Deliver Us From Evil, Part 2

 

March 8, 2019

 

My first exposure to Derek’s Prince’s ministry on Deliverance was revelatory, to say the least.  As he was teaching, he mentioned having to deal with a person who was afflicted with an “accident-prone spirit.”

 

Just like that, something leaped inside of me, and I knew that an enemy that had tormented me for most of my life had been exposed.  Insurance companies have a category that they label as “Accident Prone.”  It is the result of folks having multiple accidents over a period of years, and a pattern that continues on and on and on.

 

That was a perfect description of me.  At that point in my life, I could easily remember not less than 30 auto accidents that I had been involved in.  Derek Prince’s description of that spirit lit a fire inside of me.  I took immediate steps to cast out an Accident Prone Spirit.  I had not yet reached my 30^th birthday.  Nevertheless, as I approach my 77^th birthday next month, I can say that the pattern of accidents ceased from that day forward.  There have been no accidents ever since.

 

That was only the beginning of my adventures in being set free myself from the torment of evil spirits, and it has led to well over 40 years of being able to minister the same kind of freedom to others.

 

We wrapped up last week with a quote from Hosea’s prophecy.

 

Hosea 4:6:  “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

 

When the knowledge of how to be free has been provided and folks fail to avail themselves of it, either through ignorance or willfully because of a religious doctrine that teaches otherwise, they suffer unnecessarily; and there are folks who go to their graves who have given their lives to the Lord that never walk in the liberty Jesus Christ provides – in this lifetime!

 

Freedom isn’t a when-we-all-get-to-heaven goal or objective.  It is a here-and-now reality available to everyone who seizes it and takes it by force from an enemy who seeks to cheat them.  And it is available to the newborn Christian.  It is available to the seasoned Christian.  It is available to the weakest Christian.  It is available to all who will avail themselves of the power and authority Jesus Christ provides.

 

No demon or evil spirit can prevent a Christian from seizing his or her freedom and kicking it out when they appropriate the name, the authority, the power of Jesus Christ.

By the same token, no wicked spirit will leave of his own accord just because Jesus is there in a person’s life.  That spirit must be commanded to leave, and once gone, the person now freed must continue to resist Satan.  There is nothing automatic about it.

 

This is war, folks!  Spiritual warfare!  Jesus is after a people who are overcomers.  One does not get classified “an overcomer” if he or she does not overcome the world, the flesh and Satan, just as Jesus overcame.

 

Wow!  I didn’t mean to get preachy today.  Just got started sharing things, and the “preach” kind of took off.

 

It isn’t my purpose to fight with folks over doctrines.  You can hold any doctrine you want to hold – as long as that doctrine has life and reality in it.

 

If your doctrine(s) keeps you in a place where you lack real peace in your life, I suggest you begin to take another looksee at where that doctrine comes from, and what Jesus actually said and did, and what He is saying to you.

 

Let me take a minute to add one more piece to the foundational understanding of the nature of deliverance.  Consider something that Jesus said in what we refer to as “The Sermon on the Mount,”

 

Matthew 5:14-15: Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.  Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

 

 

He uses two metaphors here to help us understand something that gets glossed over when we read this.  He compares the human frame to a house, and to a city.  Ever stop to consider why He would use those illustrations?

 

OK.  Tell me something.  What common characteristic is there between a house and a city?

 

Easy!  They represent multiple areas of dwelling.  A house has multiple rooms.  A city has multiple homes.  Each represents an area of living.  Do you occupy the same room in your house all the time, and never go into the other rooms?  Of course not!

 

A city has multiple dwelling places with multiple rooms — each capable of hosting a person or persons.  The same is true of our lives.  We have many areas of living, thinking, dwelling, etc., in our lives.  Evil spirits tend to camouflage their existence in us as one or more of these rooms or dwelling places.

 

Consider the example of Jesus ministering to the man of Gadara — we refer to him as the Gadarene demoniac —who comes and throws himself at Jesus’ feet.  Consider the following narrative from Mark’s Gospel.

 

Mark 5:6-9:  But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,  And (the evil spirit) cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.

 

For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.  And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.  (with my additions)

 

Got the picture?  If you use this picture as literal — and I see no reason not to — a legion consisted of 6,600 foot soldiers and 172 horse-drawn chariots with expert bowmen and spear throwers.  Sounds fantastic doesn’t it?

 

Here is a man tormented day and night.  He cannot keep clothing on.  He lives in caves and among the rocks, avoiding people as much as he can.  With this multitude of demons dwelling in him, he still has presence of mind enough when Jesus appears on the scene to throw himself at Jesus’ feet and worship Him!  Fantastic!

 

Jesus now speaks to the evil spirit (head-demon, if you please) and says, What is your name?  The demon speaks and says, My name is legion, for we are many.  Right!

 

This whole episode makes the doctrine of demon possession fly out the window.  In spite of his torment, the man still had enough in him to throw himself at Jesus’ feet and worship Him.  Those demons didn’t own him — they just dwelled within him and tormented him.  That’s how it is today.  We want to quickly jump on the bandwagon when we see someone whose behavior is totally without reason or rationale and accuse them of being demon-possessed.

 

No, they aren’t!  They just need deliverance.  When we use the mantra of “possession,” we draw the analogy of ownership, believing that these people are without hope, and beyond the delivering power of Jesus’ onoma at work in us.

 

Bahh!  Humbug!

 

It is time — especially in these days of division, strife and absolutely rampant, illogical behavior staring us in the face — that we begin to exercise the authority and power that Jesus has made available to us through His death and resurrection.  It is time to stop being afraid of demons and walk in Christ Jesus!

 

In the coming days, I will share with you some of the experiences I’ve had with folks (and they would fill many books if I recounted them all) throughout the years who have been set free.

 

Jesus made a statement that puts everything in context.

 

John 8:31-36: Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.  They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?

 

Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.  If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.  I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.

 

Do you see the prerequisite to being “free indeed?”  If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed!

 

It is impossible to KNOW the Truth and genuinely be free IF we do not continue in the Word of the Lord — and that means without compromise, without twisting the scriptures to mean what you want them to mean, without trying to get around what Jesus is saying, but being obedient in every respect and utilizing the real authority that He has made available!

 

That is free “indeed!”  Not free because you think you are free; not free because your pastor says you are free; not free because I say you are free; not free because you have a doctrine that says you are free; but free in reality, free experientially, free indeed!

 

Let’s begin today with religion.  We’ve already talked in past discussions about the three families of fear, the Fear of Evil being the dominant granddaddy of all fears, and the fact that it is the root of all that is religious.

 

By way of refreshing, the Fear of Evil came into the human race when Adam ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The knowledge of Evil brings the Fear of Evil.  It manifested when Adam ran and hid from God when he heard the sound of the Lord approaching in the Garden.  When you stop to consider that on its face, nothing could have been more illogical!  Adam and Eve had walked and talked with the Lord for at least a couple of thousand years.  He had been their friend, their confidant, the source of all that they had and lived.

 

How was it, then, that they could suddenly be afraid of Him, as though He was going to bring down a sledgehammer on them?  All they needed to do was to acknowledge that they had sinned.  They messed up.  Adam could have reversed Eve’s actions because of who he was, but he didn’t.  OK.  Enough!  We don’t need to continue to expand on this.

 

Anyway, the dominant characteristic of the Fear of Evil is to make people afraid of God so that they begin to try to compensate for their failures utilizing their own understanding.

 

THAT, folks, is the true definition of all religion.  Religion attempts to please God on human terms, adjusting the Word or manipulating it so as to pacify their own feelings of guilt.  They compensate by then creating actions, doctrines or behaviors they hope to appease God with so that He will overlook their guilt.

 

My first exposure to really understanding this came when I was ministering to a group of people in an unnamed church in southern California.  There was this one lady in particular who heard the Word, knew that she was in bondage, but had no clue what was tormenting her.

 

This was early in my realm of ministry of deliverance, and I had yet to understand the core of religion.  I had no revelation of what this lady was dealing with.  I knew that Jesus had asked the question of the Gadarene demoniac, “What is your name?”  That seemed to be the approach I needed to take, so with the lady sitting in a chair in front of me, I said, “What is your name?”

 

To my astonishment, a man’s voice growled out of her, “My name is Church of Christ.”

 

That was no small revelation.  What I realized was that an evil spirit had taken up the doctrines of the Church of Christ, blinded the lady to any truth that didn’t fit the doctrines of this particular denomination, and then tormented her every time she saw or heard something that didn’t jive with those doctrines.

 

I spoke to that religious spirt and commanded it to leave the woman.  Immediately she was set free.  Her countenance changed.  She brightened up.  In the weeks that followed, I heard that everything about her life changed as she began to walk in the freedom that is in Christ Jesus.

 

It was a few years later that I was sitting at LAX, waiting for a flight.  A voice spoke up behind me.  “Regner, is that you?”

 

I turned to see who was speaking, and it happened to be a man I’d come to know some years before.  He was now the Director of Youth With a Mission (YWAM) in Hawaii.  He said, “Do you have a few minutes to talk?  I need to share something with you that I don’t know what to think about.”

 

I nodded, and he sat down beside me.

 

“I had the strangest experience the other day.  I know that the Lord has been moving you in the realm of deliverance, but this is something I’ve never encountered before.”

I was intrigued.  “Go ahead, my brother.”

 

“This man was engaged in constant warfare in himself.  He just wasn’t getting the breakthroughs he needed in order to be free of the struggles.  I didn’t know what else to do, so I spoke to the evil spirit that obviously was tormenting him and said, “’What is your name.’  A different voice spoke out of him and said, ‘My name is Assembly of God.  Can there be such a thing or is this my own crazy imagination?”

 

My answer to him was, “You’re not crazy, and this is real!”  I shared with him my experience.  He subsequently ministered to the young man with the religious denominational spirit and saw the fruit of freedom in him in the weeks and months that followed.

 

I know that some of this may ruffle some folks’ religious feathers, but if we are open enough to recognize that the Enemy will use anything at all in our lives to keep us from growing up in Christ Jesus – including our involvement in church life – he will readily use it against us to blind us to the four walls of a denomination.  He doesn’t want us to awaken to the fact that we’ve only scratched the surface of the life that is available!

 

More to come.

 

In case you are missing out on real fellowship in an environment of Ekklesia, our Sunday worship gatherings are available by conference call – usually at about 10:30AM Pacific.  That conference number is (712) 770-4160, and the access code is 308640#.  We are now making these gatherings available on video using ZOOM.  If you wish to participate by video on ZOOM, our login ID is 835-926-513.  If you miss the live voice-only call, you can dial (712) 770-4169, enter the same access code and listen in later.  The video call, of course, is not recorded – not yet, anyway.

Blessings on you!

 

           

Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES

RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Temple, Texas 76504

Email Contact: CapenerMinistries@protonmail.com

 

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