I was thinking back to the first time I prayed for someone that claimed to have demons. It was at the end of a church service, and the Pastor’s sermon topic was “Demons”. Just two weeks prior I’d joined his deliverance ministry, and as of yet had received no formal training. I was instructed by another team member, to pray with people at the front of the church and if something came up, to just tell it to “leave in Jesus name.” The experienced members of the team (for some reason) couldn’t make it to the service, so it was left up to me and another novice. Meanwhile the pastor finished his sermon, left the auditorium, and headed for the back offices of the church.
Two hundred fifty people had attended the service, and when the pastor asked for any that wanted prayer to come forward, One Hundred people came forward. Fifty people lined up in front of each of these two novices. I had just anointed the forehead of a man that was first in line, when he glared at me and began ROARING (at the top of his lungs) like a lion or bear, and wildly swinging his arms. I did the only thing I knew to do, and that was to tell it to, “Go in Jesus name!” Still roaring, the man backed up and began tearing the chairs apart (that were held together by metal rods) and throwing them. All the while I kept yelling over and over, “Come out in the name of Jesus!” After several minutes of this, the Pastor (who’d heard the commotion) returned, grabbed me, stopped me, and said “It’s an Alter!”
This Pastor then used the Word of God, got the demon separated from the dissociative part of this man, and quickly had the situation under control. The man definitely had demons but the roaring wasn’t coming from a demon. He’d been horribly abused as child, and I was yelling “Come out in the name of Jesus!” at a wounded little boy, and probably wounding him further.
This was spiritual abuse on my part. It wasn’t intentional, my intentions were good. . . it’s just that I didn’t know what I was doing. This sort of spiritual abuse goes on every day because of spiritual ignorance in the church, and also the false belief that a Christian can’t have a demon.
It’s my passion to train up an army of Gods people to minister effective, inner healing and deliverance, and take it to the whole world.
