the apostles.

We ought to rejoice in that and glean from that appropriately. When we study the word, they were given for the purpose of authenticating and authorizing their ministry and message in the name of Jesus.

And that purpose has been fulfilled. Does God still heal people?

Yes, according to his good pleasure, he had a young man, their church diagnosed with a pretty serious form of cancer.

And today he is cancer free. Praise God. But no one is walking around with the gift of healing or the ability to perform signs and wonders.

Acts two forty three. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe in many signs and wonders were taking hands through who the apostles.

Acts 512 at the hands of the apostles. Many signs were taking place among the people and they were all with one accord in Solomon's portico.

Acts 14 three. Therefore, they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the

Lord who is testifying. Listen, who is testifying to the word of his grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands, the hands of the apostles.

Acts 1512 at all the people kept silent and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders

God had done through them among the Gentiles. Acts 1911, God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, the apostle.

Now, I've spent some time on this point because understanding the purpose of signs and wonders to the unique messianic office of Jesus and the office unique to the apostles of Christ is necessary for us to have a proper view of deliverance ministry and the casting out of demons.

I just read Acts 1911, let me read it again and add verse 12 to it this time.

God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out.

The extraordinary miracles, therefore, include both healing and exorcisms, exorcisms or or deliverance, as it is called today, is not seen in a separate category from the signs and wonders performed by Jesus and the apostles that have ceased in the first century.

Jim, Jim Osman writes, quote, If we learn anything about exorcisms from the book of Acts, it is this.

Everyone who had power over demons also had the power to heal the sick and raise the dead.

Ironically, he says, many Christians who would never think of claiming the power to heal the sick and raise the dead nevertheless believe they have power over Satan and his demons.

Nor does it seem, he says, from the record of Acts that exorcisms were common place the entire in the entire span covered in the book of Acts, nearly 30 years.

Luke only mentions exorcisms four times and only records the details of one.

It was hardly central to the spread of the gospel or the ministry of the church at large.

I think that last sentence is significant, it was significant, it was hardly central to the spread of the gospel or the ministry of the church at large.

The so -called deliverance ministers today absolutely teach that deliverance is central not only to the spread of the gospel, but to the sanctification of the

Christian. And if you ever hear them say it's a secondary issue and they will say it, they are lying and speaking out of both sides of their mouth.

They absolutely teach this oddly enough, Christians are the vast majority of the people getting delivered by these demon slayers.

Apostle Alexander Pagani teaches that you can perform self -deliverance and even that deliverance ministers need deliverance and even that prophets of God need deliverance every now and then.

Listen to him explain this in a clip in an interview with a prophet, Jeremiah Johnson.

Say you can prophets have demons. A Christian can have a demon, but you and I both have emails and reach out some various individuals seeking for deliverance, which

I think is a good start for prophets that recognize that they need for deliverance. I think that one of the signs, we don't talk about this as much, to recognize a false prophet is their lack of not needing deliverance or not wanting or desiring deliverance.

God gave them over to strong delusion. And when a prophet is in a strong delusion, they are a false prophet but don't realize that they're false because the gift is still true.

And that's because nothing on the internal, they haven't taken their car for a tune up, a checkup or car wash in a very long time.

Even prophets need deliverance like your car needs an oil change, which reminds me

I got to change my oil when I get back to Kentucky. And he says a sign of a false prophet is that he doesn't think he needs deliverance.

Where's that in scripture? And if a prophet of God needs deliverance from demons inhabiting them than the average

Christian certainly does. As I mentioned last night,

I gave myself the very unfortunate task of of reading Alexander Pagani's book entitled

The Secrets to Deliverance, subtitled Defeat the Toughest Cases of Demonic Bondage.

And I read this book because I watched the documentary come out in Jesus name, which was really all about Greg Locke and secondarily about deliverance in true

Greg Locke form. In this documentary, Greg names this book as that which he and his wife encountered and began reading and began being challenged by.

And it was through the teaching contained in this book that he embraced deliverance and kicked off the movement that God is supposedly doing at his church.

He he describes this book as the very foundation for the movement, the current deliverance ministry that is bringing thousands and thousands of people to his church week in and week out.

And because Greg Locke gets so much national attention, the other deliverance ministers like Isaiah Saldivar and Vlad Zevchuk and Alexander Pagani, who decided to endorse and attach themselves to Greg Locke, have started getting much more attention as well.

And what I've observed from listening to these guys is that they all fundamentally agree with what is written in this book.

They teach the same things that are contained in this book. Greg Locke described this book in the documentary as, quote, amazing, powerful, simple and biblical.

This is by far the worst book I've ever written. I believe

Alexander Pagani is a sincere man who is incredibly deceived.

And I realized upon reading this book that I was giving him way too much benefit of the doubt and way, way more credit than he deserves.

When I began to see how he twists the scriptures to support his theology.

So before we dive into some of these, some of the things taught in this book, here is an example of Pagani's deliverance mystery today.

You're so hungry to the devil. The devil is using your love for God against you.

You're so hungry for God that you're open. You're so open to the Holy Spirit that sometimes without wanting to hinder the

Holy Spirit, you've opened yourself up to a deceiving spirit in Jesus mighty name. But God says all tormenting spirit goes now.

Tormenting religious spirit goes now. Out now. Out now. Out now.

Leave in Jesus mighty name.

According to Pagani, this woman was so open to God and the

Holy Spirit that she became inhabited by demons. Whoops.

And what you will see when you when you listen to these people and when you read them is that basically everything in life has the potential to open you up to the inhabitation of demons and evil spirits and to demonic oppression, even apparently seeking the

Lord. This book is, as I said last night, riddled with with unbridled

Gnosticism. And I was noping out in the first sentence on the first page in the acknowledgments before the book even started.

Did I read this for you last night? I think I did. Yeah. So he says he says in the acknowledgments to the

Holy Spirit, thank you for granting me wisdom and insight into the mysteries of the kingdom and entrusting me with the secrets to deliverance to continue your work of setting captives free.

Pagani believes himself to be a chosen apostle of God to whom secrets have been entrusted about deliverance and mysteries of the kingdom.

We discussed yesterday that he received the inspiration for his book in a dream as we were speaking from Jude and throughout the book, he will refer to his teaching as this revelation, claiming that God has shown him, quote, new paradigms and protocols for deliverance.

So the book that influenced this whole movement is founded not upon a faithful dealing with the text of Scripture, as we will see, but upon trust me, bro,

I'm an apostle and I had a dream. Now, let me give you an example of how these men handle the word of God going to read.

This is from page 12. When a when an unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest and finding none, it says,

I will return to my house from which I came. And that's

Luke 11, 24, the demon said, this is Pagani, the demon said it would, quote, return to my house from which

I came. The demon was looking to go back to the house where it had been legally living. But earlier, the verse said when the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, this verse is telling us that the person is the house.

That is why whenever I see house in Scripture, I consider how the verse applies to a person.

In Exodus twenty five, the tabernacle referred to the place where God himself would dwell.

But in the New Testament, Peter would use the same word to refer to his body. Yeah, I think it meet as long as I am in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly

I must put off this tabernacle, even as the Lord Jesus Christ has shooed me. Second, Peter 113, so tabernacle can also refer to the human body.

This is. How Pagani deals with the scripture, this is his hermeneutic page 17, but when

Jesus said this temple, he meant his own body, John 2, 21, when Jesus referred to the temple, he was talking about a body, not a building.

This has opened up a new realm of fresh revelation and unexplored scriptures to me, as every time

I read the word temple in the Bible, I not only think of a physical building that was used as a place of worship, but I also consider how the passage might relate to the human body.

I love this passage about Jesus cleansing the temple in in John, too, because it is a foreshadowing of deliverance.

Just as Jesus walked in and cleared the money changes from the temple, he can step in and cleanse your temple.

So what he is doing is he is taking a word like house or temple and says, well, here it referred to a human body.

Therefore, everywhere else in scripture, whenever he sees the word temple, he can substitute for it the word body.

He can put the word body there and get a spiritual meaning out of the text to support his theology of deliverance.

And he does this with virtually every text he uses in the book. Listen to what he says about Matthew 13, 31 through 32.

The text says this. Jesus presented another parable to them, saying the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field.

And this is smaller than all other seeds. But when it is fully grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.

We're familiar with that parable, I'm sure. And the parable is very clearly about Gentiles coming to the

Messiah and finding refuge in him and thereby sharing in the blessings of the new covenant.

This is what Pagani writes on page 26 of his book. I believe the trees represent the kingdom of God spreading in the earth and the believer who allows the kingdom to manifest in his or her life.

But while many believe the birds attracted to this tree are only those seeking refuge and sustenance in the message of the kingdom,

I believe the birds can also represent the evil influences that seek to prevent the kingdom of God from spreading in and through us just as they did in the parable of the sower.

The stronger you grow as a believer in the kingdom, the more birds parentheses demons will attempt to make their nests among your branches, the various areas of your life.

This is why we must continually allow the Holy Spirit to convict us and purge us of evil influences in our lives until the

Lord calls us home. So can a genuine believer have a demon operating in an unsurrendered area of his life?

The answer is 100 percent. Yes, well, that's a laughable interpretation of that text.

It is a deliberate twisting of that text to make it to mean something else entirely in order to support his theology.

This man is totally unqualified to teach the scriptures. And yet this book is so amazing and powerful and biblical, according to Greg Locke and others.

Alexander Pagani twist scriptures for his own purposes. And here this, my friends, he claims that the

Holy Spirit revealed all this to him. But that interpretation. Is the revelation of God to him.

The Holy Spirit will never contradict the word that he authored. Now, what he says here on page 27 is a good segue for our next point of discussion, he says that Christians can have demons inhabiting them at the same time.

Pagani is adamant that he does not believe that Christians can be demon possessed. Listen to his explanation here over and over.

How many more videos do I have to put out saying a Christian cannot be demon possessed?

And then in his next video says he does believe Christians can have demons. I know you're lying.

I know you're lying. Which means if I want to believe that a Christian, you know, can have a demon, you know,

I'm persuaded by that and let me be persuaded in my own mind. And in this next clip, he makes it clear that by have a demon, he means that a

Christian can be inhabited by the Holy Spirit and demons. Nominationalism says, you know, like, how can the

Holy Spirit live in the same house with the demon, you know? And well, then I began to, you know, living in New York, that that that made total sense to me, because you could live in a house with roaches.

What? So what's happening? These deliverance ministers are creating a category not found in scripture where a person can have the

Holy Spirit, their spirit redeemed, their spirit born again, but can also have demons not in their spirit, but in their souls and bodies.

And for whatever reason, the demon inhabiting parts of your soul or body is not possession, but simply a form of oppression.

Listen to this by Vlad Zevchuk. Those of you who think the Lewis is not for Christians, you're twisting to teach that Christians are inhabited by demons.

The exodus is not about Christians inhabiting demons. And you can't even work out your salvation, he says, until you cast the demon out, until you get delivered, you see how they do, in fact, make it a central issue.

When I put the question out there on social media asking if people think that Christians can have demons, the overwhelming majority responded with something like this.

Christians can be oppressed but not possessed. And what's kind of funny about that is that's exactly what these guys teach, except in the way in which they teach it.

They teach it with. This third category in mind that demonic inhabitation is not possession, but oppression.

Now, there's an interesting moment in the come out in Jesus name documentary where Greg Locke says he's actually tired of the discussion between oppression and possession and of making that distinction, because the fact is, he says either way, there are people who are demonized and they need freedom.

And on that, I would agree with him, we should drop the distinction between oppression and possession.

The Bible doesn't make the oppression possession distinction, as most people articulate it today.

However, the Bible also doesn't teach that Christians can be oppressed as in inhabited by demons.

Scripture does not teach that third category. The New Testament terms for deliverance or to have a demon are never used to describe a case involving anything less than the to be inwardly controlled by an indwelling demon.

Matthew 9 32, as they were going out, a mute demon possessed man was brought to him.

That's the word that would be usually translated demon possessed. Luke 8 27 uses a different word usually translated to have a demon is what it conveys.

It says when he came out and onto the land, he was met by a man from the city who was possessed with demons who had not put on any clothing for a long time and was not living in a house, but in the tombs.

Thomas Ice and Robert Dean in their book Overrun by Demons, the church's new preoccupation with the demonic rights.

Quote, These terms never describe Satan's activities of accusation, temptation, deception or persecution.

They describe only one, the only the extreme case of being inwardly controlled by a demon by demon possessed.

We mean indwelt and controlled by a demon. They do not describe. What many would call today making the oppression, possession, distinction, oppression that Satan is oppressing me through temptation and affliction, the

Bible does not use the word demonized to apply to that concept, but only to fool on possession by an evil spirit.

So Greg Locke and these other guys say Christians are demonized, but deny that they are possessed, inhabited, but not possessed by an evil spirit.

This simply cannot be backed up by how the words are used in Scripture.

Here is Isaiah Saldivar attempting to defend this position. I look at Scripture and do not see precedence for how a

Christian with the Holy Spirit could also have a demon living inside of them. That's that's hard for me.

Like I'm not there. I would say number one, I don't see anywhere in the Bible where Jesus cast a demon off of anybody. He always cast it out, meaning it was in them.

Right. I would also say I don't see where in the Bible where a Christian can't have a demon, where there's a verse that says you cannot have a demon if you have the

Holy Spirit. We don't see that in Scripture. The other thing I would say, the demon in you is not in the same location as the

Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is your spirit. You're dead spiritually. You come alive in Christ. You're born again. But we're not just soul or spirit.

We're body, soul and spirit. So the Holy Spirit's in your spirit. We have a body which is physical, which I also believe demons can go into your body.

But you're also soul. I believe the demons go in the soul, not in your spirit realm. So is there a demon where the

Holy Spirit is? No, the demons in your mind, your will and your emotion. You'll never find a scripture where Jesus says that guy's oppressed and that guy's possessed.

You're only going to find the Bible saying the person was demonized. And in the case of demonization, Jesus always cast the demon out.

So to his first point, Jesus always cast the demon out. That's correct. Jesus did always cast the demon out to a second point.

There are no examples of spirit sealed believers having a demon demon cast out of them are no examples of someone indwelt by the

Holy Spirit and sealed for the day of redemption. Having demons cast out of them in the

New Testament, nor are there any instructions given to the church in the epistles on casting demons out of fellow believers.

Eisen, Dean, right, there is not one example in the entire Bible of a saved person being under a satanic curse, which had to be broken by Christian exorcism or distinct confession.

First, John 518, we know we know that no one who is born of God sin continues in a pattern of unrepentant sin, but he who was born of God keeps him in the holy one does not touch him to his third point.

Deliverance ministers are forced to hold a trichotomy mystic view of the person, body, soul and spirit, as opposed to body and soul or spirit, which

I believe is the correct view. And they are basically saying that your spirit can be saved without your soul being delivered.

And this leads us back to Pagani's book in which he writes that since the day he received a dream about this book, quote, my spirit has been receiving download after download of insight into the realm of the human soul and the demonic.

And he is about to draw a conclusion from Psalm chapter seven, verse two. So notice in his twisting of scripture how he inserts beforehand a bit about how

God is speaking directly and specially to him, establishing his supposed apostolic authority before he goes on to twist scripture.

He writes, God revealed that the human soul can be shattered in pieces, as Psalm seven two says, lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces while there is none to deliver.

Demons, he says, can they hide in these fragmented pieces of the human soul until someone cleans up the mess and picks up the pieces?

How is the church survived for 2000 years without these guys is

Psalm seven to written to be taken as a literal anatomy of the human soul?

No, of course not, says poetic language that the psalmist is using.

It's not an anatomy of the soul. He doesn't mean that his soul is going to literally break into pieces.

And yet Pagani teaches that our souls have 90 pieces, 90 rooms because.

Temple body, because Solomon's temple had 90 rooms, so our soul has 90 rooms and demons could be hiding out in one.

Not only does Pagani teach that demons inhabit the souls of Christians in any number of these 90 rooms, but that demons can inhabit body parts.

And you heard Isaiah say the same thing. And I mean, any body part and talks about them in his book, even ones which

I'm not comfortable mentioning here from the pulpit. All right, so someone comes to the deliverance minister and they realize they've got a demon in the father room of their soul or the tip of their nose or whatever.

He has a session on the nose. So what's next? They've they've got to get delivered.

What we see at the deliverance conferences that they put on is a show, a performance which usually involves someone coming forward, seeking deliverance or someone manifesting a demon and being brought forward.

The deliverance minister will speak, ask the demon's name, ask how it got into the person.

And sometimes, as we saw last night with Daniel Adams, he'll play with the demon. He'll call the demon names.

He'll revile angelic majesties as these people, some of these people, they might have demons.

But talking with them as if they do reviling angelic majesties, and if they do have demons, they're in a far worse state because these people cannot deliver them.

They will then command over and over again that the demon leave until the person falls down or goes limp or until the music fades and somehow them and the music is always synced up.

Very nice, very talented musicians, I suppose. Often people are are leading are led through a ritual, renouncing things they struggle with as if those sinful patterns, whether it's rage or envy or lust, are external forces hindering their walk with Christ from which they need to be delivered, that need to be cast out of them upon renouncing and.

Getting delivered, they they have an emotional experience that substitutes the daily crossbearing and self -denial to which we are called in favor of a microwaved sanctification, and when it wears off, they are taught that they need more deliverance.

Here's an example of what I mean by microwave sanctification from Pagani on page 18.

He says Jesus can step in and cleanse your temple, it doesn't matter how long you've been oppressed by bad habits.

Strongholds. Or deeply rooted demonic activity, God can set you free in no time, he can undo in days what it took the devil years to create.

And you can see the blame shifting theme in their theology and in a moment, one one emotional experience and you have in a temper tantrum on stage and you you've gone leaps and bounds in your sanctification because you've been delivered of your bad habits.

Something that's very interesting and weird is that at the end of every chapter, Pagani has a prayer which the reader can read aloud and he instructs the reader to say this aloud and to expect self deliverance to take place.

Let me give you just one brief example of one of these prayers. This is in the section of ideas in your eyes.

This is his prayer. Father of creation, my eyes belong to you. My sight belongs to you.

My vision belongs to you. My eyes bring light to my body. I clean the windows of my eyes now in the name of Jesus.

I come against every manifestation of demonic activity in my eyes, including illness.

I decree perfect vision and freedom from cataracts, eye problems and any eye disease that may attempt to manifest now or in the years to come.

I decree that I have the eyesight of evil in Jesus name. I mean, he wears glasses.

These prayers, all of them are absolutely unbiblical, but they they include certain elements that deliverance ministers all have in common in their practice, renouncing bad habits, which are really sin patterns that need to be repented of and not renounced, rebuking the enemy, commanding demons, decreeing and declaring.

We'll see Catherine Crick after she rebukes a demon and commands the evil spirit to leave and she'll decree and declare peace over the person.

So see if you can spot some of these elements in this clip of Catherine Crick dealing with a man with the tornado spirit.

Beautiful day, got my Bible, I'm ready to go. I break every curse and upon him every generational curse, this generational curse of this demonic covenant and cult in the generational line of hate.

I command every spirit of rage and anger, every spirit that came through abuse.

You almost leave him on three. You almost leave him one, two, three.

Thank you, Jesus. Honor renounced generational curses, depression and lust.

I detach you from all of that. One, two. There is a formula.

It's a ritual. And I would argue that it is a pagan ritual.

It teaches you that you must verbally renounce sins, demons and curses in order to be delivered from them.

These sorts of pagan rituals were common in the ancient Near East, Morel and Rooker in their introduction to the Old Testament.

Right. Most ancient Near East incantations were magical rituals used to ward off demons believed to be the cause of illness or calamity or some kind of infirmity.

Many of them were designed to avert existing evil or to prevent or preclude something anticipated like illnesses, snake bites, domestic quarrels, infant mortality, impotence and threats posed by ominous powers such as ghosts, demons and angry gods.

The scripture is clear, however, that incantations and magical rituals are incompatible with biblical theology.

This is a form of that. This is what the Bible calls sorcery. Not only are these unreasoning animals, as Jude would call them, teaching

Christians that they have demons, but they are creating dependence upon themselves through their teaching.

Listen to this by Catherine Crick. You have to play a part in this. You have to take action.

You have to come with faith to receive your healing and your deliverance. That's on you. And when you leave this place, you have to apply your faith.

You have to keep walking in faith. Believe when the word of God, all these instructions, the word of God is saying, the rhema word of God that I am releasing to you, the present tense word of God.

You have to have faith in it and apply it. Faith without works is dead. She's teaching that you have to walk in enough faith in order to keep up your deliverance.

The healing and deliverance will be dead. Faith without works is dead. Faith in healing and deliverance and keeping your healing and deliverance and walking in abundant life.

You need faith for this and active faith. Faith in action. Do what the word of God is saying.

Do what I am telling you. These instructions from God that you're hearing, take it seriously.

That's how you'll receive your healing and deliverance and keep it. That's how you'll receive your healing and deliverance and keep it.

Obeying the word of God that she is telling you. The teaching is designed to create dependence upon the deliverance minister walking in sufficient faith and obedience is something that Catherine Crick knows human beings are quite incapable of.

And the implication is that if I fail to walk in enough faith and obedience in the freedom and deliverance that I have received, which

I inevitably will. I'll need some more deliverance. I'll get oppressed or I'll get inhabited by demons somewhere in my soul or body by demons again.

And to whom shall I turn? Well, I'm already a Christian. I'm already a believer,

I've already turned to Christ, but for some reason, that's not enough. Jesus didn't do all the work.

He saved my spirit, but not my soul. Who I really need is Catherine Crick and Isaiah Saldivar and Alexander Pagani and Vlad Sevchuk.

And. These. False teachers, these manipulative, fear mongering tactics are what you would expect among ravenous wolves, hear this from Isaiah Saldivar, so many

Christians, how long have you been saved? 15 years. And you're telling me you've never cast out a devil.

I'm like, what church do you go to? The Church of the Frozen Chosen, obviously. So now we have pastors that literally get mad if you preach on deliverance, literally get mad if you some of you are wiggling right now.

I don't know about this because you have a demon. I'm serious. I know I try to sugarcoat it, but I don't have time this morning.

It's a demon. That's what makes you not want to do deliverance. If you don't think you need deliverance, if you don't agree with our theology of deliverance, it's because you have a demon at this point.

We should pause and consider the terror of the judgment awaiting these false teachers.

Who so abuse the bride of Christ, telling her that though she is clothed with the pure white robes of Christ's righteousness, she is still filthy with demons.

That's terrifying. They are molesting the bride of Christ. Being saved from sin is assumed and decentralized in favor of the cleansing power of supposed deliverance.

In fact, I think it wasn't until page one hundred and one where Pagani finally mentioned in passing

Christians being saved from sin. Again, this distortion has its roots in pagan religions of the ancient

Near East, in contrast to the biblical emphasis on the removal of sin.

Morell and Rooker again give give a helpful example of this. They say some have compared the biblical concept of to make atonement compare and in Hebrew in the cognate verb in Akkadian to wipe off or cleanse

Kuperu. They're comparing those two. But they say the

Akkadian verb in its own context signifies the wiping off of evil that was produced by demonic powers through magic and incantations.

An individual sought to be delivered of his affliction. In clear contrast to that, the biblical verb

Kuperu connotes the removal of sin and impurity. And let me say this deliverance becomes a gospel issue when it teaches that the cross of Jesus Christ is not enough.

The truth is that the only deliverance minister is Jesus Christ, who has delivered his people out of the domain of darkness and sealed them with his

Holy Spirit. If you need to be delivered from demons inhabiting you, you are not a

Christian. Well, now may be a good time to answer the question, why was there so much demonic activity in the days of Jesus on earth?

Have you ever wondered that? Because the proponents of this doctrine who have the me centered hermeneutic, they're expecting it.

But at the same time, they must admit that something's wrong because they are not seeing it as a normative part of their life and the life of the church at large.

The answer, I think, is quite simple. The kingdom of darkness rallied its forces for the arrival of the

Messiah and God allowed such so that his Messiah and the apostles would demonstrate that Jesus is who he says he is.

Through the binding of the strong man, through the casting out of these demons to the purpose of attesting to the truth of the gospel, it was

God's decree, should we be casting out demons today? Well, the deliverance ministers, as well as many others, often point to texts like Matthew 10 to say we should, of course, be casting out demons today.

And they'll say something like this. I get it all the time. Jesus told us to heal the sick and cast out demons in Matthew 10.

The problem is. No, he didn't. He didn't tell us that in Matthew 10,

Jesus tells the 12 disciples to go throughout Israel, proclaiming the kingdom of heaven is at hand, announcing that the long awaited, the long expected

Messiah has arrived. He says, don't go to the Gentiles. This I am sending you out now for the specific purpose of going to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

And in this context, he is giving them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out.

This is a unique situation, but people will read the word them as if it is spelled

M. E. And if this was meant to apply directly to us and to all the church in every age, the epistles would include instruction on how, when, where and why to cast out demons.

The gospels record for us a redemptive historical fact and the epistles are given to us as the divine interpretation and application of that redemptive history.

And yet instructions on deliverance are absent from the epistles. They're not there, there is zero instruction.

For Christians on how to do deliverance, especially on other Christians. Instead, what we are told.

As Jim Osman points out, the teaching of the New Testament for dealing with the evil is always this with with the devil is always the same.

Resist him. Resist him. First, Peter, five, eight, be of sober spirit, be on alert your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour

Ephesians 610 through 14. Listen to the to the imperatives.

What is imperative in this text? Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, having done everything to stand firm, stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and and so on.

The deliverance ministers will take Ephesians six and they'll just completely forget about the rest of the letter, which

Paul is meant to be applying about how we walk in unity and in the spirit has nothing to do with with rebuking demonic hierarchies.

It's about putting on Christ and his character as his people. James, four, seven, submit, therefore, to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

It's very clear, resist, stand firm, resist. Osman writes, the emphasis of the epistles rests on the victory, which has already been won at Calvary, resisting and standing.

Now, I mentioned earlier that deliverance becomes a gospel issue when it teaches that the cross of Jesus Christ is not enough.

Deliverance theology also becomes a gospel issue when it trades the divinely prescribed weapons of our warfare for carnal weapons, because the weapons of our warfare, according to Paul in second

Corinthians 10, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. In his book,

Pagani writes in his introduction, the spirit wants to release fresh insight, new strategies, new weapons.

Second Corinthians 10, three through five says this, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knolls. Knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

This is a passage about spiritual warfare. And this is about how we contend for the faith.

And it is delivered to us by the apostle Paul in the context of him defending his ministry against the character assassination attempts of false teachers who had infiltrated the church at Corinth, whom he called super apostles and who evidently claimed to possess more spiritual power and more anointing than Paul himself.

When examining the character of these false apostles, they sound eerily familiar, similar to those with whom we contend in our modern day.

And what is Paul's answer to their charges? Well, he does not answer with greater displays of power.

In fact, he points out that that is how he intended not to come among the Corinthians, but to preach

Christ crucified. Instead, he knew that he was great displays of power.

He would gain a following quite easily. But Greeks seek for signs. So he did not boast in response to the accusations of the false teachers in how many demons he has cast out.

Instead, he asserts that it is the truth of God's word and the gospel of Jesus Christ that is divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses and speculations raised up against God as that which exists in the mind of fallen men.

And these are the fortresses. These fortresses are not demons inhabiting the 90 rooms of a

Christian's soul. These fortresses are not demons in your toes, they are not generational curses or demonic power structures, they are mental fortresses raised up against the knowledge of God by which men suppress the truth in their unrighteousness.

They are the speculation of a darkened mind, the reasonings of men who are dead in their sin and the false teaching of those for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.

The gospel is the power of God for salvation, and it is the true gospel that is going to deliver people from the grip of these false teachers.

So while demon possession is probably incredibly rare today, let me ask you, what do you do if you encounter someone who is demon possessed?

What are you going to do? Pagani and the others, they've they have all kinds of strategies and Satan is content with our strategies if it keeps us from proclaiming the gospel, you would preach the gospel.

The truth will set them free. The gospel, that is your great weapon.

The gospel is the power of God. I want to show you a clip from a dear friend of mine named

Bobby McCreary. He's the one who back in the day, he got me into open air preaching.

I saw his videos online. I approached him at G3. I had never preached in the open air before or I'd only done it once.

And he's been significantly influential in my life. And this is a clip from him on the street preaching in London.

And he is encountered by, you won't see it all, but before the clip starts, several drunken veterans.

And it is possible that they were under some demonic influence.

And I want you to see how this street preacher deals with encountering someone like this.

It's a bit of a long clip, not 20 minutes, but it's more than one. So. Prepare yourself and watch this.

Get away, you know, that's not going to take my homeless.

Why are you homeless? I don't know why you're homeless. It's not God's fault. I can tell you that for sure.

Would you consider what you're doing, man? Hang on. Mouse. So I can't be quiet if I care about your soul.

I can't be quiet. I desire that this is my city. I desire that you say Jesus is ruler of this city,

Jesus is ruler of this city, you rule over nothing. You're powerless to rule over anything.

Yeah. Jesus Christ is king over you, Trafalgar Square and all of London and all of the

UK. Jesus Christ is king in London, my friend. I didn't approach your friend. I'm preaching the gospel.

He came to me. I also desire that you be set free from your sins, that you be saved, that you might know the living

God, that your sin would no longer rule over you. So if you come to Christ, kill a thousand people.

Well, I doubt that very seriously. Most people who boast in it really haven't ever done it. But the thing is, it's a ring commander.

Right. So, again, as I told your friend, I'm thankful your service to the country. But here's here's the bottom line.

Your service to your country might have been a nice thing for you to do and a good thing for your people. But the thing is, some of the things you've done in service to your country might make your standing before God worse, not make you right with God.

So the message to you, sir, today is repent of your sin and come to Christ so he can take away the hardness of your heart, all the anger, all the things that torment you, all the guilt.

You get on your face before God, my friend, and you cry out to him to give you the gift you don't deserve, which is repentance, a change of mind about who you are and about who

God is. They grant you repentance and faith that you had trust in Jesus Christ, that his sacrifice on the cross was fully able to wash away all your sin.

However many people you've killed, if you come to him today in faith, if you stop trusting in all your dead words, like service to the military and your trust in the work of Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life.

He never murdered anyone. He never hated anyone. He never lived with lust. He never dishonored his parents.

He never did all the breaking of God's commandments that you and I have done, my friend. Jesus lived perfectly.

That's why he could go to the cross as a perfect sacrifice. If I go to St. Peter and I go through the gates, will you always be forgiven?

No, my friend. Going through the gates of some church building, you can't forgive anyone. That's why I'm talking to you about repentance.

I'm in heaven. Forsaking yourself, forsaking your religious acts, forsaking walking through a church building gates and trusting in Christ by faith and by faith alone.

And the Bible says, when you do that, sir, God will take out your heart of stone. They give you a heart of flesh. This has to make you a new creation so that you no longer desire the things of darkness, but you desire the light that you want to follow the light of the world.

Jesus Christ. And that's my desire for you today. I'm not your enemy today, my friend. Sin is the enemy of man.

Okay. And today, the tempter, the one who was a liar from the beginning, the devil, is all these man's enemy out here.

But sometimes, you know what, sir? Quite frankly, we're our own worst enemy. The greatest enemy I and anyone out here today has the one we look at in the mirror every day because that's the one that tells us we're pretty good people and we can be good without God and all these things that you have here in the

UK. We're not good people, my friend. You're not a good person. You understand that? I'm not a good person.

I don't come out here and say I'm good. I'm saying I have a great savior and I'm trying to tell people about my savior so they can also be safe from their sin.

Okay, so I'm not against you. I'm not against your friend. But you know what, my friend? The Lord has set his face against all who do evil.

What do you want to change? You want to change God change? So how

God did that was he use a person to invite me into a church and through a set of circumstances,

I began to hear the word of God. You see, so it wasn't the church that saved me. The Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.

So you see, sir, I'm out here to give glory to God because God is glorified when his son is preached. But also, my friend,

I'm here because all God's people have not yet been set free from their sin.

This is a gospel message. The gospel message is very simple, sir. The gospel is this is that God is a creator.

God was in the beginning. He created the heavens and the earth. It's a God of this Bible. All other gods, the Bible says that all the gods of the peoples, all the gods, man events like the gods of Muslims, the gods of Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hindus, that these are all worthless idols.

The Bible says in Psalm ninety six five, but the Lord of this book created the heavens and he hold on that he was in the beginning and then he created man in his own image.

He created man perfectly and man rebelled against him and we've been rebelling against him ever since I was thirty four years old.

When God saved me from my sin, thirty four years old after living a life of all sorts of drunkenness, immorality, drug abuse, all these things.

So, sir, when you quite frankly, when you come to me and say I can't be saved from my sin, I just say that's because you don't believe in the work of the cross.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. Jesus sacrifice is fully able, fully capable to save any type of sinner from all their sin, to wash all their sins away.

So come to him today, my friend. The thing is, you don't know if you have tomorrow. You don't know. You don't know.

And, you know, God gave you life and one day he's going to take the life he gave you. And you don't know when that day could be.

That day could be today, could be tomorrow, could be another 50 years. But you know what? Tomorrow is not guaranteed. That's why the

Bible says today is a day of salvation. Now is the appropriate time. It says don't delay, my friend.

Don't continue on, man. One more. You see, I'm not trying to bash your friend, but you know what, man? Right there when people are just picking up that can, he's got the

PTSD, he's got all that. What I'm trying to tell you is Jesus is the only one. You know why we pick up that can and just keep knocking it back and knocking it back and knocking it back?

Because we're trying to be free from the guilt, from the things we've done. We're trying to be free from our sin and we're trying to use that to do it.

But that can't set anyone free, my friend. All the needles we stick in our arm, all the booze we shove down our throat, all the sex we have, none of it's going to take away our sin.

You know what? Jesus can take away all of that. He can take away all that bitterness, that anger, takes away all those filthy desires that we're all born with and we all continue on.

And, you know, I know it because I'm a living testimony of it, my friend. He took it all from me. He cleansed me from all my sin.

He gave me a desire to serve him, please him, love him, follow him and all his sin. And that's what

I want for you, man. And that's why I'm here. I'm not here to condemn the people here. The Bible says if we've not believed in the name of the only son of God, that person hasn't believed that, that they're condemned already.

So you see, every person here, if they're not believing in Christ, the Bible says they're condemned already. All right, you two, what's your name?

Antonia. Antonia, all right. I'm Bobby. Let my friend give you some literature here that you can take.

Antonio, I'm Tony. Antonio, Antonio, I pray that you'll get before God today,

Antonio, and repent of your sin, my friend. He can save you. He's making all things new. He can change it from the inside out.

He can. Be not unbelieving, my friend, but have faith, have faith. Because, you know, we do this.

But listen, when we say we know what you got to cry out to God for it.

My friend, you want to repent. You want to have faith. Ask God to help you, because salvation is not a work of man.

My friend, it's not something you're going to do in your own effort. Antonio, salvation is the work of God. So you got to you got to cry out to God, my friend.

Can I pray for you? Let me pray for you. I'm blessed by that clip.

What would would Alexander Pagani or Isaiah Saldivar or Vlad have entered this guy?

They would have started reviling whatever demon might be in him and would not have preached the cross of Christ.

I love what Matthew Henry says about it. He says. These strongholds are pulled down by the gospel as the means through the grace and power of God, accompanying it as the principle efficient cause, the conversion of the soul is the conquest of Satan in that soul.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, we we are so grateful that you have delivered to us a message of salvation that you have granted us ears to hear that we have believed in by which we have been delivered.

Delivered. Now, Lord, I pray that you would make those here bold to proclaim it and thrust us out to set the captives free, not by the schemes of men, not by new strategies, not by new weapons which are carnal and have no power, but by this great and glorious gospel that is ours in Christ Jesus.