Honest Christian Conversations
A weekly podcast dealing with cultural and spiritual issues within the Christian faith.
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Honest Christian Conversations
Understanding True Deliverance
Experience a profound journey into healing and faith with Dr. David Chotka as he shares invaluable insights on healing and deliverance ministry paths.
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I thoroughly enjoyed last week's episode with Dawn Hill. How did you react to what was said? Use the link in the show notes to leave me a comment. Whatever your position on deliverance ministry, you will be excited for today's episode. My guest, dr David Chotka, returns to the show to pick up where we left off during our last conversation. In episode eight we discuss the five healing pathways and his role in the deliverance movement. His views may shock you, anger you or you may resonate with them. Whatever your position, hear him out, because he is a fount of wisdom and has a strong heart for God. You will benefit from what is said, as I did Before the episode starts. Make sure you follow the show so you never miss another episode. Well, hello again, dr Chotka.
Speaker 1:I am so happy to have you back on.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. A joy to be with you once again to have you back on.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much. A joy to be with you once again. So before we get started on the pathways to healing, will you please tell everybody who hasn't heard the other episode you were in? Just give them a brief overview of who you are.
Speaker 2:Sure Well, I'm a pastor in the Christian Missionary Alliance in Canada. I have served as a national director of the prayer mobilizing team in my country, and I am currently now the leader and director of Spirit Equipped Ministries, with the goal of writing resources that are used to train people in spiritual disciplines.
Speaker 1:All right, let's get into it. Go ahead and share with us what are the pathways to healing.
Speaker 2:The first one is what I call the instant heal and in our last interview I shared a couple of stories about how there was this amazing miraculous intervention from God and it was, without question, from the hand of Jesus of Nazareth. Personally, in my own life, my wife was miraculously healed of muscular dystrophy and we have a medical note to verify that. I was miraculously healed of a paralyzed face. I was told that I would never speak again. Miraculously healed of a paralyzed face, I was told that I would never speak again. Anyway, the instant heal is one part of the story. The second is actually I didn't really think that this was supernatural before. I do now Natural healing, and I'll tell you why.
Speaker 2:When my wife had muscular dystrophy, if she ever damaged a muscle it was gone forever. She would never get it back. And the how do I say this? The sadness attached to that particular affliction was that you kept losing muscle tissue and you're losing your ability to do anything. So I knew when I married the girl I'd be pushing a wheelchair. But when she was miraculously healed and it was an amazing thing Right after that, if she damaged a muscle she'd grow muscle tissue, it was incredible. So I had gotten used to the sickness and I had assumed that if she banged her elbow, or she tripped on the sidewalk or something that meant there'd be another decline.
Speaker 2:And instead, there was recovery and muscle tissue growth. So I now believe that every human body has been gifted by God with the innate power to do natural healing, where your body just grows and becomes strong, and I don't see any conflict with saying that this is from God. Anyway, the next one is a pathway to a remedy, and I do believe in scripture. You have lots of to say that medicine is something that God has ordained. Now, the best case of this is the story of Hezekiah, king of Judah. I love the story because Isaiah the prophet goes in to see him. He's the 66th chapter guy. He had a lot to say, one of the big three prophets in the Old Testament. Anyway, he goes to see Hezekiah and he says to him put your house in order, you're dead. I mean, it's a terrible thing. Can you imagine getting this prophet in great regard and this?
Speaker 2:man walks in and says it's finished, it's over, but write your will. And so Hezekiah. It says in two places in Isaiah 38 and in 2 Kings 20, he sets his face to the wall and he doesn't even say God, heal me. He says God remember, remember what I've done. And then Isaiah, who's walking out of the court, suddenly gets another download from God. He comes back and he says tell Hezekiah, king of Judah, I'm adding 15 years to his life. And so Hezekiah hears this. And then he says isn't that nice? Prove it. Isaiah says well, what do you want? Do you want the shadow to go up 10 steps or down 10 steps? And he says oh, I want it to go up to 10 steps. And so then Isaiah cries out to the Lord and there's a nature miracle and the shadow moves back 10 steps. And then this is the part that's funny. Isaiah the prophet then looks at Hezekiah and says see, you got it. By the way, get yourself a fig poultice and put it on top of the boil, suck out the poison and you'll be fine.
Speaker 1:So he called me in the morning. I'll bring my bill.
Speaker 2:And so in the Bible, in the mind of Isaiah, in the mind of Hezekiah, in the mind of the writers of the canon of scripture, that story's there to tell us there is no conflict between medicine and miracle. So I see no conflict with asking the Lord to guide, to heal and being guided to a remedy. None, no conflict whatsoever. The fourth one's the hard one, and there's been much ink spilled on this. There's this time where you go through suffering that doesn't seem to make any sense to you, and there's this long season and you're, and believers go through this, not not just you know, not just people who are.
Speaker 1:You just said you went to a church that was suffering persecution.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was Now in the case. In the case of what I'm talking about right now, with a medical issue, you have the apostle. Actually I don't know if you know this the apostle Paul planted the church in Galatia because he got sick. It's the most amazing, incredible thing. So there's a whole school out there that says God heals automatically, and all the apostles did this all the time. And when you read in the New Testament, you don't see that. So I was working my way through the book of Galatians in my devotions and I noticed that he was ticked at the church in Galatia. Really mad.
Speaker 1:There's only one church.
Speaker 2:He doesn't thank god for it's that church. He thanks god for the kooky corinthians, and they're a mess and we're talking, they're a disaster. But he doesn't thank god for the galatians. Why? Well, the corinthians did not throw out the encounter with the lord. The galatians did. And so he says oh, foolish galatians, who is the witch you, before whose eyes christ was publicly proclaimed as crucified? He goes on like this, but in the middle of it you get two clues about what's happening in that church. He actually says in chapter three did he who works signs and wonders among you do so by the power of the Spirit or by the works of the law? So it's clear, mir, miracles happen in that church and in the planting of it. You know so anyway.
Speaker 2:Then you go to the next chapter and he's, he's whining about how badly they're treating him. And in chapter four he says oh, I remember how you cared for me when I was sick among you. You doted over me, you, you were even prepared to pluck your eyes out to help me. It was where is the love that you showed me when I was sick? And it was very clear that when the apostle planted the church, he was traveling through that area. He got really sick I mean we're talking sick big and he could not take care of himself. He fell on the kindness of strangers who then nursed him back to health and as he's getting better he starts praying for people and they get miraculously healed. It's only the church was planted because he got sick and sick Paul prays for sick Galatians. They get well by miracle while they nurse him back to health. It's this crazy kind of holy mystery thing. There's this thing where he's suffering and he's suffering illness.
Speaker 2:And he doesn't understand why he's suffering. In fact, it shows up in second Corinthians as well, with that very famous passage he says I am afflicted with a messenger of Satan to buffet me a thorn in the flesh. We don't know what it is. There's got to be like 600 explanations of that crazy thought. Yeah, yeah, well, clear, but what the point is?
Speaker 2:God speaks to him about the nature of this affliction and says to him he has to bear law and he doesn't understand why. And he's the apostle. Now, by way of comparison, also in the first chapter of that book, 2 Corinthians, he talks about experiencing clinical depression. He actually says I was so low I despaired even of life itself. He admits clinical depression. He doesn't cease to be the apostle while he's depressed. He admits that he's the. He calls himself Apostle Paul, the beginning letter. And then a few verses later he says oh man, it was bad. So there's, I think to be biblical. We have to insist that there are seasons of suffering where we don't get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, and the last one, of course, is the miraculous crossing. Now I was at a funeral yesterday with one of my very, very, very finest friends. Lady died of a heart attack, 78, wonderful, vibrant, dynamic Christian lady. They were all on vacation and she dropped dead, just died. The proclamation of her joyous entrance into heaven was filled with faith and hope, despite the anguish and the grief of the family.
Speaker 2:So there's these five things. There's the instant heal, and I believe in that, and you see Jesus accomplishing that and you see this in the history of the church. Then you have this natural healing which all of us experience and appreciate and love. And then you have this pathway to a remedy. And I'll just say this to you Right now, as we speak, somebody's training for some sort of medical practice, because their kid sister died of leukemia.
Speaker 2:And they have this defining moment where they realize that if they'd been there with medical training they could have done something to save that life. So they dedicate 20, 25, 30 years to medical research and they come up with a cure. Well, listen, there are Christian believers who've done that. If the Lord has guided them to that, take the gift. So that's the third one. Fourth one suffering that we don't understand. And the fifth one, the miraculous crossing through the gates of death into life. All five of those are ordinary Christian life, and I'm saying that because I don't believe in the name and enclaim it, and I don't believe that God never heals. So that's the five pathways. Now there's an overlap with.
Speaker 2:There's always this question. I should address this because if your listeners are listening, they're going to be thinking this question Is there a relationship to satanic attack and healing? Is that something you want me to address?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. It probably jumps into the whole deliverance stuff anyway, so feel free.
Speaker 2:Okay. So right now, as we speak, I'm doing a translation of Mark's gospel into slang Canadian English. It's lots of fun, but as I'm working through Mark's gospel, I noticed a profound thing in the difference between demonization and healing. It's in the founder of the third chapter of Mark and it's a remarkable passage. So here we have verse 9, 10, and 11 of Mark, chapter 3. He told his disciples a boat should stand ready for them because of the crowd, so that they would not crowd him, for he had healed many, with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around him in order to touch him.
Speaker 2:Now that's a beautiful picture. It's actually very vivid. It says here that thousands came. Now I don't know if you've ever been stuck. Several years ago, my wife and I had to change planes in Korea and we were going on our way to Indonesia and we got thrown into one of these rail cars, pressed, squeezed in really tight, and we couldn't speak the language. They couldn't speak the language. I got shoved into a corner it was so jammed and my poor wife some guy was standing on her leg and she was yelling at him to get his foot off her leg. Yeah, so I want you to get a picture.
Speaker 2:So these crowds, they were huge, they were just like a press of people pushing in on him, and anybody who was sick with any kind of affliction or disease did not have any issue with getting close to Jesus. At Nazareth they would reach forward just to touch him. That's a beautiful picture. And when you read verse 11 of Mark, chapter 3, it pictures this thing about unclean spirits. When the unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout you are the son of God. And then he would earnestly warn them to be quiet.
Speaker 2:But the point I'm making here is that in 98% of the narratives in the New Testament, especially in the gospels, you do not see demonization and sickness overlapping. You see them being separated out as separate, distinct issues. There's two cases where there's an overlap. You have the demonized boy in Mark 9, where he has what appears to be epilepsy and it gets thrown into the fire and the water and he's deaf and he is mute. As he casts this demon out, the boy vibrates, the unclean spirit comes out and then he takes him by the hand and raises him to life. That's the one clear case where you have medical affliction lined up with demonic possession, and it was probably a big one. The other one is in Luke 13. It's the story of the God worshiper in the synagogue whose back was bent, and Jesus actually says to the crowd why should this daughter of Abraham, who's here to worship God and loves God, have to be afflicted with this any longer?
Speaker 2:And he actually doesn't cast out a demon, he simply prays for her. And while he prays for her, her back straightens up. But he does say she was afflicted by an unclean spirit from Satan. So if you put brackets around those two accounts, all the other accounts that have to do with either demonization or healing are in separate and distinct categories. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:So I have a question. This is probably the biggest hot topic button for the whole deliverance ministry those who are either for it or against it completely and it's one of the things that makes me have hesitancy when it comes to the deliverance ministry. Do you believe that Christians can be possessed by?
Speaker 2:demons.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's where I agree with you.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I do believe they could be attacked.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I totally agree with that and I do believe they can give ground to the enemy and the enemy can start to take advantage.
Speaker 1:See that's the problem that I have with a lot of the deliverance ministries is they are making it more towards Christians who need to be delivered from their demons, rather than the great commission sharing the gospel, those who actually have demons inside of them that we should be trying to help get out.
Speaker 2:And they're ignoring that. I can tell you two stories. I can tell you two stories.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go ahead. Okay, because one just happened. Like a week ago I was in Vietnam and there was a lady there who had had a Buddhist background and her friends had told her about Jesus. And it was actually an impromptu meeting. I was booked in to speak at a church conference and do a conference on prayer for healing, and then I had to do two sermons and the associate pastor of that church had done a church plant across the river. So he said, oh, by the way, I got this small group. Do you want to come and talk to my small group? And I said, oh, okay, let's go.
Speaker 2:So we went, and when we went there was a lady who was like one week maybe a week inside the framework of All Things Christian and she could not speak English. She was speaking Vietnamese and I understood her through a translator, but she was saying that these unclean spirits were attacking her in the night, telling her not to say yes to Jesus. And so I said do you want to say yes to Jesus? She said I do. And so I led her through a series of prayers, first of all to say yes to the claims of Christ, and then I started to lead her in what I call identity prayers.
Speaker 2:Where I am in Christ, the enemy cannot touch me. I am born of God, and while we were praying, the unclean spirit that was sitting inside of her began to get angry. Then it exited her as she continued to quote scripture. It was a small little demon, but it took us about half an hour and this was somebody who came from a totally non-Christian background into the gospel of Jesus. The one that's controversial is what do you do when you have somebody who walks with Jesus and has this influence of something unclean sitting on top of them? So my answer to that is what happened to Jesus of Nazareth right after he was filled with the Spirit and baptized by John?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Satan went and tried to tempt him.
Speaker 2:Yes, now I want you to slow this down, because this is important. I'm just going to give you Bible. I'm going to make sure that you understand this is Bible who doesn't love free?
Speaker 1:I know I do. That's why I created a free seven-day devotional for those who want to go deeper with god. It's a short devotional full of encouragement, guidance and impactful bible verses related to everyday struggles we all go through. I know you will love this devotional as much as I enjoyed writing it and since it's digital, you can do it anywhere, anytime, perfect for the person always on the go. Get the free devotional when you sign up for my mailing list. The link is in the show notes.
Speaker 2:The very first thing that happens to Jeet. Now remember classic Christian faith mailing list. The link is in the show notes. Christian, who has walked with Jesus through the generations, has affirmed his classic Christianity is where I live, and so I believe that he was sinless perfection and that when John the Baptist baptized him, the heavens were split apart and the Holy Spirit descended on him, infilled him and so began the miraculous acts of power. Now, as soon as the Spirit lands on him, and he was already the Son of God and he was already God the son.
Speaker 2:So the word that is used in the Greek text to talk about Jesus casting out demons is ekbalo. It means to expel or to throw away or cast out, and every single time in Mark's gospel he commands an unclean spirit to leave. That's the word that's used. Now, the interesting thing is, when Jesus gets infilled by Holy Spirit, he is ekbaloed into the presence of the demon, he is cast out by the Holy Spirit into the presence of the principality. It's just this crazy picture. There is no question. He was perfect, he was infilled, he was launched, he was baptized, he was ready and he was in the wilderness and he was there 40 days and 40 nights and then he gets three ugly things. That happened to him.
Speaker 2:And now, any time an unclean spirit shows up, it's ugly. Can you imagine how ugly and foul and fetid the evil prince of the power of the air would be in comparison to the other small demons? He shows up and talks to Jesus and tempts him physically. Why don't you just turn those stones to bread? And Jesus doesn't do that. Now, the first temptation of the first Adam was with food. The first temptation with the second Adam was likewise with disobedience around food, and so it's clear this is the second Adam was likewise with disobedience around food, and so it's clear this is the second Adam, and it's clear he's there to take back from the devil what the devil beguiled away from our first parents. Now it's three rounds in a boxing match and Jesus has to win all three rounds. He has to defeat him physically, he has to defeat him mentally and emotionally and he has to defeat him spiritually. Now the next thing that happens is the devil picks up God the Son and puts him on the pinnacle of the temple. Now people pay for rides.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you got to trust that the operator of that zipline is worthy of trust.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I never would, but you got to trust that the operator of that zip line is worthy of trust.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I never would, no hundreds of dollars, it'll be hundreds of bucks for the student death thing They'll go to.
Speaker 2:Niagara Falls, they'll go to some fancy place, they'll go to some Latin American place, and they'll pay money for this. Anyway, the unclean spirit is able to pick up the spirit-filled, sinless God's son and place him on the pinnacle of the temple and then he tempts him mentally, emotionally Throw yourself down so an angel can catch you while you attempt suicide. It's a thrill ride. Jesus, take the thrill ride. And he quotes scripture to disarm that.
Speaker 2:Now the part that's even more astonishing the unclean spirit picks up God, the Son, from the pinnacle of the temple. Having lost physically, and having lost mentally and emotionally, he carries him away to a mountain. There was no transporter beam, I'm a Star Trek guy there was no high-speed bullet train, there was no plane. He is transported by the prince of the power of the air to physically. It doesn't say it was a vision. Even if it was a vision, it would still be strong. But the point is he was translated physically and put on a mountaintop.
Speaker 2:And I don't know how the devil did this to Jesus. He actually was able to imprint on his thinking, or show him externally, or some combination thereof, all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory in a passing second. Now that's the devil talking to Jesus of Nazareth, who's God the Son. Now you got to know that's severe, and what he says is I'll do you a deal. Oh, by the way, I own these kingdoms. They were given to me. Well, it was the first Adam who gave it to him, the first. I don't know if you think Adam or Eve was dumber. I think it was dumb and dumber.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they both had their parts to play on that one yeah.
Speaker 1:At some point while you're watching, you should have said hey, let's not do that, or?
Speaker 2:While you're watching, you should have said, hey, let's not do that. Or you should have said, get out of the way here. What are you doing? Talking to a snake, I know.
Speaker 1:So many ways that could have gone better.
Speaker 2:The point was Jesus of Nazareth is actually on the mountain, speaking to the one who beguiled our first parents to hand him the kingdoms of the world to him. And the devil is saying I'll give him to you, you just have to worship me. And Jesus says no, no, you should worship the Lord, your God only. And so he defeats the unclean spirit. Then the angels carry him back.
Speaker 2:Now the point I'm making is that was temptation to a sinless, perfect, incarnated God, the Son. And so why did he not just tell him to leave? I'll tell you why. He was required to do that and the Holy Spirit carried him there to do that because his mission was to destroy the works of the devil, and the first thing you have to do when you're cutting down that tree is ax the root, and he has to defeat him physically.
Speaker 2:Just like our first parents failed, jesus succeeded, but because of the first failure, all of us was corrupt and inside human skin. He had to defeat him mentally and emotionally that's the realm of the soul. And then he had to defeat him spiritually that's the realm of the spirit. And it's not until he passes through sharp temptation, prayer, 40 days of focus and severe testing that involves every aspect of what it means to be human. Every part of his body was tempted like this, that he is able to defeat the unclean spirit in prayer, and then he starts casting out demons. Now, if that's true for God, the son, can the unclean spirit attack a born again believer?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Now here's the here's how I describe this, and I do this from the book of Ephesians. I did my master's work in Ephesians under a guy named Dr Gordon Fee. I was studying the spirit in Ephesians and I discovered that the word walk indicates two predestinations. You walk according to the prince of the power of the air, or you walk according to the risen Lord, and there's a predestination assigned to those in the first Adam and the unclean spirit sits on that. And there's a predestination assigned to the second Adam and the Holy Spirit sits on that and the believer lives between the two predestinations. There's only two in the Bible. There's not seven billion, there's two, and you freely choose the first Adam or you freely choose the second Adam, and when you choose that, you enter into what has been predestined for the body of Jesus. It shows up in verse 10 of chapter two, the very famous passage by grace you have been saved through faith. That not of works, lest anyone should boast it. You come to verse 10, it says for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, for good works which have been prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. That's the same word that's used to describe they were dead in their trespasses and sins in which they walked according to the prince of the power of the air. And so 10 verses apart, you have these two walks. One is death walker and the other is life walker. And if you are in the first Adam, you're a death walker. If you're in the second Adam, you're a life walker. And in both cases the predestining activity happens by the power of whatever spirit is overseeing that.
Speaker 2:Now, if you look at the material in Ephesians, it's a born-again church. The apostle Paul is writing to a born-again church and he's got these two predestinations that are named throughout the book, talking about the exaltation of Jesus over the powers. It's a beautiful book about spiritual warfare, and what he says is if you give the devil room to maneuver, he will Okay. So if you can picture these two spheres, they're quite separate and distinct from each other. So if you're in Christ, you're in Christ. If you're in the devil, you're in the devil. Oh, but some Christians like their sin.
Speaker 1:Did you know that?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah and so what happens is god's intention, for our pure walk gets tainted by our love of the thing we shouldn't attest, and it creates a doorway of opportunity for the enemy to sit on you. Okay, so this is not possession, oppression. We'll call it what you will. Actually, the word word oppression does not exist in the New Testament. The word that exists in the New Testament is demonization. So what I can say is full-on demonization happens among the unsaved.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that would be considered like possession.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would be fair. Actually, you know I don't know if you know this the New Testament talks about how God wants to possess us. We are his treasured possession. Now, the difference between satanic power and God power. Jesus invites us to participate in his power and calls us to sacrifice. The unclean spirit promises us life and gives us death and serves as a leech Both of us. Actually, the unclean spirit's desire to possess us is because it wants what God has when we give it to him. The unclean spirit does it by force. The Holy Spirit does it by invitation. That's the difference. Unclean power manipulates in order to control. Holy Spirit power invites to sacrifice and gives life. Profound difference between the two.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I will tell you this it is possible for a person who doesn't know how to take their stand against the powers of darkness to allow the enemy opportunity. So there's one story that I tell in my new coming book. There was a lady in my church in Toronto area and she was a young girl when I was there. Then her parents moved to a different location and in the course of time COVID happened and people wanted church but they couldn't go to church. I mean, that's what happened up here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it kind of happened here too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in Canada we weren't allowed 10 people in a room at any building. It didn't matter if it was a university or a drugstore or anything, you weren't allowed. So we're all stuck in our bubbles, you know. And I started offering Zoom courses and we had worship service once a week on Zoom. That's what I did. So the family that I knew from back in the day connected with us again.
Speaker 2:The girl had some medical issues. She went to Guatemala and while she was down there she was doing service work under one of the parachurch ministries and got this terrible affliction in her belly, in her gut, just all kinds of trouble. So the go-to thing in the brain of everybody who was treating her was this has got to be some sort of a tropical bug. So she came back to the Metro Toronto area to be with her family. They examined her for everything. They gave her a course of whatever the treatment would happen to be for a broad range of tropical afflictions. She still was suffering with this thing and she's born again. She loves Jesus.
Speaker 2:So I'm serving at this point now in Northern Alberta, just outside the city of Edmonton, and she winds up going to one of the hospitals in Edmonton. She comes to see us for prayer around this affliction. We pray and there's no change. She stays afflicted. Anyway, she's got this chronic pain issue. It's going on for a long time and when she gives birth to her first child and she's about to give birth to her second and she gets this terrible increase in pain. It's chronic before that and now it's constant and it's awful, it's ugly Child comes early because of all the pain she was in.
Speaker 2:So anyway, her mom calls me. She said, pastor David, we got to pray. This is terrible. We're using all of our resources every way we possibly can. There was a team of six people who were on three continents and we all decided that we needed to fast and pray because we just were not seeing any result with this. We're talking years here and as we're praying, I had a conviction come to me that there had been someone curse her and some sort of a medicine shaman guy down there in Guatemala back in the day, and so, as we're talking, I decided that I would test this and I put it before the Lord, and the way that I understand how God speaks is primarily nonverbal.
Speaker 2:If there is an increase in his presence and you feel an increase of peace and righteousness and joy and hope and those things. Well, they grow inside of you and there's a fiery assurance inside of you as you are processing this issue. I take that to be the voice of Jesus. So when the presence grows, say yes to that. When the presence diminishes, put your guard up. If the presence is jarred, something's wrong. So that's the go-to rule of thumb. Anyway, we're praying Every time and we're talking about a two-day fast.
Speaker 2:Every time I am walking and praying and thinking of this young lady, I have this profound sense that there was some sort of a satanic assignment against her, a curse put on her. She didn't know how to stand against that. We gathered and we decided that we would meet a half an hour in advance of meeting with the girl and I said to the group I wonder if it might be possible that there was some sort of a curse from some sort of an Indian witch doctor down in Guatemala. And as soon as I said it, everybody's spirit lit up, like all of us sensed the nearness. Now we're talking about very conservative, bible thumping Christians. All of us believe in the inerrancy of scripture and we all hold to a high view of Jesus and the resurrection and the scripture and so on. As we're praying, this sense comes on all of us.
Speaker 2:I said I believe that I am to break the curse, and they said let's do it. So we got her in the call. I said to her I do believe that this began when you had some sort of an encounter with somebody who cursed you. Would you allow me to take authority against that curse? She said yes and we started to do this. And the second I said in the name of Jesus, I break off any satanic assignment against this child of God. I declare that Jesus' blood is more powerful than the powers of darkness, et cetera, et cetera. She immediately felt a release in her body and the pain diminished 60% in two minutes. And over the course of the next 10 days she got a little more strong, a little more strong, a little more strong. She had to come off some heavy duty meds so that she was withdrawing from some of the medications that she had taken that were very strong, some high end pain meds, and so there was the natural withdrawal stuff.
Speaker 2:that happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But from that point forward all pain in her body vanished. So now this is a born-again girl, and the enemy tried to attack her and she didn't know how to stand her ground. So I do believe that in Jesus you can stop any attack from the powers of darkness.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 2:But you need to know that you can, and you need to know that you can take authority. And if you don't know, the enemy will take advantage. I'll tell you one more story. When I proposed to my girl, she was delightfully Christian. Every part of her family was delightfully Christian, and she says yes to me.
Speaker 2:In March, and the next night, as she was in bed, an enormous unclean spirit materialized to her, twice the size of a gorilla, with a gravelly voice, looked at her, shook her bed, lifted the sheets off the bed and said I have been assigned to destroy your marriage. You will not marry that man. And she was terrified, didn't know what to do. She'd never seen anything like this. And then she cried out to Jesus and said oh Lord, help me. Oh Lord, help me. And the unclean spirit just laughed at her. Same thing happens the next night and the next night after that. I don't know how many times it happened until finally she told me.
Speaker 2:I said do you mean? An unclean spirit materialized in the room. She said yeah. I said would you tell it to leave? She said what? Did you tell it to leave? I said well, no. I asked Jesus to get rid of it. I said he can't. I said what she said, what I said. Well, listen, he always has to. The reason he became a human is because he had to do that inside human skin. And now he assigns that authority to humans and he doesn't do it from heaven. He infills us with his spirit so that you have the authority to be able to take authority against the unclean powers. You have to tell it to leave. Jesus didn't think any demon away. He commanded them to go. She said what do I say?
Speaker 1:I said how about this?
Speaker 2:In the name of Jesus go. The next night, this gorilla-like thing appeared in the room and it was threatening her. It actually levitated the sheets and shook the bed and she said in the name of Jesus, I command you to stop. And it would look like shocked and stop. And then she repeated four or five or six times that it had to leave because of the blood of Jesus, the name of Jesus, and it gradually withdrew and then it disappeared, never to return again.
Speaker 2:So I believe that we are in spiritual warfare. In fact, I believe that Satan will attack believers. I know Satan attacked God, the Son, when he was sinless and perfect and actually had significant power over him, until he defeated him physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I know from the scripture Jesus spent most of his time praying for the sick, casting out demons or mentoring disciples. Those were the three things he did. When he calls the 12 to himself, he trains them. It's very interesting to look at the language of what he trained them to do. He trained them to be with him, which is prayer. He trained them to pray for the sick that they might get better, and he trained them to cast out demons and then, when he sent them out they did.
Speaker 2:Now. I just cast out two demons in the last two weeks. I was not looking for the opportunity. Thank you very much. So here's what I want to say to you. Christian cannot be possessed, but a Christian can give the enemy as much permission as the enemy wants to take, and Christians can actually play with their sin issues until the sin issue dominates and the unclean spirit sits on the sin issue and starts to take advantage. A Christian can be cursed unless they stand their ground to reject the curse, and the power of the Lord is available for believers to stand in victory. Does that make sense to you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it does.
Speaker 2:I do believe in it and I live in it and I keep getting called out because people have discovered that I do this.
Speaker 2:So just a few days ago there was someone from Hong Kong and wanted deliverance from this unclean thing, and in her case she couldn't read the Bible. Her head would turn away and if she was ever sitting in a church she was unable to hear whatever was preached. She couldn't do that, and if she heard people worshiping about the blood or the presence she would become agitated. And so I wound up sitting with this lady and it was a big principality in this case a big one. It took several hours. Whenever I talked about the blood of Jesus, her physical body would shake and it was like an unnatural motion and in the end the unclean spirit came out. But it was a tedious thing.
Speaker 2:The strongest scripture for this is found in the book of Colossians. It's Colossians 2.15. If you're ever dealing with an unclean spirit, they hate this scripture. Scripture weakens the power of the unclean spirit. Colossians 2.15 talks about Jesus' victory and complete embarrassment of the demonic powers. It says this when he disarmed the rulers and the authorities, he made a public display of them having triumphed over them through the cross.
Speaker 2:Now, whenever you're dealing with, if you wonder if somebody's got a demonic influence, read that scripture. If they're in Christ, they will rejoice. If there's an unclean spirit. They'll get agitated and then you can then command the unclean spirit to shut up and leave. But that's the text that I use when I'm dealing with someone who is afflicted with an unclean presence. I have a team read the scripture over and over and over again until the unclean spirit hears. Number one Jesus is the victor. Number two they've been stripped naked. Number three there's a triumphal procession with Christ at the head and that means they're doomed. Number four the cross of Jesus eliminates their authority. And when you say that repeatedly, the unclean spirit will finally acknowledge the power of the Lord and then loosens its grip and comes out the power of the Lord and then loosens its grip and comes out.
Speaker 1:It's a lot to process and I'm noticing the way you do it compared to how the modern deliverance ministry has been working profoundly different. You are pointing to Christ, you're not seeking it out. God's bringing the opportunities to you, which is a big thing, because they'll do big events and charge and say, hey, come here and get delivered from your demons. And they don't remind people that we are sinful creatures, that we have a sinful nature and we have these desires. And, like you said, christians can give authority to demons to hang out with them and to eventually rule over them. And that is a problem because the modern deliverance ministry doesn't say that. They just say, oh, you have a demon of this or you have a demon of that. No, you have a sinful nature that is nurturing that and because of that, you have allowed this demon to hang out with you and be your friend. Quote unquote.
Speaker 2:Actually, that's a very apt description of what you just said. So I was doing an event in a church two years ago and I got up and I started to preach and there were 220 people in that church. 120 of them stayed for prayer. We're talking. We had a team of four or five people to pray, so it was a very long afternoon Working our way through that crowd. Anyway, I came to the second last person there and it was someone from the Philippines and there was a lady there who had worked in the Philippines and she was interceding with this man and he said well, pastor, I really would like it if you would pray for me. I said, oh, okay, and I touched him and he screamed and he hit the ground, just started to rise on the ground and the pastor of the church said what'd?
Speaker 2:you do. Anyway, as it turned out, I was given a series of downloads in real time and commanded the unclean spirit to stop manifesting, to stop showing off, and his body stopped. And I said now the unclean spirit, you're not allowed to speak. I'm going to talk to the man. Did you have a ghost in your house in the philippines? Did you have a poltergeist? He said I did. Did you? Did it say to you it would give you blessing if you allowed it to stay in its house? He said it did. Did you say to it you could stay in my house? He said I did. Then, when you moved to Canada, did it ask to come inside of you so it could come with you? He said I did. Did you give it permission to go inside you? He said I did.
Speaker 2:I said has this made trouble in your marriage? He said my marriage is terrible. I said you have to renounce your association with this unclean thing. Would you do that? He said it's blessed me. I said it's wrecking your marriage. Would you renounce this to save your marriage? And he paused and he said yes, and so I led him in a prayer of renunciation and I broke the association between his house. It was a long time standing thing, it'd be years we're talking about.
Speaker 2:And then I commanded the unclean spirit to loose his hold on him and go. Then, of course, the pastor took me for lunch. He went no one's going to want to do this, this is new to him. I said did you notice that when I was given these downloads, I wasn't trying to be focused on anything other than just getting this band? Well? And he said, yes, I did.
Speaker 2:I said well, sometimes you get these downloads and here's what happens the idea pops in your brain, the presence gets big, and then you test it. You don't say thus, saith the Lord, you test it. And so you put it in front of the person and you command the unclean spirit to silence and then you let the person who is struggling with this thing have voice. So if this demon is strong, that's hard. If the demon's not strong or it doesn't have a strong grip, it's not hard. But regardless of that, in the end I had him break his association with that unclean spirit and then, after he did that, it could no longer have any legal authority to stay and then I commanded it to leave and it did so. There you go. So it's possible, for the phrase you used give him the permission to hang around with him is exactly what happened to that guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, that's truth, yeah it's definitely opened my eyes to a different side of the deliverance ministry, because I'd been very closed off to it. If I'm being honest, the whole idea it just at least the modern version has had sullied me on the whole idea of what it can actually be. And as I'm going through this journey of understanding why I believe what I believe, I'm learning a whole bunch of new things about who God is, how he works, how he can work if we allow Him to, if we listen to Him. I'm just learning so many new things that I either grew up being told this isn't right, this is wrong, whatever, and I'm realizing that I don't know God as much as I thought I did.
Speaker 1:Shocker there, I mean how many of us are in that boat. You have to be the man through the screen and shake your head. Yeah, I know, and I'm understanding that he's more powerful than I'm giving him the benefit of a doubt, for he's more capable of doing things than I have ever thought he is. And the way you are going about helping deliver people who are believers, who may think they're believers, who aren't believers all of that is really opening my eyes to that. This is something that is necessary, and there's probably so many people in our countries alone, let alone other countries where you've experienced this, that could use this kind of help in the actual way, not the way that the modern is doing it. Yeah, I got saved by an unclean spirit being cast out of the universe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I know somebody else who has too.
Speaker 2:That's here in Canada, Niagara Falls area, right so right across the border from the US, right yeah yeah, so I mean this is definitely.
Speaker 1:I wish that the false features of this would go away, but it can't, so the ones who are doing it right, have to be louder.
Speaker 2:Do you know what? Philippians, chapter one Paul thanks God for the false guys freaking Christ out of envy. He's in prison, he can't do anything and he thanks God for that. That's the attitude we have to have. I can't change somebody else's stupidity. All that I can do is be the true deal, not the counterfeit. Yeah, I love that. Every now and then I've discovered that I've made some. I have some erroneous thought or some wrong pattern or some sinful behavior that I have to get rid of.
Speaker 2:But that's different from having an embrace of something that's ugly.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's discovering that you have not yet learned. So, yeah, there's.
Speaker 2:there's tremendous goodness and power in the grace of God to I just want to say this so, being and the grace of God, I just want to say this being a group of people who say that God doesn't do that anymore, and there's a whole section of Christians in the United States in particular that says God doesn't do that anymore. About half the evangelical Christians in the States are in that camp. It's called cessationism, but the bottom line is my dad got saved when Jesus appeared to him, and they would tell me that that was an unclean visitation and my dad's not really saved. No, no, no, no, no. Jesus told him his sins were forgiven. He looked him in the eye and it was waves of love. I got saved by having an unclean spirit cast out of me, and so you can't tell me that that's not for now, but that's just experience.
Speaker 1:God's going to do what God's going to do. That is exactly what I'm realizing.
Speaker 2:Well, the bottom line is just this Cessationism says that God can't, and the embrace of the scripture says that God always does. And the teaching of cessationism is that all of those magnificent acts of power, all of those deliverances, all those signs and wonders stop with the 12. That when the 12 died, that was the end of it. The canon was formed. Now we have the Bible, but in the canon itself we have a book called James. James was the half-brother of Jesus. He was, until the resurrection, an antagonist Wanted to arrest him because he thought his brother belonged in a loony bin. And so you have this antagonism in James. So he was not one of the original 12. Book of Galatians calls him an apostle. Paul says I saw none of the apostles except James, the Lord's brother. That means there weren't just 12 and 13. Paul did not become the 12th and 13th. Barnabas was called an apostle. Paul was called an apostle. Silas and Timothy were called apostles, so James was called an apostle. Silas and Timothy were called apostles, so James was called an apostle.
Speaker 2:The book of James was written by someone who was not part of the original 12. It was sanctioned by the great church as scripture. And James tells people who are elders in the church, who are distinctly not involved with the ministry of Jesus at all and were tutored and mentored by James himself, that they should engage in prayer for healing and expect miraculous access. That means the New Testament says cessationism is wrong. The New Testament itself, the last books of the Bible were the 1, 2, 3, john and Revelation books. John, the son of Zebedee, was in his nineties and he says anyone who says he abides in Jesus must walk as he walked. That means John in his nineties was embracing the notion that there could be miraculous acts of power through those who walk with Jesus and he said it at the end of the canon as the last apostle. So I am now quite convinced utterly that the Bible teaches cessationism is wrong and we must accept that these gifts of the Spirit are for today and we must accept but I'm not one of them prosperity gospel guys.
Speaker 1:Good good.
Speaker 2:I'd like to pray for your listeners, if I could so. Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for all the people who listen to Emma's broadcast, and right now there are people who are asking questions about whether they have been infected with an unclean spirit or whether they are in one of those categories for healing. Jesus, here's what I know about who you are. You are perfect and you are pure love. Anyone who cries out to you can have deliverance. Anyone who cries out to you can be guided to a pathway, to a remedy, or to an instant heal, or to this place of understanding. They're in the place of holy mystery. Would you speak to all the listeners by your beautiful presence to guide them to whatever pathway they need to become whole and complete in Christ? Let everyone who's listening to this broadcast understand and know that God's desire to make them well is bigger and stronger and deeper and higher and more rich than even their deepest imagining. Bless them and lead them in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1:Amen, perfect way to end this episode. Thank you again, dr David, for coming on and having this chat with me.
Speaker 2:It's an absolute delight and joy.
