More Unscriptural Deliverance Ministry Practices
One has to wonder how Scripture might have read if Neil Anderson had been the one who met the woman at the well.
Let’s see, now: five husbands and currently living with another man? Well! A lengthy interrogation is certainly due here! One can even imagine how the conversation would begin.
Tell me about your parents. Did they have a history of multiple marriages?
No Answer.
Were they even married?
More silence.
Do you even know who both of your parents are?
No words, only a look away.
Most likely, this woman came to the well during the hottest time of the day so she could avoid (because of her reputation) embarrassing exposure to others.
But tough luck, lady! Neil Anderson is waiting for you; and, nice man though he is, he’s going to let you feel the heat for a long time—and much of that won’t be from the sun.
Given these insights from Dr. Anderson, it appears that Jesus failed to do what should have been done that day.
And what about Matthew? Hmmm, let’s see, a tax collector? Well, there had to be a lot of ground to cover with Matthew! After all, tax collectors were considered thieves and serial liars. In fact, their reputation was so low they couldn’t testify in any Jewish court.
Of course, Satan is a thief and liar, so there had to be a connection here! But for some reason, there is no account of an extensive inventory undertaken to see what curses and demons were controlling this man. A very odd omission!
So Neil cries out to the departing Messiah. “Jesus, you can’t just ask him to follow you! You need to check for demons! You need to check for generational curses. You need go through some steps with this guy.”
One could also scan the record for all the cities Paul visited: Corinth, for example, where there was much occult activity; Ephesus, where brothels and temple prostitution were legendary. So, do we find Paul making the rounds, casting out demons? We do not.
Well, then, do we find specific instructions in his letters for casting out demons? We do not.
But why not? Since Paul’s letters provide extensive pastoral guidance for spiritual growth, one would think there would be something in there that sounds a little bit like Neil Anderson.
Check it out. There isn’t.
Bitterness and Jealousy Are Spirit Beings?
Another aberrational practice of some of these deliverance ministers is the attempt to cast out spirits named after certain sins—the spirit of bitterness, for example, or the spirit of jealousy. John Eckhardt says some people “need deliverance from spirits of hurt, deep hurt, rejection, sadness, grief”1 —each spirit being a demon.
The Bible, however, never identifies sins such as lust, anger and pride as “spirits” but rather as “deeds of the flesh.” Moreover, it instructs us to “put them all aside” (Colossians 3:8), never to cast them out.
Refusing to acknowledge this fact, deliverance ministers hold up II Timothy 1:7 as proof. They extract from this verse the phrase, “God has not given us a spirit of fear,” to say, “Aha, fear is a spirit!”
But saying that presupposes that God does give demons to people, just not this particular one. This is absurd!
Were that true, the rest of the verse would require saying that power, love, and a sound mind are likewise spirit beings—which, of course, they are not. They are qualities, capacities, attributes given by the Holy Spirit; they are not spirit beings.
And since one part of the Holy Spirit’s fruit is peace, that precludes the Spirit of God giving a believer destructive fear.
Frank and Ida Mae Hammond’s book, Pigs in the Parlor, is representative of this aberrant approach.2 A.A. Allen did this same thing many years earlier, naming sins as spirits to be cast out.
When it comes to practice, these new deliverance ministers are certainly inventive. They seek to cast out what the Bible says to “put off” or to “lay aside.”
The Bible’s approach for the Christian involved in spiritual warfare is to “stand” (Ephesians 6:11, 13, 14) and to “resist” (James 4:7).
Demons Have Legal Rights?
These completely different types of counsel from today's deliverance ministers suggest that what should be set aside is what they have set forth. What they say is not scriptural.
The list of these differences in demonology is longer. For example, what they say about demons having a legal right to take up residence within a believer isn’t true. They have no legal right. None!
Paul Billheimer declared, “Calvary legally destroyed Satan, and cancelled all of his claims.”3 So, forget this made-up agenda of trying to discover what legal right some demon is exploiting.
Besides, do you think that those who allied themselves with the Father of lies is going to tell you the truth about what's legal? There’s no scriptural support for any of this.4
It’s unnerving to hear all these very specific points the new deliverance ministers make without even attempting to give scriptural support. They simply assert, authoritatively.
Sin Tells Us the Location of the Demon?
They tell us, for example—and I stress, they tell us, Scripture doesn’t—that the sin that gave demon entrance predicts the location of the demon. If it’s gossip, the demon is in our throat. If it’s stealing, the demon is in our hands. If it’s stubbornness and rebellion, according to John Eckhardt, a demon may lodge in the neck or shoulders. If it’s lust, it can lodge in the eyes. If it’s pride, it can lodge in the spine. If it’s confusion, it can lodge in the head.5
The premises, proofs, and practices of the new deliverance ministers are vastly different from the premises, proofs, and practices of Scripture. The new deliverance ministries think most Christians are demonized (they’re not), that demonization is at risk if the believer sins (it isn’t), that lapsing into flesh-functioning puts us on the threshold of demonization (it doesn’t), that generational curses may have given demons access into us (they didn’t), and that demonization may allow normal behavior (it won’t).
Such diverse and, regrettably, deviant views!
The Deliverance Ministries Help Us?
What is also very different in these comparisons is the product, the outcome, the aftermath. Those who believe they live in a demon-infested world where most Christians are demonized are susceptible to constant fear.
Even getting into a car accident poses greater fear for them. Their car door gets smashed, at which time, John Eckhardt claims, another door is opened—to demons! Demons can enter during car accidents.6
Professor David Powlison from Westminster Seminary describes people caught up in these views as living in an “impoverished world of semi-occult ‘warfare.’”7 And you can see why.
If a demon can invade from so many access points—the sin of great grandpa, a thought you contemplated, some sin you committed, an unguarded statement you made—then you’re living on a battlefield where there’s all-out war!
Why, not even in your own home is there any respite; for you have been told that demons can attach to a piece of furniture. Yes, according to Neil Anderson, there are spirits that “may have seized the opening provided by nonbelievers to attach themselves to the very spaces and objects of the home.”8
This fear factor only gets bigger if you’re going to have to warn your kids that those menacing sounds they thought they heard at night may not have been in their imagination. What they thought they heard may be worse than “monsters” or “ghosts”—they may be supernatural demons!
No time to delay, then! It’s time to get the kiddies out of bed and commence exorcising! True, yours may be the only house in the city that does this. But needs must!
Of course, trying to get them back in bed after this attempted exorcism, and after explaining that the demons you just exorcised may well come back in the morning, is only going to set them up for more fear. And just think: Their wide eyes, dropped jaws, and trembling voices are all attributable to the gospel!
As for those homes with teenagers, the situation is worse. John Eckhardt contends, “Rebellious people are demonized and need to … receive deliverance.”9 Many teen-agers, I suspect, would fall into that category, so it would seem that deliverance from demons would be quite common in those homes.
Totally rejecting this fear-based view, Luther said of the devil, “He can do no more than a bad dog on a chain, which may bark, run here and there, and tear at the chain. But because it is tied and you avoid it, it cannot bite you.”
Smith Wigglesworth, the plumber from Bristol England who demonstrated the supernatural power of God in many nations, was alone in a cabin one night that didn’t have electricity. Suddenly, he was awakened from his sleep by ominous sounds. Lighting a candle, he then saw near his bed Satan himself—a gruesome, ghastly sight! Wigglesworth then blew out the candle and said, “Oh, it’s just you,” and then went back to sleep.
This brief overview of modern deliverance ministries uncovers three unsettling truths—and these are major: 1) Scripture’s depiction of demonization is vastly different from what these new deliverance ministries say; 2) the causes for demonization, as set forth by these new deliverance ministries, consistently lack the proof they cite; and 3) their treatment for believers struggling with sin is not at all what we find in Scripture.
Notes:
1. John Eckhardt, Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare Manual, (Lake Mary, FL, Charisma House, 2014), p.240.
2. Frank and Ida Mae Hammond, Pigs in the Parlor, (Kirkwood, MO: Impact Books, 1973).
3. Randy Clark acknowledges that demons are “illegal squatters that have no right in the life of a believer.” Randy Clark, The Biblical Guidebook to Deliverance, (Lake Mary, FL, Charisma House, 2015), p.96, but then contradicts himself in this same book by saying they do have rights (p.80).
4. https://theapostasyfiles.com/kathryn-krick/
5. John Eckhardt, Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare Manual, p.71.
6. John Eckhardt, Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare Manual, p.37.
7. David Powlison, Power Encounters (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1995), p.151.
8. Neil Anderson, The Bondage Breaker, (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1990), p.212.
9. John Eckhardt, Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare Manual, p.233.
Dr. J.W. Phillips is the author of the book, Swatting the Saved, a major, well-researched work (more than 450 pages, almost 700 endnotes) that exposes the ministerial malpractice of deliverance ministries.
