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Pastor to Pastor
Unraveling Deliverance: Understanding Spiritual Authority Ep. 1
Can Christians be possessed by demons? Find out the answer as we unravel the layers of deliverance ministry with Pastors Jason and Seth. In our latest episode, we kick off an enlightening series by defining deliverance, discussing its importance, and debunking common misconceptions. Drawing a powerful analogy from the Old Testament temple, we clarify how Christians, as temples of the Holy Spirit, can experience demonic oppression but not possession. With years of hands-on experience, our pastors emphasize the continually evolving understanding of deliverance, stressing the significance of approaching this ministry with humility and biblical grounding.
Prepare to gain practical insights into how demons operate and discover the steps to resist their influence. We'll highlight essential biblical references, such as James 1:14 and James 4:7, and the crucial role of repentance, humility, and being filled with the Holy Spirit, illustrated through Matthew 12:43-45. Through real-life examples, including gripping ministry experiences from India, we underscore the urgency of deliverance and the necessity of discipleship and accountability for lasting freedom. Tune in to empower yourself with the knowledge and authority God has given you, and be inspired to stay engaged with our future teachings that promise to strengthen your walk in spiritual authority.
hey, it's pastor to pastor. Time for another episode with pastor jason pastor seth man.
Speaker 2:I am excited about this one absolutely.
Speaker 1:Hey, look, we are always learning, we're always growing and, and when it comes to deliverance, which is what we're talking about now, we're gonna do a series on deliverance, because there's so much as you dig into.
Speaker 1:This is one of those things where, yeah, you experience it, but now we're trying to put some some head knowledge, some some spiritual knowledge, with some experience that we've had before, to help people grow and understand what deliverance really is, because there's not a whole lot of people operating in deliverance and we know from experience there's a whole lot of pastors that don't even believe in deliverance yeah, and what?
Speaker 2:what we know this is, even though we've we've been doing deliverance for probably six, seven years now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um. We are not experts. Absolutely Continuing to learn when people ask me and we talk about deliverance, like we're taking a team, uh in September back to India and we did some deliverance training. First thing I'm saying what I teach you, you might not even see. It may be something completely different.
Speaker 2:And so it's every evolving knowledge and understanding and every experience is different. But I'm excited over the next few episodes to talk through this and break this thing down, speaking of people who really don't talk about it. A lot of ministries don't, because I think there's just such a huge lack of understanding. But even when we were in India, when we were delivering people, I mean, all the pastors turn around, they gone.
Speaker 1:Right, they just dip. Man. I'm like, these are your people, why you leave us, help us, set them free.
Speaker 2:Man Right, you allow these demons in here. Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too, and it's one of those things. Yeah, just to be clear. Look, we're not experts, but I believe anybody who's trying to grow in deliverance or anything in the spirit world realize that I don't care how quote unquote expert you are, there's always stuff to learn. So, whether you believe in deliverance, you've been operating in it. I think you'll learn something from here, and if you haven't really even paid attention to deliverance or even know that it exists, you're going to learn something. You're going to learn a lot through these next few episodes.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. When Do these next few episodes? Yeah, absolutely. When you look at passages of Scripture too, pastor Jay, is there's two things that Jesus had the disciples do. He said preach the gospel and cast out devils, cast out evil spirits. And so if the church is not operating in this ministry, we've got to really pull back the veil and see what we're missing in the calling and the purpose of these ministries when it comes to setting people free not just with salvation, but the freedom of life that he's given us to from the burdens and the bondage and all that kind of stuff. Hey, let's break it down really quick. What, in fact, is deliverance?
Speaker 1:So that's a really good question. So deliverance is the action of being set free. When we talk about deliverance, we're talking about the spiritual deliverance or setting free of somebody from an evil spirit. I've heard it described this way and I like to think of it this way because it makes more sense evil personality.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's being delivered, it's being set free from under bondage of an evil personality or evil spirit. That's right?
Speaker 2:Yep, even though it's got a simple definition, it is very deep understanding because when you think of deliverance and the spirits and the demonic and all that kind of stuff, they're just not just one little grouping. There are multiple groups of how they operate and stuff you know. So really quickly. I know it's a question that we're going to get and I say we go ahead and deal with it at the very top of deliverance, because you know what's going to come up is can Christians be possessed by demons?
Speaker 1:Can Christians, can born-again believers, be possessed? Possessed? Look, I know we chatted about this a little before and I know what your definition or description is going to be and I shared with you kind of like what I, what I feel out about it, and so here's, here's the way I think best for me, from from my mindset, to be able to understand it, if you, if you understand the old school temple, or the old school, the old Testament temple, if you understand the whole school.
Speaker 1:We know, we know we are. We are now the temple of God, of the Holy spirit. But but if you understand what the old temple looked like, you understood that on the outer side was called the outer courts, and then on inside of the court was the inner courtroom, the inner courts, and then inside of that was the Holy of Holies, and so you had these three different layers, from outside to inside, to the innermost, where you could go, uh, but only only the high priest could go inside into the holy of holies. So the best way I think to describe this is that if you're a christian, god dwells and lives in that innermost part, yeah, and it is uninhabitable by anything other than him. That's right, and so if you are owned by God, then you're possessed by God.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's right. If that's the best way to describe it, you are his prized possession is what scripture says.
Speaker 1:Exactly, you are his Right and I'm telling you darkness and light can't dwell in the same space. Can you be oppressed? Can you have something on the outer court and you allow it to the inner court? Absolutely, I do believe that We'll get into that and how that's possible, but I think, if you're to describe that, that's exactly how I would describe Can a Christian be possessed? No, but can they be oppressed? That's just the terminology. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because when you think of possession, you think of ownership. Right, can, can a man serve two masters? Can't. Can they be owned by two people? I mean, if you belong to the father and he has ownership of your life and of your heart, you've repented, you received him then how could uh, the other evil spirits, how could satan, how could he own you? So you know, I think when it comes to possession, I'm the same way. I do believe that you can't, but you can be oppressed, and scripture talks through that and helps us break those things down too yeah, um, yeah.
Speaker 1:And here's the thing too. I think you have to understand, first of all, that we are. We are physical beings, um, but we're also spiritual beings and the spirit world exists and is just as real as a physical world is. In fact, in ephesians, hold on, let, let me, let me, let me get you back in some Bible real quick, right? So Ephesians 6, 12 says for we wrestle.
Speaker 1:We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rules of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts and wickedness in the heavenly places. Look, there are. There is absolutely evil and there's absolutely good, there's God and there's the devil, and so God allows the devil to do whatever the devil is doing, until the time has come when God is done with him and his time is up and he's finally judged and kicked into the furnace I'm trying to, not hell itself, but the lake of fire. At the end, everything will be thrown into the lake of fire, but the lake of fire. At the end, everything will be thrown into the lake of fire, but until that time, he has a period to do certain things that God's using according to his plan and purpose.
Speaker 1:So, yes, but I need you to understand that there is a spirit world and, even though you may be looking at people a lot of times, what you're missing is what you don't see, and that's the spirit operating through a person. So yeah, absolutely, people can be oppressed and possessed, although a Christian can't be actually possessed by a demon, by the devil, only God. But yeah, the spirit world is actually possessed, it does exist and it is real, oh for sure.
Speaker 2:And when we talk about oppressed, let's just break this down, just so we bring some clarity. Remember possession is your own, he controls. Remember Scripture in Mark 9, I believe it is where it proves that. Actually. Why don't you just read that really quick, Pastor Jaden, I think it's 9, 17 through 18.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mark 9, 17 through 18 says. Then one in the crowd answered Teacher, I brought you my son, who was a mute spirit, and whenever it seizes him it throws him down, he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples that they should cast it out, but they could not.
Speaker 2:And so what this scripture proves is that possession is ownership. They are controlling this person completely.
Speaker 1:They will manifest and they will take control of the body.
Speaker 2:Right, it's not Sam anymore, it's this demonic thing. You get what I'm saying. It's two different things in that moment, but that's what possession is. It's controlling. It controls everything, but then it's kind of like a switch One moment you're yourself and the next moment you have no control of what you're doing Right which reminds you of a mental illness.
Speaker 1:We'll get into that.
Speaker 2:That might be the next episode.
Speaker 1:That's going to be a good breakdown.
Speaker 2:But let's look at oppression. How do we get oppressed as Christians from the end? I think the number one way that that happens is that we open up the door of sin in our lives. And when you open up the door, you're creating an opportunity for something to come in because you've opened it, whether it's something that you watched online, or maybe it's an attitude or something that switched in your mind and now you've allowed him to come in and just rest there.
Speaker 2:Some of the ways that the demonic act with us is that one they entice. The Bible says in James 1.14,. It says that when you pursue your own desires, that they entice you to continue to live in sin. And those enticings is the enemy oppressing you to stay, because here's the overall goal, pastor Jay. Stay, because here's the overall goal, pastor jay, if the demonic, if the demon, if the evil spirits, if they can oppress you enough, their goal is to get you to disconnect from being owned by the father right, disconnecting from the church, disconnecting from god. That way they can come in and take ownership of something right, which is you?
Speaker 1:yeah, because currently they have no physical form to operate in that operate in except those who allow them to operate in them. That's right so in the scripture it talks about them walking through the wilderness, which we'll get into a little bit here in just a few. But yeah, they can dwell in wildernesses, they can dwell in people, they can dwell in animals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the Bible says there's two ways. They operate from the outside of the body, but they operate from the inside of the body. James 4, 7 says that we must resist them. Resisting is an outward posture. We're resisting the enemy, we're resisting him. And then it says in Mark 1, 39 that we are to expel them. So here's the good news is that you can resist them and they get no lead way in your life. But if they do, because of your failures and your mistakes or whatever you go through, there is power to expel them from your life, where you can no longer be battling them anymore. Now here's the trick In Scripture it talks about I've got to remember where it's at, but I think it's in Mark, where there was a lady who was set free from this demonic spirit.
Speaker 2:It was one, and the Bible said that when he came back to see, he saw that it was empty. It was clean, swept clean. Her body was completely empty. It was not full of anything anymore. So he went and got seven other demons, yeah, and they came back to fill her again. What does this teach us? It teaches us that if you're going to be set free and delivered from something that is demonic. You better feel it with the Holy Spirit. You better feel your heart with Christ and his way, or you're going to, you're going to set yourself up for more demonic fights, and this is why, when you are delivering people or even talk, walking yourself through deliverance, the first thing you need to do is repent, confess, humble yourself and take the pride away and commit your life to Christ and let him enter you and be filled with the Holy Spirit. So when now you are owned by Christ, nothing else can come in. It has to be expelled Right, but if not, you're leaving yourself open Right To more problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're leaving yourself open to more problems. Yeah, and I think we, as deliverance ministers, or as ministers or people of the gospel, have got to set a plan in place for those who are delivered of discipleship, of leading and accountability, and helping them grow in the knowledge of Christ, instead of walking in error or walking in sin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:But a scripture I think you were looking for is in Matthew 12, 43 through 45.
Speaker 1:Christ is talking about it. He says when an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places and some translations say wilderness Seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says I will return to my house, from which I came. And when he comes he finds an empty swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there and the last state of the man is worse than the first. So shall also be the same with this wicked generation.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and really we're talking about casting demons out of people. You cast them out, but if there's no plan, you're really setting them up for even greater failure and even greater hardship.
Speaker 2:That's right, which even justifies, pastor Jay, why discipleship is so important.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Even when you look at salvation in churches today, I would say eight out of ten churches I'm just throwing a number out, but just based off of what I've experienced in conversations with pastors. Right as a salvation, there's no plan for these people. They just become a number. Yeah, when is discipleship? We've got to find a place for that, even when it comes to deliverance in the body of Christ.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, you've got to. It's a part of what we're supposed to do. I mean, christ didn't even say go save people. He said go make disciples that's right and go baptize. And so we know that discipleship, that salvation, is a part of discipleship, but discipleship is the greater goal in our ministries. So we're talking about the. What does it mean? Make them do things? We talked about the guy being, or the kid being, thrown down on seizures.
Speaker 1:Look, we've seen this level of possession in India, right, we were literally probably our second time there, if not our first, our first or second time there. We were on stage ministering, and I shared this in the class we taught the other night. We're on the stage and when you call for it, there are probably 1,100 people there, right, and so we are standing on stage and we do an altar call and we say, look, if you feel like there's—we all knew that it was deliverance time. We knew God wanted to deliver people. So we're like, if you feel this dark presence in your life, if you just feel like you cannot get away from something, like something is just over you, like a dark cloud, if you feel that we want you to come up to the altar, and so there's like one or 200 people at the altar and there's three of us ministering and you're like where do you start?
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah. And the story you're saying is actually our first year there Was it first. And this is our actual first real encounter, real encounter.
Speaker 1:And we ain't talking about no little imp or no little old, tiny little old demon. Nah, bro, listen. Hey. So Pastor Chris at the time, who went with us, was like you know, when we all start really declaring the light of God, the light of heaven would illuminate the darkness.
Speaker 1:That's right. And we are on stage and watching faces kind of begin to shift and move. It was very evident and this may scare some people. Look, this is not to scare you. This is to show you the power that dwells within. Yeah, we start calling for this light of heaven and literally faces start shaking like they're faces having a seizure or something. It's crazy. I don't know how else to explain it. But then we go off the stage and we start walking through the crowd and I remember Chris touching one and praying for her and she dropped to her knees and he kept going. I was walking behind him and I just go to walk by this lady and the Holy Spirit says and I don't use this terminology, right, neither do and I just go to walk by this lady and the Holy Spirit says and I don't use this terminology, but he said Terry with her and I'm like Terry with her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, talk about old school. Yeah, old school, right, we take it to that I don't know.
Speaker 1:But so I'm like, okay, so I'm just kind of standing there. She's on her knees, you know, crying, and I'm just like alllexander pagani and we've done some, some studying with him and and and things like that. And so immediately to me came when I asked that question holy spirit, what do you want to do? She, the holy spirit, said declare the contract that was made with this with the enemy years ago is now void. Yeah, and I'm like by the blood of jesus. And I was like, uh, okay, so I get down in her face and she don't understand a bit of English and I don't speak Telugu, that's right. So I look at her right in her face and I said the contract entered with you years ago is now void in the name of Jesus and by the blood of the Lamb. Bro, listen, this thing manifests and she starts writhing like a snake.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a tongue going everywhere, yeah, I mean, and this you know, this continued.
Speaker 1:We cast this thing out for six hours, from 10 o'clock at night till 4 o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2:Look when she started slithering on the ground, going under the tarp and we had to pull her legs out to get her from under the tarp. I was ready to go home, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And we're looking at each other like uh, In fact, I reached out. What did we do, dude? I FaceTimed Pagani, I remember, I remember. And Pagani's like man, I ain't got no authority over no Hindu demon. He's like. You know, I'm not there, you're on assignment, you have the authority Pass that thing out.
Speaker 2:Thanks for nothing brother. Man it brings it. I mean, that was our first encounter of actually that heavy of a demonic spirit and I remember what it said to us. Now you'll find in Scripture. We may end up breaking this down we haven't really talked about it but they do speak. They will tell you who they are. They will back talk to you. I ain't never in my life wanted to slap a woman the way.
Speaker 1:I wanted to slap them even though I knew it wasn't her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he says who gives you authority to speak to us? Yeah speak to me. I was there when adam was deceived in the garden I was like oh, we're dealing with some ancient demonic spirits, man. But the good thing is is that we carry an authority right.
Speaker 1:They cannot withhold absolutely that is jesus christ yeah, and come to find out. Um, we talked about how, how demons We'll really, I think, get into that a little bit more at another episode but they worship millions of different gods over there. Snake God has happened to be one of them, and she said that or the demon said that her uncle and I think her dad had entered into a had offered her as a sacrifice, along with themselves, to this snake god, and so she had been possessed for years, seven years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then, on top of that, she ended up having lost a few babies.
Speaker 2:Two babies is what he said. She would never have kids. Now this is the demon telling us this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm like so we're going to find her husband Right? Like you, sure you want to serve this thing. I mean, it's killing your babies. You want a family you better and denounce him and serve the lord absolutely, and uh, and they both you could tell the great news if you want to well, she ended up having babies after it.
Speaker 1:That's right yeah, they will. The important thing is they both come to christ that night. The thing is is defeated and they end up having children afterwards. So, yeah, I mean the power. Listen, it is true what scripture says, all of it is true, but it says what is on inside of us is greater than what's inside the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:What's greater than what's in the world, and we are evidence of that. We have seen that. We've actually seen these things manifest. This thing was saying they were equal to god, and then, by the end of the night was uh, she was declaring that that jesus was king, was was lord that's right so yeah, there's a lot to it, man.
Speaker 1:There there's uh also scripture, really, uh, of other scripture, of demons making people do things, or or of, yeah, making people do things. So you get the seven sons of skiva. Oh yeah, right, there's these. There's these seven sons of this high priest who are out here and they're using the name of Jesus to expel, to exorcise demons out of people, but they come up on one who just so happens to who is you Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like you know.
Speaker 1:Peter, we know, or Jesus we know Paul, we know. It's like you know Peter, we know, or Jesus we know Paul, we know, but who are you? And they end up, and this thing ends up beating them out of their clothes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, it gets them naked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they take off running. But I mean the demon manifested in that person and started putting a whooping on them, their seven sons of Sceva.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. When it comes to deliverance and things, you've got to be confident in the authority that you carry and realize that if there's a situation where you're delivering someone or get the privilege of being a part of delivering someone, know that you're in the room for a reason.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:That God's going to use you to set the captive free. No matter what the delusion that these demonic spirits are in, they hold no authority over Jesus Christ and his precious blood, because the real thing is this is that they are thieves.
Speaker 1:They own nothing. They come to do nothing but to still kill and destroy.
Speaker 2:So what they think they own, they don't. They just temporarily written right now until Jesus shows up and takes back what belongs to him. That's right, amen. I went to the enemy's camp and I took back.
Speaker 1:See, I know you're white because you want one in three. What you know about that, how much you know about that, son, yeah, yeah, yes, sir, look, man, look, this is a great, great start for us to kind of get moving in this direction. And so, listen, I encourage you guys to share this, to follow this, whatever you need to do, but, look, be on the check every week for a new release. We're going to be releasing these deliverance podcasts and it's going to be important. We're going to start talking about where can demons live. We're going to talk about unclean spirits.
Speaker 2:We're going to talk about all kinds of things, your family, how to engage with those things as well.
Speaker 1:Right, because there's going to be some great information in here. Listen, if Christians were walking in their full authority and the full knowledge of God, and full of the knowledge of God and the things that he's given us, we're going to start to see strongholds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen yeah.
Speaker 1:So I encourage you guys to stay connected, stay dialed in and continue listening for these drops on deliverance, because it is way more than just deliverance. This is going to help teach you how to walk in authority. Yeah absolutely so, brother. If you've got anything else, go ahead and bless them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to bless you. And Numbers, chapter 6,. May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace. Thank you so much for taking a look and a listen at this podcast. Share it with someone. We can't wait to share some more information along the way.
Speaker 1:Hope along the way. Hope you enjoyed it. Talk to you soon, adios.
