“Really? You brought Jamin?” the demon laughed as we entered the room, listing off each of our names and messing some of them up. Our small deliverance team had arrived about an hour into the manifestation after getting an emergency call. The room was a mess and would continue to get worse as we watched the demon rip the dry wall off the wall.
After an hour of our team praying and speaking in tongues and calling the person to take back their body in the name of Jesus (which caused incredible agony to the demon), we finally got God’s precious child back in control. It took some experimentation to figure out how to fight this particular kind of demon, all the while trusting that Jesus would help us, but we had finally prevailed through its many taunts and ridiculous sayings.
You don’t always know what you’re going to encounter in deliverance ministry. It often takes some time to figure out what kind of demon you’re dealing with, what its weaknesses are, how it got in, who needs to be forgiven, and what lies need to be renounced in order to fully rebuke the evil spirit and send it out of the person to the feet of Jesus. But as Christians, we walk into deliverance ministry with the strength of the Spirit of Jesus inside of us—the name above every name. This is our guarantee that victory will prevail as we discern all of the legal rights the demon has gained over the person and then break them.
When people go into such situations without the Holy Spirit, they will find themselves in dangerous territory, for they do not know the name above all names to which the demon must submit, nor do they carry the authority to deal with the demon. There’s a story in the Bible about some exorcists who didn’t know Jesus personally, but had heard about the power of his name. Since ancient exorcists were pretty used to evoking any powerful spiritual name they could think of in attempts to make demons listen, these exorcists commanded the demons to leave their client “in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches.”
This did not go over well. “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” the demon responded. We don’t entirely know what all went down next, but this group of exorcists were next seen running out of their tent naked and wounded. This is why we must walk in the power and authority of the Holy Spirit as we trample down the gates of Hell. Christians are a force to be reckoned with in the spiritual realm.
*This devotional was created out of the themes of Acts 19:1-20 found in today’s reading at CommonPrayer.net.
Jamin Bradley 