Demons Inside You—Proofs Offered, Proofs Refuted
The modern deliverance ministers only damage their own credibility when they consistently set forth flawed and flimsy reasons to make their points. They do this on two levels: different premises and different proofs.
Let’s consider each.
Different Premises
Their first false premise is this: God and demons can co-exist in a believer. Just because God is in our life, they tell us, doesn't mean one or more demons can't be there right beside him.
Dr. Randy Clark, one of the new deliverance ministers, says it is logically plausible that a demon can indwell a Christian, since demons do exist, and God is omnipresent.1
That's logical? Since both God and Satan are in the universe, both can be in you? Really?
The simplest response to that observation is that two people can be in the same room and yet have nothing to do with each other. Proximity and co-habitation are not the same thing.
Neil Anderson also lapses into this type of reasoning when he says, “Satan presently has access to our Father in heaven. So it should not be thought impossible that demonic influence can partially control the life of one in whom the Holy Spirit also dwells.”2
Anderson's point is pointless. Because Satan no longer has access to the Father in Heaven!
Revelation 12:10 says Satan has been cast down. That is, as prosecutor, he lost the case! And therefore, what once happened during the days of Job—Satan convening with God to make accusations against a believer—isn’t happening anymore.
Why not? Because there is nothing to talk about!
The verdict has already been rendered!
The charges have already been dispatched!
These accusations were nailed to the cross!
What’s more, there can be no appeal! Because there is no higher court!
High court or not, why would any court hear a case when the final verdict has already been rendered?
The proven point is this. The Christian ever lives in the cleansing tide of Jesus’ shed blood! Every sin is forgiven already, and always!
At such a high cost, we have been redeemed—permanently! We belong to Jesus!
It is precisely because Satan has no legal standing that Scripture asks, who can bring a charge against God’s elect? The implied answer is, no one. Not now!
This verse goes on to explain, “It is God who justifies” (Romans 8:33). And he already did that! His act closed the case and sealed the deal!
In 1992, Jack Deere, former professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and later theologian for the Vineyard movement argued that “Jesus dwells with sin anytime he inhabits the heart of a new believer. If He can dwell in a sinful person, why couldn’t he dwell in a demonized person?” 3
That’s a fair question, but it overlooks important factors.
First, Jesus doesn’t indwell people until all their sins—past, present, and future—have been forgiven; that is, blotted out, eliminated, annihilated, obliterated, completely and eternally forgotten, buried (in the deepest sea), removed (as far as the east is from the west), and therefore existing no more!
So it just isn’t true to say that because Jesus and sin coexist (they don’t), Jesus and the demons can also coexist in a believer (they can’t).
The coexistence of demons with the Holy Spirit inside the life of a believer is further argued by Rob Reimer based on what Jesus said in Luke 11.4
Verse 13 from that chapter records the Master saying, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
Ignoring context, Dr. Rob Reimer extracts the point he wants: Jesus said he’ll give the Holy Spirit to evil people.
But that's not what Jesus said. Had contextual clues been sought (they weren’t), Reimer would have had to answer the question, so why didn’t Jesus give the Holy Spirit to them that day?
Of course, the reason he didn’t was because their sin problem hadn’t been dealt with yet. The cross had to occur first, and then the resurrection, and then the receiving of the Holy Spirit.
Contrary to Reimer, the Father wasn’t giving the Holy Spirit to indwell the lives of evil people.
Not willing to concede the point, Reimer turns to I John 1:8 to say: If we say we don’t have sin, we are lying.5 But is this really the message of I John? It is not!
All that John is saying in this verse is that everyone has had a problem with sin; it would be a lie to say otherwise. But John isn’t saying that victory over sin is impossible and that believers today are still evil.
Let’s briefly review John’s letter to track his thinking on this point..
I John 1:4 states that John’s purpose for this letter is that their joy would be full. But could they, or we, have fullness of joy if defeated by sin every day? The idea that I John is teaching us about the inevitability of sin simply isn’t true.
In I John 2:1, the apostle speaks of a life available to us where we may not sin. In I John 2:5 he says of this life that we can keep his word and find God’s love being perfected in us. In I John 2:14 he speaks of believers having overcome the wicked one.
But can it be said we have overcome him if his temptations frequently bring us into defeat? We could not! Ongoing defeat would render such a claim hollow, untrue, specious.
Staying in I John 2, we find John saying the believer can have an abiding relationship with God (verses 24 and 27). I John 3:6 says the same thing: “Whoever abides in Him does not sin.” And I John 3:24 also declares: “… he who keeps His commandments abides in Him ….”
Of course, the enabling power for commandment-keeping is attributable to the believer living “through Jesus” (I John 4:9) and therefore being able to practice righteousness (I John 2:29), purify himself (I John 3:3), and become like Jesus (I John 4:17).
What this new deliverance minister told is totally false.
Different Proofs
Thinking they still have a case, these new new deliverance roll out one verse after another seeking to prove a demon can inhabit a Christian.
Where is the biblical justification for their claim that demons can indwell a believer?
Neil Anderson, perhaps the most influential deliverance minister in the evangelical church, states that Acts 5:3 is the strongest verse supporting the view that a Christian can be demonized.
This is the verse where Peter asked Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? But when examining the passage, we see Ananias’ heart was filled with the lie, not with Satan.
Satan, the consummate liar, had simply suggested that Ananias lie. That’s it; there was nothing more complicated than that.
Ananias wasn’t overwhelmed, he wasn’t rendered powerless by some dark power; he exercised his own will, and so did his wife who also lied and died that day (Acts 5:7-9).
In his book, The Bondage Breaker, Neil Anderson sets forth still another supposed proof, claiming, “The apostle Peter is an example of a believer who temporarily lost control to Satan, when he urged Jesus not to die.”6
But did Peter really lose control? If so, it would have meant that nothing Jesus said to Peter could do any good, not if the apostle had no control over his own will. An exorcism would have to occur first.
No exorcism occurred. No exorcism was needed.
Jesus simply spoke to Peter, and apparently—not lacking will, not lacking control—Peter got the message and immediately stopped. Loss of control wasn’t the issue; needed correction was.
Another proof of a believer being demonized, Neil Anderson asserts, is that the woman bent over double in Luke 13:10-17; she was under “demonic control.”
Not true! Scripture only describes her as being physically (not behaviorally) afflicted by the devil. Yes, Satan can inflict the body from the outside, but there is no proof that a demon was inside her.
More recently, Tucker Carlson relayed an account where that happened to him. While sleeping in bed with his light-sleeping wife who never awoke, Tucker suddenly awoke with much pain. He sat up, only to see blood on the sheets and deep scratches on his side, the side he was sleeping on!
He went outside, inspected the wounds further, found them to be more like gouges than scratches, and instantly knew demons had done this.
Tucker isn't a religious man—or wasn't then—but when he went back inside and saw all the blood on the sheets, he knew that he knew that a demon did this. It was at that point he made the decision to read the entire Bible, and apply his investigative mind to that!
In his book, Overcoming the Dominion of Darkness, Gary D. Kinnaman responded to the question—can a Christian be demon-possessed? —by saying: “The debate among Christians over this question will probably never be resolved, because the Bible does not address the question directly.” 7
That is a major concession!
Little wonder these new deliverance ministers have such a difficult time finding support from the Bible for their views. The support isn’t there!
But on a topic this important, it should be there if the reality of demons indwelling Christians really existed.
Miles J. Sanford reminds us: “The Greek word, ekballo, to ‘cast out,’ does not appear in the Epistles. In the Acts and the Epistles there is not one example of a demon possession of a member of the Body of Christ. Neither is there a single word of instruction about casting demons out of a Christian.” 8
Is this not strange? “For if deliverance is as important to victorious Christian living as its advocates would have us believe, we can rightly expect the New Testament to deal with it.” So wrote Michael Horton before then referencing Paul’s words of warning, “not to exceed what is written” (I Corinthians 4:6 NASB).9
The new deliverance ministers, all of them, have run the red light on this warning by coming to God's people with the message that demons can invade and inhabit them..
Notes:
1. Randy Clark, The Biblical Guidebook to Deliverance, (Lake Mary, FL, Charisma House, 2015), p.51.
2. Neil Anderson, Bondage Breaker pdf, p.99.
3. Jack Deere, Healing ’92 Conference: An Advanced Course in Healing with John Wimber, Conference Handbook and Workshop Notes (Anaheim: Anaheim Vineyard, 1991), p.3.
4. Rob Reimer, Soul Care with Dr. Rob Reimer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h6w-SI2FWs
5. Ibid.
6. Neil Anderson, https://www.coursehero.com/file/44130870/Neil-T-Anderson-The-Bondage-Breakerpdf/ p.101.
7. John Eckhardt, Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare Manual, (Lake Mary, FL, Charisma House, 2014), p.28.
8. Miles J. Sanford, https://web.archive.org/web/20130115153707/http://www.wth christ.org/MJS/neil_anderson.htm
9. Michael Horton, In the Face of God, (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996), p.97.
Dr. J.W. Phillips is the author of the book, Swatting the Saved, a major, well-researched work (more than 400 pages, almost 700 endnotes) that exposes the ministerial malpractice of deliverance ministries.
