Hi all,
I was on a ministry trip in Mexico speaking at a small church up in the mountains. Their hearts were pure in their love and fear of the Lord, though they were poorly taught.
In the prayer line after the service nearly every woman came forward for prayer, and the vast majority said they wanted prayer to get rid of demons which they blamed for their ailments. Many had stomach pain, others had pain in their joints, all blamed on demons. When laying hands on them to command healing, the vast majority did not actually have demons – they just needed healed. I wondered why they thought every ailment was from a demon.
The Influence of Demons
In the gospels there are only 19 or 20 instances of individuals being healed by Jesus (depending how you count them). They range from Peter’s mother-in-law near the start of Jesus’ ministry in Mark 1: 29-30, to Malchus’ ear being healed which Peter had cut off in the Garden of Gethsemane. (Luke 22: 49-51 and John 18:10-11.)
Even more surprising is that there are only 7 instances of individuals being delivered from demons or their influence in the gospels. (There are passages stating large groups of people were healed and/or delivered such as Mark 1: 34, but I am talking about individual instances.)
It is in these individual accounts we are able to see in some detail the interaction between Jesus and demons, and how He dealt with them. The most revealing interaction is perhaps the 3x repeated account in Matthew 8: 28-34, Mark 5: 1-20, Luke 8: 26-39 of the man with Legion. This was the man who had so many demons, Jesus spoke to the leader named Legion. A Roman Legion was 2,000 soldiers, so this many had many demons. (Matthew 8:28 says there were two men, Mark and Luke just focus on the one man who had Legion.)
The man who was delivered lived in the Greek area of the Gadarenes. It was a Greek and Roman region of 10 cities called the Decapolis on the east side of the Lake of Galilee, to whom Jesus went and taught. The first thing we notice is ‘the man had an unclean spirit.’ An unclean spirit could be used to describe someone having a demon, but it could also mean more specifically, a sexually unclean spirit. That he was cutting himself and naked suggests this understanding. Luke 8: 35 says once delivered people were shocked he was ‘clothed and in his right mind’.
The demon in charge of the man was called Legion. Here we see one aspect of demons; they are identified by their function. Legion was in charge of many demons. A deaf spirit caused deafness. A blind man unable to speak was delivered of a blind and dumb spirit in Matthew 12: 22. In Luke 13: 11 a woman bowed over for 18 years had a spirit of infirmity. Angels have names, demons have been stripped of everything and are known by their function. Satan is the word ‘adversary’ in Hebrew and Greek. (hassatan and satana, respectively)
Demons are Territorial
In Mark 5:10 the demon named Legion begs Jesus not to send them out of the country. Most of us know there are parts of any city or town where bad things happen. We also know the rich and haughty parts of town. There are spirits that live in areas, and when they concentrate into an area, even unbelievers can sense the spiritual atmosphere of that area. Demons like to stay in areas they know, for they know the people there. They want influence in the natural realm.
Legion begged Jesus not to be sent out of that region, and Jesus complied. That said, Jesus also tricked Legion by allowing them to go into the pigs, which promptly committed suicide, which sent the demons back into the spirit-realm without any inroad to a person’s life. It is very possible those same spirits are there on the east side of the Sea of Galilee to this day, working to influence or enter into people with sexual sins.
Barb and I were headed home after an appointment in Tulsa, and to get to the highway had to drive through an area of town with strip clubs, bars and such. While waiting at a stop light I began to notice our surroundings, and glanced over to a one story red brick building with a small sign indicating it was a place ‘swingers’ met. At that moment the Lord opened my eyes to also see the spiritual realm. I saw demons standing and sitting around the front door of that building. Some were even sitting on the edge of the flat roof, with their legs dangling over the side. They all were just standing or sitting there. I asked the Father: “What are they doing there?” He immediately replied: “They’re waiting for the place to open, to see who they might attach themselves to.”
Yes, demons are territorial. This is what we see in what the Old Testament calls ‘familiar spirits’. Those are spirits ‘familiar’ with a family, often associated therefore with contacting the dead in séance. (The familiar spirit imitates the dead person, and because they are familiar with the family, often know things about that dead or living persons).
When a person with a familiar spirit moves to another region or another country, that demon goes with them, bringing demonic influence to a new nation or region. This is how whole nations become oppressed by demons and ‘doctrines of demons’.
A familiar spirit may have entered a family generations ago, but use up one body after another through the generations, whether it be something like alcoholism or cancer, they stay with a family just like they like certain areas of town. They are just individuals, stripped of their righteousness, seeking to nullify God’s work in our lives. They cannot read minds, and getting rid of them after they’ve been in a place for some time, is often a test of wills between them and the person who has been so long oppressed and harassed by them.
Jesus also Taught on Demons in Matthew 12: 26, 43-45
In Matthew 12:26 He said: “If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?”
We have missionary friends who observed witch doctors casting demons out of a person, but what actually happened is that they opened the door for a more powerful demon under the guise of casting a lesser demon out. Our friends explained that a witchdoctor would ‘cure’ a fever by ‘casting out’ a demon, but 3 months later or so that person would get a worse disease. They realized all that happened with the person relying on the demonic, was that a more powerful demon moved in.
We see this principle outlined in what Jesus said in 12: 43-45: “When a demon is cast out he wanders in dry places seeking rest, but finding none.” This shows us when demons are cast out, they are thrown back into the spirit realm, which is ‘dry’ for them not having any opening into this natural realm – which is what they want for they want to expand their influence and find rest from the torment of the kingdom of darkness.
Jesus Continued:
“Then (the demon) says, ‘I will go back to my former house (person) and when he returns he finds it empty and clean (the person is free from the demon/condition/sin). Then (not wanting to be cast out again) he goes and gets 7 more powerful demons to inhabit the person, and they are worse off than before…”
This shows there is a hierarchy in Satan’s kingdom, as there is in God’s, for Satan can’t create, he can only pervert the True. A father may have been a sinner, but his son may be worse – with more demons. In the same way there are angels in charge of nations, like Michael we are told in Daniel 12:1 is in charge of Israel, so too are demons set up in the mirror image of what God has, all the way down to territories, cities, and areas of cities.
I was ministering in a service with about 1500 people, and the Father started talking to me about a woman present. He told me she was told by her mother when she was a girl that she wasn’t pretty, and not smart, so she would have to work hard in life. He went on to say the way she as a young girl understood her mom’s statement took away hope. That led to self-hatred, which led to anger, depression, and eventually thoughts of suicide. He told me she came that night for deliverance, or she would go home after the service and kill herself. He wanted to deliver her. As I shared all that and the rest of what He said with the congregation, I did not ask for a hand raised nor for her to come to the front for prayer. I merely cast out the demons in the name of Jesus from the platform, and asked the Father to then fill her with a fresh filling of His Spirit and heal her emotions – which opened the door for the demons in the first place.
Three weeks later a woman stopped me in the hall before the evening service, saying she was that woman. She showed me scars on her arms from previous attempts and from teen self-cutting times. She said she was totally free, it was exactly as I had stated it, and thanked me profusely. About 3 months later I saw her again and she said she was still free and doing well.
More next week, but this is plenty to think about!
Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
