CAN CHRISTIANS HAVE DEMONS?

Can Christians have demons? This is the beginning of a long conversation about deliverance ministry. It might even be a separate playlist on my YouTube channel. The other day I noped Vlad Zivchek who, in this cinematic sermon clip, is using exodus as a type of deliverance from demonic oppression that Christians are supposed to experience.

Those of you who think deliverance.

Is not for Christians, have you noticed it was God's people? God was delivering? My means they belong to me. You can be a believer and be in bondage.

Now, I am going to get clarity on this issue and come back to it. You'll notice that Vlad doesn't use the word possessed. He uses the word oppressed. When you belong to Jesus,.

God begins to lay a claim upon your life. This is what the deliverance is. It's a confrontation with the powers of demons. We're not asking God. He's asking us to go to Pharaoh. It was God who told Moses to confront Pharaoh.

It wasn't Moses that was asking God to deliver the people. The people couldn't work their way out of Egypt. When you have a demonic oppression...

But then he says that you've got to cast the demon out.

You can't work out your salvation with feet and trembling. You gotta cast the demon out.

Now, typically, we think of casting out something that is in. So, my question is, are these deliverance ministers creating a category in which a person can have a demon in them without being possessed by them?

I ask this question, too, because recently, Chris over at All Things Theology pointed out that Alexander Pagani, another prominent deliverance minister, said he doesn't believe Christians can be possessed.

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.

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 made total sense to me because you could live in a house with roaches.

What? So, again, are these guys creating a category wherein Christians can be indwelt and sealed with the Holy Spirit but also have demons living inside that doesn't count as possession but is perhaps, according to them, a form of oppression?

Vlad goes so far as to say that you cannot work out your salvation unless this deliverance happens.

You can't progress in holiness, in sanctification, in the will of God,.

In the advancement of Christ's kingdom in any useful and meaningful way. How far it goes, I don't know, but you can't do that until you get delivered. So, let's consider that in conjunction with this teaching by another popular deliverance minister, 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, an 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 some slimy false doctrine right there. Why? Because it's designed similarly to Vlad's teaching to create dependence on the deliverance minister. Walking in sufficient faith in obedience is something that Catherine Crick knows human beings are quite incapable of.

We don't need a deliverance minister. We need a savior. The implication is that if I fail to walk with enough faith and obedience in the freedom and deliverance that I've received, which I inevitably will, I'll need some more deliverance.

I'll get oppressed or inhabited by whatever spirit, by demons again, and to whom shall I turn? I'm already a Christian, so I've already turned to Christ and believed in him, and I have the Holy Spirit indwelling me, but somehow that's not enough.

Who I really need is Catherine, and Vlad, and Alexander, and Mike, and Daniel, and Isaiah. Like I said, we're going to talk more about this, but I was originally asked to address Vlad by a dear sister whose church became infected by this false teaching.

A Church Infected by Deliverance Teaching

This is her testimony about that.

Please look into this guy. My church went to a conference of his a couple years ago, called Raised to Deliver, and I had never seen this kind of ministry before, but the people in my church started to respect what this man says, like it's the truth whether they know it's in the Bible or not, and a lot of what he says I think is wrong, but I don't know how to explain this to my church family.

He had an internship program where young adults and teens would go for three months and be trained. The people in his ministry have all been trained in the same way they say the same things they chant to get demons out, and they yell at the demons to say what their name is and how they came into that person's life.

Please, please help to explain why this is not right. Our church now has this belief that we can demand healing, and if you don't say, okay, I'm already healed, then you don't have faith, and that we can just demand healing,.

And that it's always the will of God. My dear friends, the scripture says that anyone who is in Christ is a new creation, sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption. John doesn't say in 1 John 4 that he who is in you is greater than the other ones that are in you, but he who is in the world.

Paul says to the Colossians that God has rescued or delivered us from the domain or power and authority of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. This is not something he begins to accomplish once we become Christian.

God begins to lay a claim upon your lives. This is something he has finished, and here actually in Colossians, we find a biblical use, a warranted use of the exodus motif, contrary to the way Vlad was twisting the scripture in his sermon clip.

He says, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The exodus is a type of Christ's work in delivering us from slavery to sin by his shed blood as our Passover lamb, not so-called deliverance by the casting out of demons after one has become a Christian.

Do I believe demons are real? Biblical. You're unbiblical, sir. Sir, sir, sir, you're unbiblical.

This guy, like, he's out here trying to call me out, saying, like, that what, you think the.

Demons are real? Yes, I do. Do I believe that this is real? Who's the cause of setback in her life?

Me. You are. Generational curses. Generational curses. See, see, 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.

Out now. Out now. Leave in Jesus' mighty name. My child is autistic and he's, he's, he's not,.

He has no brains at all. Off of this whole family and I detach this family and you from what you spoke. I declare every spirit attached, every spirit of witchcraft, every spirit of mental illness, I declare on three.