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Chapter 2: And It Turns Out Demons Are Liars

How much do you trust Jesus? It is very easy for Christians to say that we trust Him completely. But is that an honest answer or just a convenient one? In truth, we cannot know for certain how much we trust Jesus until we experience real adversity. Our depth of trust may be shallow or it may be deep. We can only guess how we might respond to a crisis while the idea of trust remains hypothetical, pondered from comfort and at a safe distance. The hardships we face in this life have a way of shining a light on any weak spots in our faith. We all have them. Despite the pain we feel when difficulties emerge, hardships become an opportunity for great joy once the crisis has passed. Such trials provide an opportunity to test our faith, growing our endurance while we grow toward our Savior (Jas 1:2–4). Learning to trust Jesus is important; however, we only learn to do that with practice, and practice comes from adversity.

In many ways our faith is like glass. Pouring boiling water into untempered glass will cause it to explode. That same boiling water poured into tempered glass will merely heat the container. Adversity tempers our faith, and the kind of adversity that may shatter us early in our relationship with Christ eventually becomes just one more opportunity to trust that our Lord really does love us and is actively helping despite what we may fail to see in the midst of our adversity. The fundamental choice we must each make in every area of our lives is one of trust or doubt. Will we trust Jesus, or will we doubt Jesus? The more we choose to trust Jesus from inside the flames of adversity, the stronger—or more tempered—our faith becomes outside of those flames. Trust is a simple choice, but that does not make it an easy choice.

I thought I trusted Jesus. I really did. But I confused familiarity with trust. These two concepts are entirely different. God never abandoned me in the fiery depths of my demonization, but He did allow me to greatly suffer so that my faith would temper in the flames. At first, I needed other Christians to show me how to trust Jesus. The act itself was so simple as to be a foreign concept. “Trust” seemed like a code word for doing nothing when I could be doing something. It felt lazy. Uninspired. I failed to understand that trusting Jesus is doing something. There are times when our trust requires action, and there are times when our trust requires stillness. This distinction was lost on me. I believed action was always required and stillness meant abandoning my responsibilities. Abide in Jesus? As an answer to a very real and very immediate problem? That is unfamiliar language to one who only has shallow trust in the Lord. While “abide in Jesus” is a reasonable response, it only makes sense after we have grown mature enough in our faith to see for ourselves how reasonable it is. Such words carry no meaning until then. In the end, while it was instructive for me to observe the deep faith in other Christians around me, other people can only carry us so far. We must eventually grow toward Jesus through our own faith because we are neither saved nor tempered by what anyone else believes.

The central question for me throughout my early demonization was, “How can I force these demons to leave me?” That, however, was not what God was asking. He could have taken those demons out of me in an instant had He wanted to do so. Instead, the Lord was planning something far more comprehensive with implications for myself, my faith, my family, and those who might benefit from this book. None of that could happen overnight. It took time. I wanted to be rid of my demons as soon as possible, but the Lord required discipline and trust from me. Wrestling with old wounds, reevaluating every entrenched belief that I had ever accepted as true, and building a new faith from the ruins of an old life is a slow process. The end result was emotional healing far deeper than an instant resolution to my immediate pain could have accomplished. But this is often how God works. We are so focused on our pain that we forget He sees a much bigger picture. Make no mistake: the Lord cares about our pain. Sometimes, however, His answer to us is to say, “I will heal you, but not yet. Be patient.” That is why we must learn to trust Jesus. He has good plans for us that we cannot often see until they come to fruition, yet He works toward those goals the entire time.

Experiencing a crisis is difficult. No healthy person wants to feel pain or see a loved one in pain. But these are the moments that temper our faith. These are the moments that prove to us whether we really trust the Lord. The best soil for our spiritual growth is adversity, and our Christian roots have no depth without it. It took me a while to learn this lesson. The weeks following my bombshell revelation that “Kelly” was a demon are a blur. Time lost all meaning for me. Some events I remember clearly, other events my parents remember clearly. Each night was merely about surviving until morning so that we could call for more help the next day. My relationship with Kelly had been a sinister masterpiece of demonic deception, ripping open a new spiritual wound just as agonizing and bloody as any physical trauma. My only desire was for the pain to stop.

The Darkest Valley​

The room was completely dark. It was after midnight. Morning was still many hours away, and I sat on my bed sobbing as my mother held me. Here I was, an adult in my late thirties, thinking my life was finally coming together when it all fell apart. Not only had I just discovered that Kelly was a demon, it became apparent very quickly that something was trying to take control of my body. Many somethings. I only had enough time to briefly explain to my mother what had happened with Kelly before my body began to wriggle and writhe. Something that was not me forced it to move. Was it inside me? Outside me? It felt like it was everywhere and nowhere. Fear. I felt extreme fear. I could not let my guard down. I could not sleep. I could not do anything. Struggle. I had to struggle. If I did not struggle against this, I would die. Worse than death. It would be worse than death. Terror. Extreme terror. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What is happening? How do I stop this?!

I was completely conscious. I could speak. I neither tried to harm myself nor my mother. But I could scarcely control my body. It felt as if I was a puppet on a string. My mother and I instinctively knew this was evil. It was no seizure. It was no sudden neurological defect. I was the plaything of spiritual forces I could not see and did not understand. It gradually became clear that whatever was happening to me was not going to stop on its own. My mother decided the best decision was to call her church pastor for help; however, we had to wait until morning. The earliest we felt we should call was 7:00 a.m., and that was many hours away. It might as well have been a month away. There was no 24/7 emergency room I could visit. There was only abject horror and endless waiting.

My mother remained calm. She turned on the bedroom light, then hurried into the next room to get one of the hymnals she kept next to the piano and her Bible. We alternately prayed for relief, read Bible verses out loud, and sang hymns all night. We just needed to make it one more minute. Just one more minute. We prayed again. We just needed to make it two more minutes. Just two more minutes. We read another Bible verse; we sang another hymn. The night slowly, begrudgingly, gave way into the first rays of dawn. 6:58… 6:59… 7:00 a.m. We could finally call the church pastor.

Day 1: Thursday​

7:00 a.m.​

My mother called the pastor’s cell phone. He agreed to meet us at the church. It had been a long and terrible night, but I believed that help was just around the corner. Surely her pastor would know what to do! I tried to move my body to get dressed—I willed it to move—but my body did not respond to my internal commands. It was still twisting and writhing as it had done throughout the night. My face contorted into a ghastly grin. Again. Again. I began to grimace uncontrollably, and sweat poured off me. Why was I sweating? My movements had not been physically strenuous. But there was no time to think about it. We needed to get to the church. How? My body was not cooperating.

It was a very peculiar sensation to try and move an arm or a leg but get no response from either limb. My father came into the room. He grabbed one arm, then another, and stuffed each gyrating limb through a sleeve hole in one of my clean shirts. He did the same with my legs—soon I was wearing pants. My father put socks on me. He put a jacket on me. My parents then helped me from my bed, and I hobbled as best I could toward the garage. By the grace of God, my body was not completely deadweight. I could struggle and strain, taking halting steps with my parents helping me move on either side. One step. Two steps. Three. We made it to the car. They helped me into the back seat. My mother took a seat next to me, and my father got into the driver’s seat. He started the engine. My mother watched me with deep concern etched onto her face while my father pulled onto the road and headed toward the church.

7:30 a.m.​

The sun began to rise, its light chasing away all the lingering shadows from the long, dark night. I was fully aware of what was happening; there was never a time when I blacked out. My body continued to writhe against the restraining force of my seatbelt, but nothing else happened. There continued to be no violence toward myself nor was there any threat of violence toward my parents. Inwardly, I wondered if they were safe from me. I needed them, but I also needed them to be safe. The light of day and the hope of receiving pastoral help calmed me. I no longer felt completely terrified, but I was still very afraid. What was going to happen to me? What would happen when we arrived at the church?

My father pulled into the church parking lot in front of the sanctuary. I wanted to get out of the car. I wanted to walk into the church. But I could not. My body would not allow me to give it those commands. The car door suddenly opened. My father reached into the backseat to unbuckle my seatbelt and help me exit the car. At that moment, I regained some small control over my body. My mother and father positioned themselves on either side of me once again, trying to physically lead me into the sanctuary, but my body was uncooperative. Both legs grew stiff, vigorously protesting each step toward the sanctuary doors. My arms were twisting. My torso was twisting. Left. Then right. Then left again. I was struggling to make progress, and my flailing body was a physical challenge for both my parents to control. My mother turned to me, and in a solemn voice tinged with sheer determination, told me that I needed to help them get me inside the church because they were unable to carry me on their own strength. I believe they were praying for me. I clenched my jaw and redoubled the effort to control my flailing body. Our goal was in sight. Only a few more steps…

We finally reached the door, and when we drew close, the church office assistant held it open for us. She told my parents in a later conversation that my body movements resembled those of someone with cerebral palsy. We stumbled ahead, one step at a time, until we reached the altar at the front of the sanctuary. The room was empty except for us. There was nobody there. Where was the pastor? My heart sank. I wanted to pray, needed to pray. There is comfort in prayer, and I very much desired to talk with my God. I tried to kneel at the altar, but my legs grew stiff. They refused to cooperate with my internal commands to kneel in prayer. I saw my mother off to the side. She placed her hands on me, and in a commanding voice, issued a harsh order to whatever evil had a grip on me: “In the name of Jesus, you will kneel! Every knee will bow at the name of Jesus!” (She was referencing Philippians 2:10.) My legs grew less stiff, and I suddenly found that I was able to kneel at the altar. I began praying. Before long, unexpectedly, I felt strong hands on both of my shoulders—the pastor had arrived! He began to pray for me, too, and as soon as he finished, I immediately slumped against the altar, all the fight drained from my body. There was no more struggle.

I never heard him enter the sanctuary nor did I hear his silent approach from behind. I had no idea he was there until he began to pray. To my recollection, the pastor never prayed for the demon to leave nor did he ever address it directly. He finished his prayer, and I shifted into a sitting position, exhausted. I could finally catch my breath after many hours of relentless physical, emotional, and spiritual torture. The pastor sat next to me, concern lining his face, and we talked. The demon was completely still as if it had never been present. Was it gone? Did our visit to the church get rid of it? The pastor asked me if I knew what happened. I told him a very abbreviated version of the events with Kelly. He responded, very gently, that he did not believe the Bible contained any support for the idea of a predetermined romantic relationship. He was right, of course. I also hinted at my former belief in paranormal talents as a possible reason why this situation may have happened, but I did not have the emotional fortitude at that moment to launch into a deeper discussion with him. He told me about the more ordinary emotional and spiritual problems his children were experiencing. I empathized with his family, yet I was uncertain what he was trying to tell me. Did he believe I had just had some kind of nervous breakdown? I had no idea what he was thinking. Still, I listened politely. It was nice just having the personal attention of someone who I viewed as a Christian expert. I asked him, “Have you ever seen anything like this?” No. He had never encountered a situation like mine at any time in all his decades of church ministry. This was new for him.

We all stood up—thinking my horrible experience was finally over—and walked to the church office a short distance away. Everyone else went inside the office, but I stood just outside the door, ashamed to be seen any more than necessary. I did not want to be known as “the guy with the demon” or “the guy with the nervous breakdown” and very much wished to be invisible. Inside the church office, the assistant offered to put me on the church prayer list. My parents agreed. The assistant must have noticed I was not inside with them because she came back outside to find me and share a few kind words. Our families had both been part of this church for a very long time, so we all knew each other. Soon, my parents returned, and we drove home. We were all exhausted after a long night of no sleep coupled with an intense spiritual battle.

Afternoon​

I was fine when we first got home from the church. I desperately hoped this situation—whatever it was—would be over and I could put it all behind me. This, however, was just the beginning. It was an opening salvo in what would become a considerably protracted war. Hours later and inch by inch, my body began to writhe and twist and grimace as the same demon who slumbered quietly in the presence of the church pastor crescendoed back to its full, oppressive strength. I sat in a chair at the back of my bedroom while sweat soaked through two layers of clothing. My parents gathered around me; none of us knew what to do. We prayed for the demon to leave in Jesus’s name. We prayed for help. We prayed for God to have mercy on me. The demon had been quiet up until that point. Now, in stark contrast to its earlier behavior, it was no longer content to merely control my body—it began to speak through me. “There is nothing you can do!” the demon rasped.

When it spoke, it was my voice… but different. My mother later described my voice and my expressions whenever the demon spoke through me as not my own. She did not mean this in the sense that I was somehow unable to make those sounds or form those expressions; rather, she meant those sounds and expressions were completely foreign to everything she knew about me. I was aware and fully conscious every time this happened. It was my body the demon used, but it spoke. These were not my thoughts. These were not my words. These were not my expressions. The demon took great pleasure in taunting my parents.

Not knowing what else to do, my mother asked who was talking to them. The voice that was-and-was-not my voice quietly responded, “Legion.” She did not hear the answer. “What?” The demon snarled back at her, “LEGION!” I knew enough about the Bible at that time to know Legion is a named demon in the Gospels. Jesus, ministering to the Gerasene demoniac, asked the man for his name.1 The demon responded, “My name is Legion, for we are many” (Mark 5:9 NASB). That was an understatement. Legion refers to a Roman military unit of roughly five thousand soldiers during the time when Jesus visited the Gerasenes. By using this particular name, the demon speaking to Jesus strongly implied there were thousands of demons infesting the Gerasene demoniac. Now, the demon speaking through me identified by that same name. It was suggesting that I had thousands of demons infesting me. My situation was rapidly deteriorating.

I asked my parents for a cross to wear. While I had seen enough movies to know that a demon reacting negatively to a cross is a common Hollywood trope, I was under no illusion that the cross I had requested would have any supernatural effect. I wanted it solely for my own comfort. I wanted to feel the weight of it against my skin as a reminder that Jesus had not abandoned me. My mother left the room and quickly returned with a small cross necklace she had owned for many years. I tried to take it from her, but my arms would not cooperate, so I asked her to put it on me. As the cross came nearer to my head, the demons growled, “No!” and forced my face away from it. But that was it. The drama ended just as soon as my mother placed the jewelry around my neck. There was no cross-shaped scar burned onto my chest nor did the demons immediately leave me once the cross came into contact with my skin. I was simply a tormented man taking some measure of comfort from wearing the symbol of my faith around my neck.

My mother called the church pastor again. He did not answer his phone. The church my parents attended has a sister campus with its own pastor, so my mother called the other church pastor next. To our great relief, he answered his phone. My mother quickly explained the situation and asked him to pray for us. I do not recall the specifics of what he prayed over the phone, but he did offer to meet us at our house the next morning. Any remaining color drained from my face. The next morning? That was over sixteen hours away! I had no idea if I could hold on until then. For all I knew, I would be dead or completely possessed by the next morning. By the grace of God, however, none of that happened, which is fortunate because we never saw that pastor. He never came over to the house, nor did he ever call us back to check on my situation.

The first pastor never called us back that day either. Meanwhile, we were struggling to contain my precarious situation. We continued to pray constantly. But what else could we do? How could we get this to stop? There had to be something else we could do! What other options were available? Running down the list of possibilities, my parents called a family member who worked at a church in a nearby city. The phone rang. Pick up! Pick up! A cautious “Hello?” echoed from the tiny speakers in my mother’s phone. My mother quickly explained the situation again. The family member on the other end of our call spoke a few encouraging words and then prayed with us. I did my best to put on a calm, polite voice, completely at odds with my writhing, sweat-drenched body. I felt that if I betrayed any weakness, my problems would become even more emotionally charged. Our family member suggested that my parents anoint every door, window, and opening in the house with oil and then anoint each of us. They were also to pray during this mass anointing. I listened intently to these instructions, hoping this new voice would be our expert and this new technique would rid me of my demons.

My parents took turns anointing the house so as not to leave me alone in my bedroom. We did not have any “official” anointing oil, just olive oil. My mother went first. While she was out of the room, my father sat on the floor, breathing hard, slumped against my chair. He was exhausted. His deep concern for my well-being weighed heavily on him. As soon as my mother returned, my father pulled himself out of the floor and went into the other rooms of our house, anointing the same places for good measure. Once he came back, my parents anointed me and then each other. What was going to happen? We waited. Then we waited some more. My body continued to contort uncontrollably. Nothing happened. I felt no different.

My mother later told me she did not understand why the demons did not immediately leave after we prayed for God to remove them. It consistently happened that way in the Gospels. Why was it not happening here? Her question is very reasonable, and I imagine others in her place would be asking the same question. The truth is that God does not always resolve demonic torment as soon as we ask Him. Job is one example of this. He lost his entire family, physical health, and material possessions through multiple satanic assaults. God eventually restored Job (Job 42:10), but it took at least a week given everything Scripture tells us about his circumstances. We see another example in the Gospels. There was a certain woman worshiping at her synagogue who suffered from demonic torment for eighteen years. That demon crippled her to the point where she was unable to stand up straight (Luke 13:11). God never forgot about her. Although it took time for His plan to unfold, Jesus eventually healed her (Luke 13:13), and we have been reading her story for almost two thousand years now. God never forgets His children.

As for me, I believe God did not immediately remove my demons because He was working on something much bigger. While I was utterly terrified, the Lord never allowed these demons to physically hurt me or my parents. In time, we would come to see that God was in the process of surfacing and healing some very deep emotional trauma in our family. The Lord was also leading us into a new normal where we would pray together as a family, each of us becoming far more serious about our personal relationship with Jesus and our understanding of the Bible. Eventually, the Lord also impressed upon me that I needed to write this book. None of that could have happened if God had immediately pulled those demons out of me when we first asked. That is why God did not immediately answer our prayers. He saw so much more than we could ever see.

Night​

The sun sank below the horizon. My sense of dread intensified as the shadows grew longer and night fell over our house once again. I was deathly afraid to be alone. Every strange shadow or odd sound was cause for my imagination to convince me that more demons were on their way to hurt me. I was terrified that if I went to sleep, I would become entirely possessed by the evil spiritual forces that were actively torturing me. But I was completely exhausted. I did not sleep the previous night and did not think I could stay awake another night.

I refused to stay in the bedroom where this all started, so my parents created a pallet on the floor at the foot of their bed. It was as if I had reverted to an infant, highly vulnerable and needing intense, round-the-clock care. I closed my eyes, but I never really slept that night. It felt like something was constantly trying to get inside me. It was relentless. I needed rest, but there was no indication the demons needed rest. Every time I began to drift off, I felt an internal pressure slam into my midsection, startling me back awake in a moment of cold terror. I never dozed more than a few moments at a time. I kept telling myself that I only had to hold on a little longer. Just a little longer. The night would not last forever. Morning would come soon…

Day 2: Friday​

Morning​

The hours trudged onward, one by one, until Friday morning finally arrived. As the first light of dawn shone through the windows, the church pastor with whom we had met the previous day called my mother to arrange a visit. He wanted to visit my parents’ house, and he also asked permission to bring another man from the church. My mother agreed. The second man was not clergy but assisted the pastor with various ministry duties as a layman. I had met him years earlier when I resided in my now distant apartment, and at the time, he had promised to connect me with a friend of his who lived in the same city where I lived. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this never happened. The same man was now coming over to our house with the pastor.

Once the two men arrived, we all convened in the living room. I sat on the couch next to the pastor while the layman chose to stand next to me. My father sat in his recliner while my mother sat by the fireplace. The demons who had tormented me all morning were now completely still. Just as it had been at the church the previous day, there was no indication of any trauma nor any signs of the intangible torture I had endured for the past thirty hours. Perhaps because my symptoms went unseen that morning, one of the first discussions in our living room was about my shoes. I was flattered, but this was not the discussion I was hoping to have. We casually chatted for a while, growing more comfortable with the rhythms of our conversation, before moving into a recap of what happened to me the previous day.

The layman experienced something supernatural earlier in his life that had left a strong impression on him. He asked me if I felt “a darkness.” I was not entirely sure what he meant. I told him that I did not feel a darkness. What does “darkness” feel like? I had no idea. He asked the same question a few different times in a few different ways, but my response was always the same. In hindsight, I believe this man experienced something he attributed to demonic oppression and wondered if my experience matched his own. I did not recognize this at the time, though even if I had, my experience was different than his.

The pastor, with input from the layman, began to probe my emotional condition. I kept waiting for them to talk about demons or address my problem as spiritual evil, but they never did. Having heard about my relationship with Kelly during our earlier visit to the church—and perhaps linking an invisible girlfriend with presumed loneliness—they effectively began asking me if I felt unloved. Well, I supposed I did, but that was largely because I carried a lifetime of unrecognized unforgiveness toward myself for every mistake I had ever made. That was a separate problem, which did not surface until much later. At that moment, however, I had no idea I harbored such resentment toward myself. All I knew was that I felt unwanted tears welling up in my eyes, and that was enough for the pastor and the layman. Tears seemed to convince them that my real problem was feeling unloved.

Perhaps they had concluded my bizarre behavior was rooted in an emotional defect and “demons” were just a convenient explanation. I truly do not know, but at that point, the layman told me he wanted to play a song. Furrowing his brow, he searched his mobile phone for a particular musical selection then played the music he had in mind. A contemporary Christian praise band—I was unfamiliar with the song—piped its tinny melodies into the room while I continued sitting on the couch, feeling slightly awkward about the whole situation. The pastor and the layman began to pray for me; they asked that I feel God’s love. At some point, tears began to roll down my face. The layman mentioned something about a lonely kid on the playground—referring to me—and that Jesus loved that kid. I had friends in elementary school; I was uncertain where he was going with this analogy. Neither man knew all that much about me, yet because I was so exhausted after two nights of no sleep, I continued to cry and continued to feel awkward. Both the song and the prayer soon ended. Each man exclaimed something along the lines of “Love ya, man!” and that was that.

The layman then invited me to attend a Bible study he was leading at that time. He looked through his phone contacts to add my phone number but was surprised to see it was already listed. He did not remember we had met a few years earlier. That morning at our house was the last time I ever heard from him and the last time the pastor had any direct contact with me.

Early Afternoon​

The demons plaguing me began to stir once more. Whatever respite the Lord granted me while the pastor and the layman visited our house was now over. The demons tried a new strategy to break my defenses, alternating between force and pleasure in what felt like a persistent attempt to take control of my body. Could they break my defenses with brute force? It felt like a drill bored into my midsection. There was no pain, just diabolical pressure, physical and intense. I was terrified. I believed that if this “drill” punctured into my body, I would lose all control. I had to hold on; the alternative was too horrible to consider. Then, suddenly, it stopped. Could they break my defenses with pleasure? I now felt as if my abdomen was being tickled, like I needed to laugh and open myself up to more of that feeling. I had to resist. I had to hold on. I did want to lose control of myself! Suddenly, the giddy sensation stopped. Then, the drilling sensation began again. The diabolical assault cycled like that for hours. This was a brand new kind of torture.

My father knew a retired pastor from the same church and was adamant that we should call him. They regularly saw each other around town and exchanged phone numbers years earlier. My father dialed the retired pastor’s phone number… no response. Did the phone disconnect? He tried again. No response. He tried a third time, and like the other two times, his call did not connect. It neither reached the retired pastor’s phone nor his voicemail. My mother then called the woman who led the prayer ministry at the church because the retired pastor also volunteered in that same ministry. She asked if the prayer ministry leader would connect us to the retired pastor. Unbeknownst to us, the prayer ministry leader had already shared my situation with the retired pastor.

He was, at that moment, prayerfully considering whether to become personally involved. While this man was familiar with deliverance ministry—a term related to exorcism that we had never heard—he was unable to successfully deliver the last person who requested his help. The retired pastor felt personally responsible and did not want to get involved if it was not going to resolve my problem. Furthermore, even if he decided to contact us, the retired pastor felt he was unable to get involved as a matter of church politics until he received permission from the same church pastor we had seen earlier that day.

These decisions were all unfolding as my mother ended the call. We knew nothing about what was happening behind the scenes and felt like we were on our own unless the retired pastor agreed to help. There was nothing more to be done. I did not know how much longer I could withstand the demonic assault as it continued to cycle between force and pleasure in its relentless attempts to break me.

Late Afternoon​

I continued to writhe in my existential torment throughout the afternoon hours. Things were not looking good. While we are not a Catholic family, we knew the Roman Catholic Church has a long association with exorcism, so my father began to look online to see what Catholic exorcism prayers he could find. He discovered a website that had posted a few different examples. These prayers appeared to be consistent enough with our Protestant beliefs, so we gathered around on our couch, pulled up the website on my father’s tablet computer, and began to pray. The prayers were different from anything I knew. They followed a unique format and contained unusual phrasing completely unfamiliar to me. We finished the first prayer. Would these special prayers resolve my demonic oppression? We waited. No effect. Were we doing something wrong? Must prayer follow certain rules for God to hear it? Surely not—prayer is just talking with God. We prayed through more exorcism prayers on the website. Still no effect. This was not working.

I was very grateful my parents were actively trying to help me resist these demons. They continued to petition God for my healing and did not give up on me, but we were not seeing any improvement in my condition. We simply did not know what else to try. It felt like the three of us were battling an evil force far stronger than we knew how to handle. Intellectually, I knew that God must be involved somehow, but it was hard to see the evidence of that, and I was quickly losing hope. Then, the phone rang. My father answered it. The retired pastor was calling to make arrangements to come over the next day, and I silently wondered if he would be the Christian expert who could fix my problems. I just needed to endure another long, horrible night to find out. At least now I had hope.

Night​

That night was yet another period of excruciating not-quite-sleep. The somber moment when the house grew quiet before we all laid down to rest would continue to be something I dreaded for a very long time. My demonic torture was much the same this night as it had been the previous night. But on this night—as on so many others that would follow—my torment periodically escalated to the point where I could no longer bear it alone. Whenever that happened, I gently woke my mother, and she quietly got out of bed. We went into another room in the house so as not to wake my father. There, she read Scripture with me, prayed with me, and sang hymns with me. While my demons did not completely stop their ongoing persecution during this time together with my mother, our late night praise session greatly comforted me. I eventually calmed down enough to get back into my makeshift bed where I drifted in and out of half-consciousness until morning slowly arrived once more.

Day 3: Saturday​

Morning​

The retired pastor was unlike anyone I had ever met in the church. From the very beginning of his four hour visit that day, he fully and openly acknowledged the existence of real spiritual evil in the world. Furthermore, after hearing about my ongoing struggle, he immediately diagnosed the underlying cause as demonization. This was such a breath of fresh air. We finally had the ear of someone who understood my predicament, had seen it before, and believed he could help. The retired pastor labeled what we were going to be doing as deliverance ministry.

As my father noted that morning, this man seemed to have a direct line to God, which intrigued me. The retired pastor gave an appearance that God spoke directly to him in plain language like one of the prophets of old. This came across in the man’s speaking mannerisms. He often began to discuss a new topic, paused as if listening to something no one else could hear, then continued discussing his thought. He later told us the Holy Spirit wakes him up early on many mornings to give him verses to read from the Bible or messages that will help during the day. This was completely new to me; I hung on his every word. If this pastor said it, I believed it. He was clergy, after all, and if God were truly speaking through this man, I needed to pay careful attention to everything he said.

We began our discussion that morning by recapping my situation for perhaps the fifth time since this all began, as well as the events leading up to my first night of demonic torture. The retired pastor knew the church pastor and the layman had visited the previous day. He explained the reason my demons did not leave was because the church pastor never addressed the demons nor told them to leave. That made sense to me. I believed we were finally getting somewhere. The retired pastor continued by asking if I harbored any unforgiveness, was involved in occult practices, or owned any idolatrous objects. These seemed like reasonable questions.

I learned much later that this sinful triad is a central premise in many deliverance ministry books. Such books assert an explicit, biblical connection between each of these sins and demonic torment. That, however, is only partially true. While Scripture does indicate that demonization can, at times, be a consequence of sin,2 this is not the universal law these books would have readers believe. We are wise not to go beyond the text. Broadly speaking, unrepentant sin is a serious spiritual problem, so it is sensible to raise these questions as long as we bear in mind what Scripture does and does not teach.

In response to the retired pastor’s question, I replied that I harbored no unforgiveness toward anyone. In fact, I made it a point to hold no grudges and let go of old disagreements. What never occurred to me is that the sin of unforgiveness also applies to any unforgiveness we harbor toward ourselves. To the retired pastor’s other question, I did not own anything I knew to be an idol. The thought was repulsive to me. And occult practices? I learned a harsh lesson with the occult book I had read years earlier and immediately dropped every practice I learned from it once I understood the true nature of what I was doing.

I sat there, wracking my brain, trying to think of anything else I might have done that could fit into one of these three broad categories. Finally, it hit me: Amigo. I was already having serious reservations about the techniques Amigo taught me, but once the retired pastor posed his question in terms of occult practices, I was certain these techniques fit the description. They were effectively witchcraft and divination no matter how positive the intentions behind them might have been. I silently resolved to immediately stop everything Amigo had taught me as well as every spiritual practice I had picked up outside the pages of Scripture. Then, steeling myself, I told the retired pastor I was guilty of those sins.

The retired pastor nodded. He did not accuse me. He did not condemn me. He merely noted what I said as an issue we needed to address before moving on to the next topic. That made it much easier to be fully honest with him when his probing questions eventually became more challenging. Every discovery was an opportunity for this man to gently educate me in what was right or wrong with my actions from a biblical perspective. While the primary motivation for our discussion was getting rid of my tormenting demons, our conversation frequently became a review of Scripture. I greatly appreciated his mentorship. I had never experienced individual, biblical instruction from anyone in church ministry. This was nice. I found myself putting my full trust in this man as the expert I was certain I needed.

He eventually asked me a very cryptic question: did I have a call from God to be a church pastor that I had refused earlier in my life? His question surprised me. Did I refuse a ministry call? No, not that I could remember. Early in my adult life, a friend in ministry thought I would make a good pastor, but that was all that came to mind. As far as I knew, I had never received a call to be a pastor. Had I missed something important in my life? I filed that thought away as something to ponder later in the evening.

From his seated position in the adjacent recliner, the retired pastor then told me he wanted to address my demons. He instructed me to let them speak if they wanted to speak, but if they did not choose to do so, repeat anything out loud that I heard in my mind. I agreed. This seemed a bit unorthodox—even a little frightening—but I had no experience with deliverance or exorcisms. That was for church experts like the retired pastor to sort out. Furthermore, he seemed to know Scripture very well, and because he gave every appearance of speaking directly with God, any action he suggested came with an implicit divine endorsement. Who was I to argue? It seemed like we were making progress. For all I knew, there was an extensive exorcism protocol buried somewhere in Scripture suggesting this very exercise. (There is absolutely not!)

I later learned that interviewing demons is a common recommendation among deliverance ministry practitioners. Unfortunately, this technique requires the demonized victim to assume the role of a medium. The Bible contains severe warnings about mediumship (Lev 19:31; 20:27; Deut 18:9–13), yet it can be easy to forget all that in the midst of a crisis. Not all mediums work in ramshackle buildings with neon signs proudly advertising biblically illicit services. Accepting as truth anything a demon says is incredibly harmful in ways that are often difficult to predict. This is just one reason why the Lord strongly forbids His people from becoming involved in mediumship. Deliverance ministry authors defend their recommendation based on a very misguided reading of 1 John 2:20–233 and a very misunderstood interpretation of Mark 5:9 and Luke 8:30.4 When bestselling books with a Christian label commonly suggest interviewing demons, this erroneous practice becomes self-reinforcing among busy ministers who urgently need a means to address a very serious problem.

I can say from experience, however, that demons love to put on a show. They will say and do whatever it takes to string us along and convince us we are making headway, but the reality is this: demons are liars. Jesus says that about Satan in no uncertain terms (John 8:44). Why would it be any different for other fallen angels who ally themselves with Satan? There is no forcing a demon to tell the truth, despite what certain deliverance authors claim. The retired pastor had the best intentions, but he had learned what he knew about exorcism from these deliverance books. This was not sound advice.

“In the name of Jesus, I command the prince demon to come forward.” My face contorted into a scowl. The retired pastor next asked, “What is your name?” A voice that was-and-was-not my own responded, “Legion.” This was the same name we heard two days earlier. At least it was consistent. The retired pastor, continuing the interview, then asked, “What legal right do you have to be here?” The interrogation was largely the same for every demon, and there were many demons inside me, each giving a different answer depending on what particular demon was speaking.

They frequently gave a shifty response only after an extended period of evading the question. If a demon refused to cooperate, the retired pastor reiterated that he had the full authority of Jesus—deliverance books tend to base this on a problematic interpretation of Mark 16:17, Luke 10:17, and Matthew 10:1. And if that demon persisted in its stubborn refusal to comply with the interview, the retired pastor threatened to send it to Jesus by the authority of Jesus. The retired pastor expected an answer when he asked a question. The more verbal wrangling it took to get an answer, the more we naively believed the demon’s reply was likely to be true. The demon, after all, was put under oath before God to tell the truth as part of this particular deliverance process.

These demons claimed all kinds of names—Rage, Hate, Envy, Pride, Occultism, Judas, and many more—as well as various different reasons why they insisted they could inhabit my body. One particular demon gleefully replied, “He forgives everyone but himself!” as it swung my arm around to point at my own chest. According to the deliverance process, the retired pastor was only able to cast out a demon once he knew the supposed sin giving that demon its “legal right” and I had asked forgiveness from God for that exact sin. The deliverance process stipulated that any demon cast out while it claimed a valid legal right would immediately come back inside me. The process also stipulated that no demon would leave on its own, even if it lost its legal right, and would be with me until someone forcibly cast it out.

Some alleged sins I knew to be true. Other alleged sins only seemed plausible. Still others were entirely unverifiable with no way to know whether they were true or untrue. The goal was to sift truth from lies while repenting of any and all bad behavior that came to mind. After appearing to successfully cast out a demon, the retired pastor asked the next highest ranking demon to come forward, state its name, and give the legal right it had to inhabit my body. I then wracked my brain once again for anything I may have done that fit the accusation. This grueling process continued for hours. Not only was my body the willing plaything of any demon with something to say, I was under intense pressure to surface half-remembered, possible sins that may have “opened a door” for a demon to torture me.

I was expected to openly confess and publicly repent before my parents and the retired pastor of every painful, embarrassing, shameful, or secret sin I had ever committed throughout my entire life, even if it was only a possible sin, even if it was not a sin at all but felt like it could be a sin. I am a private person by nature; this was mortifying. One demon said through me, laughing, “I want to humiliate him!” Well, the demons got their wish. But I was determined to get through this and do whatever it took to get them out of me. Neither my parents nor the retired pastor ever added to my shame, nor did they summarily judge and condemn me. They were solidly on my side despite hearing a long list of every sordid sin I could remember. That made it less painful.

I eventually remembered and confessed a very old memory of an early childhood fight with my brother. He was in the habit of chasing me through the house, pinning me to the ground, and feigning an attempt to spit on my face. I may have done something to cause this behavior—I do not remember—but I felt so defenseless and vulnerable that one time, utterly consumed with rage, I screamed that I hated him and threatened to kill him if he ever did that to me again. This fight happened roughly thirty years before my deliverance session with the retired pastor, but I carried that memory with me as if it had happened yesterday, too ashamed to ever bring it up with my brother and too ashamed to ever forgive myself for my actions. The memory had been a secret cancer, festering in the dark recesses of my mind and heart for most of my life. It was not until I openly confessed this sin that I began to feel forgiven for my actions. The retired pastor insisted that we needed to get together with my brother and resolve this once and for all in person. His suggestion made my blood run cold. This was the exact encounter I had dreaded for thirty years. Nevertheless, the retired pastor was adamant the associated demon could not be cast out until we healed this old wound.

My brother happened to be traveling for work that day. He lived in the same city as my parents and was scheduled to return home the following evening. My mother quickly texted him, asking if we could give him a ride home as soon he returned to the city. He replied a short time later. Yes, he agreed, that would be fine. She did not tell him anything that was happening to me. There was just so much to unpack, and this was not a casual discussion for a texted conversation. With arrangements in place to meet my brother the following day, the retired pastor suggested we end our deliverance session. I was exhausted.

Yet before we parted ways that day, the retired pastor mentioned he had brought several deliverance ministry books that he wanted to loan us. He suggested we read these books when we had an opportunity. He also gave me a list of Bible verses to read. These, he explained, came to him directly from the Holy Spirit. That surprised me. The Holy Spirit gave him specific Bible verses for me to read? I had no reason to believe otherwise, and I very much trusted the retired pastor, so I gratefully accepted them. He then told me we all needed rest.

What a day it had been. I knew beyond a doubt there were more demons within me because I felt their malignant presence twisting inside. They caused uncomfortable physical pressure as they continued their ruthless attempts to break me. But this would not be my only deliverance session—the retired pastor arranged to come over the following day to continue our work.

In hindsight, despite the grave misgivings I now have over many of the practices commonly labeled as deliverance ministry, the retired pastor restored my waning hope. Moreover, his probing questions caused me to become fully aware of three important facts: Amigo’s lessons were occult in nature, I carried a tremendous amount of unforgiveness toward myself, and it was well past time to address the raw memory of a childhood fight with my brother. Whatever else can be said about the events of that day, the Lord was intimately involved in setting the stage for healing me of far more than demonic intruders.

Evening​

Now that the house was quiet again, I carefully considered the retired pastor’s earlier assertion. Was he correct? Did I really receive a ministry call earlier in my life that I had somehow ignored? I actively replayed in my mind the deliverance session from that morning as I stepped into a hot shower, hoping to wash away the stress, fear, and exhaustion I felt. I remembered one Sunday long ago, when I was a young child, coming home from church. I had a strong desire to remain at church that day, but since we were already home and the service was over, I settled for turning on the television to find a religious program I could watch instead. I stopped at the first program I saw that appeared to be a church service, dutifully opened my child-sized Bible, and listened to the message. The man on the screen spoke about topics I did not fully understand. The letters S–E–X scrolled across the screen. I was shocked! What was I watching? Maybe it was a mistake? Some kind of accidental oversight by whoever managed this program? I continued watching, less enthusiastic. Before long, S–E–X scrolled across the screen again. This was far more than my prepubescent self could handle! I did not exactly know what that term meant, but I knew this seemed like a show I should not be watching, so I quickly turned off the TV. My feeling of wanting to remain in church that day rapidly faded, and I soon forgot about the whole affair. That was it. That was the only memory that came to mind. There was nothing else in my past that could possibly match what the retired pastor insinuated. Why was he so certain about this?

Day 4: Sunday​

Early Afternoon​

I suffered another night of demonic torment on the floor in my parent’s bedroom, and when morning came, I was in no shape to be out in public. My torture was intense and relentless. Furthermore, I believed it could erupt into an uncontrollable outburst at any moment. I did not want to suffer further embarrassment around other people who had no concept of what I was experiencing. We did not attend church that Sunday. No one from the church called to check on us.

Although everyone was weary when the retired pastor returned, his presence lifted my spirits. I hoped this would be the day when I would be free of my demons. Our discussion that afternoon opened with another cryptic comment: the retired pastor understood—in supposed a word from God—that I heard something important the previous evening. I had no idea what he meant. He prodded a bit more, and I finally realized he was referring to my childhood memory of the television program. How in the world could he have known I remembered that? I shared with him everything that came to mind about that memory—the desire to be in church, the awkwardness I felt watching the program, and the complete lack of any other experiences that may have indicated a call to be a minister. This genuinely confused the retired pastor. He was absolutely convinced there must be a call somewhere in my past and concluded that demons must have snatched it away from me. Everything this pastor seemed to believe was couched in terms of ongoing spiritual warfare, the armies of God versus the armies of Satan. My “lost call” was presumably just one more unfortunate casualty in this ancient struggle.

We quickly got down to the business of casting out demons. Just as we did the previous morning, the retired pastor asked me to allow the demons to speak through me while he interviewed them for names and legal rights. I closed my eyes during much of this so I could think more clearly, listening intently to what the demonic voices in my mind were saying. We continued like this for a while. At one point, unbeknownst to me, the retired pastor excused himself to take a short break while the demons continued to speak through me. My parents were still in the room. The demons moved my arm to gesture at the chair where the retired pastor had been sitting while they taunted him, calling him an “old man.” I refused, however, to let them speak foul language or blasphemies through my mouth (although that did not stop the demons from speaking them inside my mind). My parents quickly pointed out that the retired pastor was no longer in the room. My eyes snapped open, I saw that to be true, and the demons became angry. The ridiculousness of the situation caused my parents to laugh, and the controlling demon yelled for them to stop, before finally pleading, “Don’t laugh at me…” Demons are ancient. They existed well before humanity from the time when God created His angels. Such childish behavior was unexpected and completely at odds with their evil nature. That was a surprising moment, but it was short-lived because the retired pastor soon returned to the room. We began the deliverance process anew.

Whenever the retired pastor gave an order such as, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command the demon Hate and every demon it rules to come out of him and go into the abyss!”,5 I immediately experienced an extreme physical reaction. I coughed and gagged and expelled air like something unseen was coming out of me. Enough of this happened that I began to turn purple from the physical strain and the strong pressure on my head from forcing out lungfuls of air. I was also drenched in sweat through multiple layers of clothing, though I had been seated on the living room couch throughout the entire session. This was physically strenuous work in addition to the emotional strain of going public with every possible sin that crossed my mind.

“They are trying to kill him,” noted the retired pastor before commanding the demons in the name of Jesus not to harm me. My mother and father actively prayed for me throughout the entire deliverance session. Whenever it looked as if I needed a break, the retired pastor paused the proceedings as I slumped back against the couch, grateful for a moment to catch my breath. He only continued after I gave my permission. There was never a time when the retired pastor did anything that he had not already informed me he was going to do, nor was there ever a time when he started something without asking if I was ready.

I carefully observed everything he did. The deliverance ministry process, as many authors teach it, is not that complicated. After two days of enduring the strain and stress that came with it, I generally understood how the deliverance approach we used worked and began assisting the retired pastor. I started issuing my own commands to interview and cast out demons while the retired pastor was present. My body underwent the same physical reactions, and the retired pastor complimented me, saying I learned fast. I was both flattered and encouraged. This was a difficult session, yet I felt a measure of peace throughout it. While there was a violent spiritual war raging inside me and around me, and the techniques we were using would turn out to be theologically problematic, I felt secure, as if Jesus was actively giving me the strength to persevere.

The idea of a “generational curse” soon came up in our session. This concept is popular among deliverance authors as a major source of demonization. Such authors read verses like Exodus 20:5 and believe God punishes individuals with demonic torment for any sins their ancestors committed, particularly if those sins were never repented. This is an incredibly irresponsible teaching for trained pastors to perpetuate. The entire chapter of Ezekiel 18 refutes that very notion! Nevertheless, this is a common trope in deliverance ministry. We explored this angle during my deliverance session and determined there were ancestral sins ranging from pride in my father’s family to hate and envy in my mother’s family. According to the rules of the deliverance process we followed, those familial sins gave demons the right to torture me as a descendant of both families. My parents were to ask forgiveness on behalf of their sinning family members—many of whom were long since deceased—in order to break the legal right to torment me. My parents themselves believed they had to walk on eggshells so as not to inadvertently sin and send a new demon to torture me. The childhood fight with my brother was supposedly another generational curse that I needed to pray over in order for God to remove any demonic rights associated with it. There was just one problem: this concept is bogus. When we unspool it to its natural conclusion, living under the threat of generational curses only leads to fear and spiritual bondage. We soon find ourselves ensnared by a misguided attempt to live perfectly under religious laws lest we cause tangible supernatural harm to people we love. The Bible does not teach that. It teaches that we are each responsible for our own sins.

My family learned much about deliverance ministry over these two days, but for every apparent success, there was a demon who stubbornly resisted any attempt to remove it. Quite often the retired pastor gave a command to cast out a demon or force one to provide an acceptable answer, but instead of cooperating, that demon flatly refused to comply. No amount of coaxing or threatening could convince it to participate as desired.6 The retired pastor remarked several times that he had never seen this happen.

He became increasingly convinced that we needed to make a road trip to visit the author of the deliverance book he had loaned us because this same author advertised deliverance services. Once we contacted the author, we could request a personal deliverance session that would clear out any remaining demons from me. However, there was a catch: the author had a six-month waiting queue and a suggested donation of several hundred dollars for a few hours of his time. It sounded a lot like a consulting service. But if this option did not meet our needs, we could also purchase additional reading materials from his online store promising advanced training not included in his published books. I was far too demonized at that time to recognize the noxious economic incentives at work.

Sadly, that particular author is not unique. I came to learn many deliverance authors effectively run businesses that closely parallel the consulting services and online stores found in conventional professional industries. There is money to be made in deliverance. What better customer than a desperate one? The retired pastor, however, harbored no such inclinations and simply helped as an expression of his Christian faith. In the end, we neither visited the author nor purchased additional materials from that author’s website. We merely made plans to continue my deliverance the following day. The retired pastor advised us to fast per Mark 9:29,7 thinking that may explain why my demons were uncooperative. We all agreed to fast in preparation for the following day.

As we ended my second deliverance session, I noted my condition had slightly improved. It was enough to cope with my ongoing, severe torment rather than feeling like demonic forces would overtake me at any moment. I believe, as an expression of His mercy and grace, Jesus really did force a few demons out of me even though we were ignorantly using unbiblical methods. Still, there was a huge gap between where I was and the freedom that deliverance ministry had promised. I wondered if the retired pastor had somehow overlooked a useful technique in one of his books. Perhaps there was some obscure method that would mean the difference between success and failure in a case like mine. There were a few hours remaining before we were scheduled to pick up my brother, so I attempted to read the deliverance books the retired pastor loaned us.

Late Afternoon​

My eyes stopped moving. I could not move my eyes over the words in the deliverance books. I opened the first book, made it past a few paragraphs, and then my eyes stuck. There was no pain, just the odd sensation of trying to move my eyes but getting no response from them. I had no trouble looking anywhere else in the room. Yet the evil inside me completely stopped me from reading what I thought was going to be my lifeline. My mother, who has always been a fast reader, took the books from me and quickly scanned them, looking for anything that might prove useful for my situation. She read aloud key passages. She also summarized the books for my father and me, but unfortunately, she discovered nothing new that the retired pastor had not already tried.

Later that afternoon, attempting to work out any sins I may have missed that had contributed to my demonization, my body stopped cooperating again. I tried to call out for help but discovered I could no longer speak. I then tried to pray in my mind but found I could not speak using my internal voice either. I was completely mute! This was not good. How long would it last? I walked up to my father, who was reading something on his tablet computer, and snapped my fingers until he looked up. I frantically gestured that I needed him to pray for me. He set down his device and prayed a simple prayer. Immediately, I could speak again. The Lord directly intervened at the speed of prayer in a way that was obvious to both of us. Biblical accounts of demonized mutes do not exaggerate. They are not just stories! The good news is that my father only had to pray for help before Jesus responded, similar to what happened with the gentile woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter of demonic oppression (Matt 15:21–28; Mark 7:24–30). The Lord was with us and would continue to be present throughout my ordeal. This was clear proof.

Evening​

I became more and more anxious as the appointed time to pick up my brother drew closer. There was no more avoiding the memory of our childhood fight. Discussing it with him was going to be one of the hardest things I had ever done, and if there was any other choice, I imagine I would have taken that option instead. Nevertheless, this was the only obvious way through the morass of my demonization into what I hoped would be my freedom.

The designated time arrived far quicker than I hoped. My mother, father, and I got into the car and drove to the vehicle rental store where my brother would be waiting. I sat in the back seat with my mother while my father drove, leaving the front passenger seat available for my brother. My anxiety was sky high. As we turned into the parking lot, we saw my brother and his luggage waiting outside the vehicle rental store. We pulled into the space next to him. He looked into the car, surprised to see all three of us. I lived in a different city, after all, and he was unaware I had been staying with my parents for well over a week. My father helped load my brother’s luggage, then my brother got into the car. He was very tired after a stressful working trip. While he did not directly comment on the situation, he appeared very unsure what was happening and probably wondered why we all came together to pick him up. Had somebody died? Was there a recent tragedy? Whatever he was thinking, he never voiced it. We settled for small talk about his trip until we arrived at his house.

After a short drive, my father turned into my brother’s driveway. He stopped the engine. Nobody made a move to leave the car, and we all sat for a moment in silence. Then, my father began. He told my brother how much he loved him—something my grandfather never told my father—and that he respected the man my brother had become. They shared a few more words, and as they were talking, I felt the demons inside me begin to rise to the surface. I started writhing, subtly at first, as I desperately tried to contain it. Hold on! I just have to hold on a little longer! The last thing I wanted was to exhibit my demonization right there in my brother’s driveway. My mother noticed what was happening and quietly began to command the demons just as the retired pastor had done. I attempted to stop her; I did not want to make a scene. Suddenly, however, my control broke. I could no longer maintain my composure and began to writhe more forcefully. Without warning, a loud demonic growl tore through the other conversations in the car, alerting everyone to my deteriorating condition. What was my brother going to think now?

Without missing a beat, he swiftly twisted in his seat, locked eyes with me, and shouted, “In the name of Jesus, I command you to leave him and go down to the grave where you belong!” His voice was as loud as thunder. It echoed through the car, powerful and authoritative. We were momentarily stunned; my symptoms immediately stopped. The situation created a perfect opportunity to begin sharing with my brother some of what was happening to me, and before long, I worked up my courage, recounting my memory of our childhood fight. I deeply regretted my actions—even if these were the actions of a young child—and shared that I had carried this toxic burden with me my entire life. I asked for his forgiveness. My brother’s response shocked me: he had no memory of our fight! As far as he knew, it had never happened. Of course he forgave me! This was just some old childhood squabble. No big deal.

Something that had long poisoned me with a slow, steady drip of shame, regret, and self-loathing lived larger-than-life in my own mind while my brother had forgotten it had ever happened! This was a powerful lesson. Jesus said, “Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering” (Matt 5:23–24 NASB). I failed to do that. There is a reason why Jesus tells us to be reconciled with others as quickly as possible. My emotional life up to that point is a cautionary tale as to what can happen when we fail to follow this teaching. There is no question this was a difficult conversation for me. I avoided it like the plague for thirty years! The only reason I discussed this memory with my brother was because I was forced to do it. All the angst I had long suffered over this old memory quickly evaporated. I felt lighter than I had in years. My demons were not gone—far from it—but this was a major victory.

Necessary-but-difficult conversations should not be avoided simply because they are uncomfortable. What if I was never demonized? What if I was never forced to dredge the murky depths of my life to confront old wounds? I may have lived with this secret cancer until I died! The Lord was at work in my life, and this was yet another reason why He did not immediately remove my demons when we prayed for His help. He had a big, wonderful plan. We just did not know it until after we lived through it. This is also a clear example of the Lord’s grace. Even though I had ignored what Jesus taught, He forced this situation to happen anyway because He knew it was necessary for my health. What a wonderful God we Christians serve!

Day 5: Monday​

Late Morning​

The night brought more demonic torture. Restless sleep and strange dreams filled my weary mind as I tossed and turned in my makeshift pallet. Morning was always a welcome mercy. When the retired pastor arrived for our next deliverance session, he was very pleased to hear how our family was healed through our conversations with my brother. Yet our goal was to cast out demons, so we soon got down to business. We all fasted that morning in the hope this would be the missing piece of my deliverance puzzle. Sadly, it was not. The retired pastor repeated the same techniques from the previous three days, but the demons were not cooperating. He again remarked that he had never seen this happen. He was convinced he was doing something wrong, and in a moment of confession, told us that he suffered from his own indwelling demons and wondered if that might be the reason why my demons were not responding favorably to his commands. The thought never occurred to me that the retired pastor who visited our house for three days straight suffered from the same problem he was trying to help me resolve.

Another thought occurred to me: could demonic influence explain the retired pastor’s supposedly direct conversations with God? After all, demons are habitual liars, and the retired pastor had just revealed that he struggled with demonization like I did. Was he unknowingly speaking with a demon imitating God? Demons attempted to pull that trick on me all the time. In light of this new information, there were now two competing theories to consider:

  1. The retired pastor possessed a highly unique ability to communicate with God through which he frequently heard divine revelations in plain language that were occasionally inaccurate and not always beneficial.
  2. A demon indwelling the retired pastor imitated God and quoted the Bible but did not possess perfect knowledge, missing the mark now and again.

Both God and demons can speak directly to the human mind. So which was it? Occam’s razor is a principle often cited in both science and the humanities. It states that the simpler theory of two competing theories is usually the correct one. A demonic explanation for the retired pastor’s presumed divine revelations requires far fewer assumptions for it to be true and so fits the Occam’s razor criteria. Unfortunately, it seems far more likely the retired pastor misled me without ever intending to do so because his revelations were demonic in origin. Evil can be incredibly devious. “No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14 NASB).

The retired pastor continued to try and cast out demons from me. They continued to refuse. This lasted until noon when the church pastor spontaneously texted my mother to tell her he had left a document at the church for us. The document came from another pastor at a different church in town and contained notes on how to deal with demon problems. Things were not going well at the house, so my mother rushed to the church to retrieve these mysterious notes while I stayed behind with my father and the retired pastor. I really hoped the notes from this new pastor contained the answers we needed to heal my demonization.

When my mother eventually returned to the house, we eagerly read the deliverance document only to discover it outlined nearly identical information to what we had already learned. It was disappointing for all of us. The retired pastor—making no further headway against my demons—was quickly growing tired and discouraged, so we chose to end the session early. There were no more plans to meet. My overwhelming torment had been reduced to a merely whelming torment after the grueling work we had completed over the previous days, yet I was not much closer to being freed from my demonized condition.

Day 6: Tuesday​

Morning​

We received an unexpected phone call the next morning. Our family member who worked at a church in a nearby city explained that one of her coworkers had experience casting out demons. He agreed to meet with us if we wanted to meet with him. This man happened to be the custodian at the church, but he volunteered as a lay pastor in the community after hours. My mother eagerly accepted his offer to meet with us, and after some back and forth, we all agreed to gather that evening at their church. We also invited the retired pastor to join us.

Evening​

The drive to the neighboring city was uneventful. My mother and father, the retired pastor, and I pulled into the church parking lot as the sun began to set. My demons were still. As I watched the last rays of sunlight project lengthening shadows onto the surrounding concrete surfaces, I wondered if the man we came to see would be the expert who could finally cure my demonization. This spiritual battle lasted far longer than any of us had anticipated. Would tonight be the night when it ended? There was nobody else at the church that evening except for our relative and her husband. They soon found us, and we exchanged a quick greeting before filing into the church. We gathered in a spacious, brightly lit classroom where young children gathered throughout the week to attend school. Each of us took a seat. The lay pastor soon joined us. After a round of introductions, he shared a few words about his background.

He then transitioned into a discussion of faith, joy, and the miraculous things he had seen God do in the communities where he ministered. The man was earnest and friendly. Though he never attended seminary, he displayed a genuine commitment to the Lord and a foundational belief in the Lord’s sovereignty over all the problems we encounter in life. His message was simple: “Believe God will help because God will help. Just have faith!” I was unconvinced. Simple faith? That was all it took to resolve my demonization? Surely not! There were books and techniques and experts teaching otherwise, and they all claimed to have the right answer for casting out demons. Simple faith was nowhere to be found on that list. None of the deliverance ministry books we read recommended that approach. There must be something more to casting out demons this man had overlooked. He must have been mistaken. But… it turns out he was right.

I was neither ready for his answer nor mature enough in my faith to accept it. I was so fixated on what I had to do rather than what God could do that I viewed any suggestion not involving a specially formulated prayer or expertly delivered technique to be incorrect. I possessed knowledge about God, yet I did not have the faith in God I believed I had. The correct answer—the true response to demonization—was presented right there in front of me, but I was too blind to see it. A relationship with God, heartfelt repentance of our sins, and restored relationships are all vital to the Christian life. When these are out of balance, they can certainly contribute to demonization, but as far as forcing a demon to leave, who but God has that power? Even if we take for granted situations where the Lord allows us to cast out demons through the verbal commands we give, who but God can empower those commands and force a demon to comply? The solution to a demon problem starts and stops with the Lord. The root causes of demonization may involve a broken relationship with the Lord, our actions against Him, or broader reasons we may never know, but the solution always starts and stops with the Lord. The truth is simple, and for people like me, simple truth can be difficult to accept. Yet that does not make it any less true!

I looked around the room to observe how the others were receiving what the lay pastor shared. There was no question the glory of God surrounded us in that room. My father was more joyful than he had been in years, even to the point where his complexion was visibly rosier, which was a stark contrast to his earlier ashen appearance. My mother listened to the lay pastor in rapt attention. The retired pastor wore a quiet smile on his face as he absorbed the message. For his part, the lay pastor even commented that he did not normally speak this much when in a group. But that evening, he had so much to share about the glory of God and the joy that comes through simple faith in the Lord that he could not stop talking. All the deliverance books with their credentialed experts, the formally trained pastors we begged to help us, and the kindly retired pastor who tried very hard to deliver me from my demons did not have the fundamental solution to my problem. That came from the humblest man of them all: a simple custodian at a small town church. I was just not ready to listen.

The lay pastor eventually directed his attention back to me. The time had come for him to attempt to cast out my demons, and all eyes in the room darted to me as they watched in silence to see what would happen. “In the name of Jesus, come out of him!” he stated matter-of-factly, as if of course the demons were going to come out.8 I coughed twice, soft noises without much force. I did not feel any different. My demons were already motionless that evening as we sat in the room listening to the lay pastor’s impromptu sermon. Were my demons gone? Did this newest expert have special sway with God? “I think that was it,” I hesitantly mumbled as I tried very hard to determine if my tormentors truly were gone. The room was jubilant. There was no reason to believe my physical manifestation—two quiet coughs—was just one more trick the demons used to perpetuate their insidious deceptions, although further deception is exactly what it turned out to be. Not knowing any differently, we celebrated. We went to a nearby restaurant and enjoyed good company gathered around a hot meal. It had been another long and grueling day.

Many More Days to Go​

Additional Reading
  • See Appendix C for a lengthier discussion of what the church universal can learn from this situation.

My demonization did not end that night as I first hoped. This much was clear a few hours later when my demons became restless once again. They had a nasty habit of becoming still when in the presence of people who might be able to help me, only to roar back in full force once I was more vulnerable. The good news was that God, during the time we spent with the retired pastor, stabilized my “spiritual bleeding.” I was still in very rough shape both spiritually and emotionally, but at least I was no longer writhing uncontrollably and feeling like my demons would overwhelm me at any moment. I contacted the retired pastor to see what he recommended. Although he visited the house one final time, he made no further attempts to cast out demons. He had already tried everything he knew to try. There was simply nothing more he believed he could do for me. The lay pastor sent my mother inspirational Bible verses for a while, but eventually, those stopped too—we did not see him again. We were on our own. My parents and I could not understand why offers to help so consistently evaporated.

There would be no additional offers to help from anyone. There were no compassionate calls from the church to see how I was doing. None of the pastors we knew in the area contacted me. There was no understanding nor any support from most of the people we knew who had heard something about my situation. In fact, many of them were entirely skeptical. It felt like my parents and I were completely on our own.9 There was no quick fix; we were going to be in this for the long haul. I had more questions than answers, but I was so beat up that I did not even know where to begin. Then, as if my situation was not bleak enough, the global COVID-19 pandemic hit our humble city, and shortly thereafter, the governor issued a state of disaster for all counties. We were effectively in lockdown.

Shortages were rampant, the general public displayed its worst behavior, and everyone was locked inside for the foreseeable future. It is a strong testament to the Lord’s mercy that He arranged a bout of insomnia to bring me to my parent’s house just before my demonization exploded and the virus began to run rampant. The timing was too perfect for it to be anything other than an act of God. It would have been far more than I could endure living in solitary confinement with no Christian support and extensive demonic torture tearing at the very foundations of my mind and body. I believe it would have consumed me. The Lord, however, knew this: “God is faithful, so He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13 NASB).

Still, I had limited spiritual support from other Christians, and we were locked inside with my demons as people scrambled to understand what this virus meant for our previous way of life. At least I had my parents. Our faith in God and our shared faith as a family had never been stronger. I also believed I had a lead on what to do next after our intensive exposure to deliverance ministry. Surely there was some mysterious exorcism technique buried in one of the many deliverance books that could finish the job. We had just not found the right technique, I thought, and techniques can be learned. But this turned out to be incorrect. My search for an effective exorcism technique would eventually dead end in the realization that I could neither rely on myself nor any presumed expert to get rid of my demons. Only God could do that. He alone was my help in this time of trouble. The Lord rapidly moved me from spiritual blindness to an awareness of my latent sins to heartfelt repentance. He would now begin a long process of rebuilding my faith and shifting my trust from earthly wisdom and empty philosophies to biblical wisdom and a renewed dependence on Him.

Finding the Center of the Maze​

No more help was forthcoming. It was also glaringly obvious that I could not remain the person I had been and have any real hope of getting rid of my demons. Though I was now stable enough to function, after weeks of demonic torture, I had become spiritually and emotionally traumatized. I believed it was now up to me to find a solution to my ongoing demon problem. Yet I could not even think about demons without suffering dreadful flashbacks of all I had experienced over the preceding weeks. I could not go more than a few hours without feeling the recurring, hideous pressure reminding me that something alien lived inside my body. I could not find solitude in my own mind for I heard the demons speaking to me. I could not get solid rest because every night felt like death, and if I managed to fall asleep, my dreams were filled with realistic, grotesque faces that watched me, reminding me that even in sleep I was not alone. I could not even go outside or sit in the grass without feeling real terror that more demons would slip inside me if I inadvertently made any mistakes or accidentally fell back onto the old occult visualization practices that Amigo had once taught me. There was no escape.

For a solid month, I did nothing but read Scripture and play a video game where I managed a virtual hospital. Diagnosing fictional patients with comedic ailments was my waking world. Every moment when I was focused on my virtual hospital was a moment I could forget about my demon problems. The weeks passed. Eventually, it felt as if there was enough distance between me and the traumatic events from earlier that I could start thinking about what should happen next in my life. The first challenge was to learn to sleep alone in my own room again. I had not slept alone for many weeks, fearing physical distance from my parents and vividly remembering the horrible night when my demonization first began. This dark bedroom with a mirror on the wall and a closet door with who knows what behind it was enough to frighten me. My parents, however, were insistent. This is one benefit to living among dedicated Christians: they hold us accountable to take the next best step in our lives. I was no longer feeling like a vulnerable infant, and if I was going to move past my trauma, the next best step for me was to slowly reclaim my independence. That was not easy.

Every night my fear would spike when the house grew quiet and my parents laid down to sleep. I continued to feel and hear the demons that tortured me. It took a long time to adjust back to sleeping in my own bed. There was never a moment when my guard was down, yet sleep can only happen when we relax into it. This posed a serious problem for me. One night, as I laid on my bed feeling invisible forces poke and prod me, I made a choice: I was going to trust Jesus to protect me while I slept. That meant letting my guard down. It meant trying to fall asleep when I knew demons were crawling all over my insides and actively trying to force me awake. Intellectually, I believed the Lord was fully capable of protecting me, but this was one of the first times during my experience that I made a deliberate choice to trust in His care.

Knowing and trusting are two very different concepts. We can memorize the entire Bible backwards and forwards but still have no meaningful relationship with God until we learn to trust Him. Trust makes all the difference, and that night, alone with my demons, I trusted Jesus to protect me. And He did. I slept. It was restless, difficult sleep, but nonetheless, I slept for the first time in a long while. My demons did not overcome me. I did not wake up possessed. Nothing horrible happened to me in my sleep. I trusted Jesus, and Jesus prevented all the awful scenarios I imagined from happening. This was a meaningful step in my renewed relationship with the Lord.

During this time, I also began reading the deliverance books that the retired pastor had recommended to us, supplementing them with additional deliverance books I found on my own. Unlike before when my eyes stuck and would not move over the words, I encountered no further problems reading these books. The content was mostly identical to what the retired pastor showed us. But this time, instead of relying on another person to cast demons out of me—and taking the authors at their word that this was possible—I was determined to cast the demons out of myself. Perhaps what I was unable to accomplish together with the retired pastor over a few sessions I could accomplish over many sessions on my own with enough persistence. After all, I thought, exorcism is just a science.

I found a notebook, purchased a new pen, and used the same techniques from weeks earlier. I collected the personal names demons told me. I collected the reasons for indwelling me demons told me. I would not take no for an answer and employed all the same threats and verbal wrangling the deliverance authors used. My process was streamlined, and I kept at it nearly every day for weeks. Whenever I attempted to cast out a demon, my body would cough and forcefully expel air as if that demon was coming out of me. This physical reaction was so common that my stomach muscles were often sore from all the strain. I viewed this phenomenon as hard evidence the process was working. The problem, however, was there was always just one more demon to get rid of or just one more reason for indwelling me that I needed to address.

One particular demon informed me that it had a right to torture me based on a violent video game I owned. Under oath before God not to deceive me, the demon further informed me that getting rid of this game would remove its right to oppress me. I naively believed it. That was just the deliverance process at work, right? Having been away from my distant apartment for months now and needing to check on it anyway, my parents and I made an impromptu trip across the state to visit a place that I now associated with ground zero of my slide into demonization. We were only there less than a day. It was a very brief visit, so I needed to take care of this supposed legal right as quickly as possible. I found the game in question—an antique that could not be easily or cheaply replaced—and took a hammer to it. I broke the circuit board, shredded the box, and destroyed several other violent games for good measure. This was emotionally very difficult for me because those games were a nostalgic part of my youth. Nevertheless, if they were somehow standing between me and God, I was not about to make an idol of them.

Having destroyed the game in question and everything related to it, I tried to cast out the demon who claimed this as its legal right. While I had the same physical reactions as before, I felt no different, and the demons, cooly observing how difficult it was for me to destroy my games, suddenly identified many other games that were also supposedly giving them the legal right to torture me. I knew I had been deceived. It was laughably obvious at that point. I did not regret proving to myself that my relationship with God comes before possessions and fond memories, but the demons had blatantly lied and manipulated me into this trip. No matter how much progress I thought I was making using these deliverance books, it gradually became apparent they did not contain the techniques I needed to resolve my problem. We drove back home early the next morning; however, I was not without my next lead.

My mother had recently met someone at a local store where she shopped who, as it turns out, had experienced her own deliverance in a different city. That person recommended a different book and a different deliverance author. When my situation was not improving, we ordered that book. It outlined an alternative deliverance procedure than the other authors taught. Demons are classified by problem categories and particular groupings, according to this book, so we are simply to command demons based on this rather than interview them. There are special prayers to pray and preliminary work to be done before demons can be cast out. The book further teaches that we cannot directly address demonic symptoms because there are always root causes like generational curses, various other curses, broken vows, and emotional trauma to contend with, each of which is supposedly an open door for demons to freely infest a victim. The book describes whole families of demons connected to specific root causes and imaginatively ties them to particular Bible verses.

It was convincing. I stuck with this book for a while and followed it to the letter. There were times when I thought it was making a difference, and physically, I experienced all the same symptoms as when I used the other techniques. There was one particular afternoon when I believed I was finally free from my demons. No more names echoed through my mind whenever I commanded a demonic roll call. My parents and I went out to celebrate this illusory victory only to return shortly before my demons began churning within me all over again. I wondered if the author had any additional advice online. I did some digging and discovered this author—like the others—had a consulting service10 to cast out demons for a hefty suggested donation. The economic incentives soured me on pursuing further advice from this author. Furthermore, it was clear these techniques were also not working for me.

I prayed about what to do next. It seemed as if I needed to speak with the pastor from the other church in town who had provided the deliverance document many weeks earlier. After obtaining his contact information, I scheduled a call. This pastor said that deliverance ministry and demonology were his personal hobbies, and the document came from his own study in these areas. So far so good? He also shared that the church where he pastored was actively involved in prophecy. Certain people in his church were designated as prophets, and they would often pray for a direct word from God regarding a specific situation or question. These designated prophets received the requested divine commentary shortly after praying, according to this pastor. Still, like so many other things in this bizarre world I found myself navigating, there was a catch: these supposed words from God were not always reliable. It was entirely up to the congregation and the congregant to sort out whether this was an actual prophecy from God or not.

I had never heard of anything like this. None of the churches I had ever attended boasted of homegrown prophets. I wondered if these prophets might intercede for me to get a word from God concerning my own situation. That was what the prophets did in the Old Testament, right? The pastor needed to end our call but promised he would get in touch soon for a follow-up conversation. I never heard back from him. In hindsight, however, I believe this missed connection was another instance of divine grace. True prophets of God never gave prophecies that He did not first command (Deut 18:20–22). Old Testament prophets incurred a death penalty under Mosaic Law for falsely speaking for God. Clearly, capital punishment was a strong deterrent underscoring the seriousness of that particular sin. There is no guessing required when the Lord chooses to reveal something to His people. We should also never presume the Lord will tell us anything we want to know whenever we want to know it—it did not even work that way in Scripture. In the end, while my conversation with this other pastor did not reveal any new deliverance clues, he did recommend another deliverance author as one of the primary voices in the genre. We immediately ordered one of that author’s books. A few days later, we received it in the mail.

This new book was exceptionally different from every other deliverance book I had read. My mother read it first while I was otherwise occupied, but she found the book to be so totally bizarre that she immediately threw it into the trash. Still, thinking this book might contain a clue to my freedom buried under all the questionable doctrine, I talked it over with my mother before fishing it out of the trash. I then carefully dissected its unusual ideas. The author saw no issues with interviewing demons. He spoke with them not only to answer questions similar to what other authors asked but also to probe broader topics. The book contains an implicit bias that whatever a demon says is usually true enough to be useful. In addition, this book supports the idea that generational curses invite demons to infest a victim. Building on the idea of a “demonic inheritance,” it further claims that demonization can occur when someone in authority invites a demon to infest another person under his or her authority.

Primarily, however, this book is about emotional trauma. It claims that trauma always attracts demons. If we have ever been hurt and not dealt with our pain, the book warns, we are probably demonized. Furthermore, the book teaches that hurt feelings can occur in the womb—or even at conception. It offers New Age visualization techniques mixed with religious symbolism, prayers, and references to psychology in an attempt to resolve emotional trauma and weaken any demons attached to it. These suggestions far exceeded my comfort level. The visualization techniques at the center of this book are specifically decried in other deliverance books, so I did not use them. But, despite the irregular nature of this supposedly Christian book, there was one diamond in the rough—we can ask God to help us heal our emotional trauma. Philippians 4:6–7 supports the notion that we can pray about anything, yet the specific application of these verses to requesting healing for emotional wounds was a novel idea. This one nugget of truth was worth digging through a highly specious book that probably should have remained in the trash.

Of course, thinking I had found my new deliverance technique—one that was sure to release me from my demonic bondage—I focused all my effort on using it. For weeks, I wracked my brain to recall every memory throughout my entire life that made me uneasy in any way. If I felt shame, anger, pain, fear, or regret over anything—no matter how small—I prayed that God would soothe those damaged emotions. And, to my amazement, He did! It was remarkable to witness God working in real time in direct response to prayer. I noticed many of my hurt emotions were intertwined with unforgiveness toward myself. It made me aware, as I was combing through my memories for any trace of emotional angst, that I also needed to look for personal unforgiveness so I could forgive myself and pray over that too. By the end of all this emotional introspection, I felt significantly improved. The Lord blessed me with emotional healing that I did not even recognize I needed. My emotions were no longer a raw and bleeding open wound. That was a very welcome change. It felt as if the Lord gave me an emotional clean slate for whatever would come next in my life. Nevertheless, my demons did not leave me, and my emotional recovery did not even make it easier to get rid of them as the book suggested. It was abundantly clear that none of the deliverance books and none of the techniques they taught were going to work for me. What was I missing?

I had already read eleven different deliverance books by various authors and spent months precisely following what they advised. Why had nothing worked? Had I overlooked something important? I began to grow discouraged. It was interesting to note that none of the authors fully agreed with one another. There were a few common themes around what they claimed caused demonization, but the details never quite aligned from one author to the next, and the proposed methods for getting rid of demons were incredibly varied. Logically, not every author could be correct when their unique recommendations diverged so wildly. Nor could deliverance be a science when nothing was measurable or repeatable. Were any of these authors correct? Although I was beginning to have serious doubts about deliverance methodology and its common assertion that relying on demonic answers is necessary to force demons to leave, I had not entirely given up on the idea that I was overlooking the one technique that could cure my demonization. Browsing yet again through the bestseller list at an online bookstore, I ordered another deliverance book written by a different author than the other books I had read. It was well-reviewed. I hoped it would contain the answers I needed. Unfortunately, it did not.

There was nothing new in this book. It was just another rehash of the same tired ideas presented in a slightly different context with somewhat different recommendations. By the end of it, I was greatly dismayed. There were no more experts to help me. There were no deliverance techniques that worked for me in any of the twelve books I had read. Remembering back to my earlier deliverance sessions, I wondered if fasting was the missing element. Was that the technique I had overlooked? I had not fasted as part of my deliverance attempts since the retired pastor recommended months earlier that I do so in preparation for our final deliverance session. Fasting was the one thing that came to mind I had not already tried.

The very next day, I underwent a full fast. I drank no liquids. I ate no food. I prayed constantly for help, guidance, and success getting rid of my demons. Nevertheless, I made no progress. My demons were not budging. It made no difference what I tried. Although I dutifully recorded the information I had obtained from interviewing my demons, the data was inconsistent. These demons were supposedly under oath… were they lying to me anyway? The roster of demonic names indwelling me—along with the total number of demons remaining—constantly changed from interview to interview. That evening, after my parents went to bed and I was winding down for sleep, I attempted to cast out my demons one final time. Nothing. They were thoroughly uncooperative. And I was utterly defeated. There was nothing else I knew to do. What did I not know? Did I need to fast another day? What was the missing piece of this debilitating puzzle?

I laid on the floor exhausted, emotionally drained, and completely confused. I prayed, “Lord, what am I doing wrong? Have I not fasted enough? I thought I knew what I was doing, but I have no idea how to get rid of my demons. What should I do?” In that moment, the Lord answered me. A deep, profound peace flooded over me unlike anything I had experienced in any of my many deliverance attempts. The Lord did not speak to me with words, but I knew in my heart that His gentle response to my prayer was “No, fasting is not the answer here. You have spent months reading many different books about deliverance, and not one of them has helped you. Do you understand now? You need to look for answers in My Word. Start there.”

A Straight Path to Freedom​

I was so focused on experts and expert techniques to cure my demonization that I had convinced myself I was incapable of searching for answers in Scripture. I thought I needed someone to do that for me. Who was I? I was no seminarian. I neither wore a clerical collar nor a pulpit robe. I assumed the highly credentialed book authors were the real experts who could explain to me what the Bible says about getting rid of demons. Twelve books, many months, and innumerable deliverance attempts later, I finally understood that I knew nothing. The Lord never abandoned me during this trial, but I had to get to the point where there was no other option but to trust wholeheartedly in His direction before I could see the truth. Only then did He begin to show me.

I was very serious about knowing what Scripture contained and now understood the urgent necessity to complete my first reading of the entire Bible. And once I finished reading the Bible, I started reading it again. There was no more ambivalence in my heart toward Scripture; it contained spiritual truths unlike anything else I had ever studied. Meanwhile, I began researching what the Bible had to say about demons. I searched for every Bible verse containing every variation on names for Satan and demons, even dipping into the original Hebrew and Greek when necessary to understand particularly tricky contexts. I earnestly considered what these verses meant and used a wide variety of biblical commentaries to shape my understanding. I wrestled with these verses across multiple translations and analyzed how they fit together, striving to unlock what they meant individually, together, and against the backdrop of the entire Bible. If the Lord wanted me to look for answers in Scripture, I was determined to look for answers in Scripture. Furthermore, I felt very strongly that other Christians might need the same information. I began thinking about how to structure the fruits of this research in a way that might benefit my brothers and sisters in Christ who struggle with their own demon problems.

All my struggles and all the dead ends of the preceding months led to this moment. I had a personal goal to be rid of my demons, a divine mandate to look for answers in Scripture, and a newfound trust in my God to guide me along the right paths. And, once I got far enough into this work, an amazing thing happened: the Lord began to remove my demons! There was nothing particular that I did; it just happened. There were no special exorcism techniques. There were no specific prayers. I did not have to command anything “in the name of Jesus.” It was all based on trust in the Lord, obedience to what He asked, and waiting on His timing. It was so simple. Yes, demons can be frightening and demonization is no joke, but the cure? What really ends demonization? Our God. He is in full control. There is no one and nothing else like Him.

It would be a very short book if a guide to deliverance ministry contained accurate advice. It might read something like this: “Pray, be obedient to God, wait on His timing, and—most importantly—trust Him!” That is hardly the kind of advice that rockets a book to the top of the bestseller charts! Nevertheless, that is what the Bible teaches. Deliverance authors often claim they must “fill in the gaps” of Scripture when it comes to exorcism because the Bible does not include detailed instructions for casting out demons. True, it does not. But there is a reason why the Bible has limited instructions on conducting an exorcism: there is no need! Are we in the place of God that we can command demons? No! Not unless God chooses to work through us to accomplish that, as we often see with the disciples and apostles of the New Testament. But even then, who is the real source of that power? Always God! Our Lord is always the force that removes a demon no matter how it happens, when it happens, or through whom it happens. If there is nothing else a reader takes away from this book, it should be that one, fundamental truth. Trust in God is the foundation that underlies all aspects of our relationship with Him.

The Lord did not take away my problems all at once. I remained demonized for about two years (FIXME). The symptoms were considerably diminished from the night when it all broke loose, but they did not completely go away until the demons all went away. As long as I had indwelling demons, for example, I suffered a sporadic facial tic. I would feel a growing pressure around my face before reflexively contracting all my facial muscles into a brief grimace. It almost never happened in front of other people—to my great relief—but it was a persistent reminder that our work was not yet finished. I had other demonization symptoms as well, but compared to what I suffered when it first began, this was like having an irritating hangnail rather than a horribly mangled body and broken bones. The Lord continued to work on me, healing my emotions, restoring lost joy that I had not felt for much of my life, teaching me His ways, and strengthening our relationship. That takes time. Rebuilding a spiritual house on a new, firm foundation does not happen overnight, which is one reason why trusting God is so important. Christianity is a lifelong pursuit extending into eternity. Momentary pain, whether it lasts seconds or years, is an invisible blip on the timescale of forever.

The Lord also chose to remove my demons at interesting times during my research and writing, as if to underline with a thick, bold marker the concept under consideration. Each time was memorable, and after I noticed a pattern, I started making notes. Not every demon the Lord removed from me was associated with a particular research topic, but here are the themes I was actively pursuing when the Lord forced another demon out:

  1. We are not bound by Old Testament Law and can never hope to satisfy it (Gal 3:10–14). Deliverance books with their various rules concerning what allows a demon to terrorize its victim—often borrowing from and adding to Mosaic Law—had me living in bondage, deeply fearful that I would eventually violate the Law in some way and therefore invite further demonization. This, however, is woefully mistaken! Jesus died for us precisely so that we can look to Him and live, not suffer and die for our inevitable mistakes. He took our penalty for us. Now and forever! Teaching that we must live under a new spiritual law totally denies the significance of what Jesus did for us.

  2. The Lord does not require our works in order to show us mercy and heal our demonic torment (Rom 9:15–16). It is His timing, mercy, and grace alone. Special exorcism techniques and carefully constructed exorcism prayers are just another kind of work. They entirely miss the point that God will have mercy on whomever He chooses whenever He chooses. There is nothing we can do to earn His mercy.

  3. We ask God for deliverance from demonic torment whenever we pray the Lord’s prayer—“deliver us from evil [or, the evil one]” (Matt 6:13 NASB). Nowhere in Scripture does the Lord require special exorcism prayers. After all, Jesus—the Lord our God—taught us how to pray. His model prayer is sufficient for our daily needs.

  4. There are times when it is appropriate to work with an exorcist to resolve demonization (Mark 9:38–40; Luke 9:49–50). We must always remember that God is the only one who can remove a demon. Nevertheless, struggling against demonization alongside a mature Christian can be a great comfort and a great help, particularly for those who are spiritually immature like I was. Cases of severe demonization involving violence toward self or others is also a time when additional Christian help is highly encouraged.

  5. The solution to a demon problem begins and ends with the Lord (Luke 13:10–13). Just because Jesus is not still preaching in synagogues and traveling around the Judean countryside with His twelve disciples does not mean we have somehow lost our access to Him. Quite the opposite! Jesus is with us, and He is only a prayer away. If He could heal demonization two thousand years ago, He is fully capable of healing demonization today. Nothing changed but His address. And note that Jesus was not always physically present when He healed someone in the Gospels (Mark 7:24–30 par.; Luke 7:1–10)!

  6. Christianity requires a total commitment to the Lord (Matt 13:44–46). We are a child of God or a child of Satan (1 John 3:10). There is no middle ground. Woe to the demonized person who hopes to flirt with Christianity just long enough for the Lord to heal a demonic affliction. Going back to Satan—whether we recognize it or not—is going back into the waiting arms of his demonic angels. Whom do we suppose commands the demons to harm us? Satan, of course. God alone can restrict what Satan can and cannot do. Not everyone who rejects God is demonized, but those who have known the glory of God yet reject Him anyway are doomed to destruction.

The Costly Pearl​

After so many years of spiritual deception, I was finally waking up in my Christian faith. A meaningless commitment to “live as a good person” and try to please God by what we choose not to do is never going to cut it (Jas 1:22). These are not the kind of believers our Lord wants! Jesus leveled a particularly withering criticism at the church in Laodicea when he said, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth” (Rev 3:15–16 NASB). Christianity is not a Sunday hobby. It is a lifelong, total commitment to putting Jesus first in everything we do, say, and think. When we fail to order our lives in that way, we become like the Laodiceans who Jesus wanted to vomit out of His mouth for their indifference and tepid commitment to Him.

Jesus describes the necessary commitment to the kingdom of heaven as a costly pearl. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold everything that he had and bought it” (Matt 13:45–46 NASB). This was no small commitment, yet the merchant was so enamored with this one pearl that it made no difference what he gave up as long as he could own it. How many possessions did the merchant sell? How much did he give up to buy this pearl? Whether the merchant was rich or poor, the point to the parable is that selling “everything” means selling everything, no matter how great or small the price. Verses like this are brief and easy to skim, but they contain outsized truth. A genuine commitment to Jesus is costly. Following Him is a decision that comes with persecution, worldly trouble, and occasional heartache. We must be absolutely certain we want to own this “pearl of great value” before we can obtain it.

Pursuing the kingdom of heaven with my every fiber cost me much. Like the merchant, however, I wanted it so badly that I “went and sold everything” I had to own it. I gave up my professional identity in exchange for a new identity as a servant of Jesus Christ. I gave up my adult independence to live with my parents while I recovered from the worst of my demonization and, later, to reduce my expenses so that I could work on biblical research and writing. I spent my savings on funding this work. I gave up the new business I had started. Bridges were burned with former colleagues over my open identification with Jesus Christ, and I fully expect more bridges will burn on account of this book. I gave up many movies and games that no longer fit my beliefs. I endured skepticism, ostracism, fear, and indifference from people I love. And I ended my long-standing friendship with Amigo, although I pray for Amigo constantly in the hope that, one day, Amigo will turn to Jesus. My entire outlook is different. There is nothing like a bad case of demons to force us to reflect on our spiritual priorities. Once we have seen the battle up close, the temptations of this world seem rather paltry.

Yet, despite its great cost, owning this pearl comes with tremendous benefits. Jesus teaches that “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms on account of My name, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last; and the last, first” (Matt 19:29–30 NASB). Not only does God take care of His faithful people, He promises an eternity of His loving provision for those who earnestly seek Him. This is a promise we can count on. I do not know what the Lord has in store for me, but already I can testify that I no longer feel the nihilism and hopelessness that once consumed me. The existential purpose and dignity that comes from pursuing work the Lord has placed in front of me continually refreshes my soul. And I know that moving forward in life the Lord will make my path straight as long as I continue to put Him first. My relationship with God is stronger than it has ever been, and I would trade everything all over again in exchange for my newfound trust in Him. When we look to Jesus as our Lord and Savior, our lives are in the best, most loving hands imaginable.

  1. Some people believe that Jesus was asking the demon for its name, but that is probably not true given the details of other exorcism accounts in Scripture. See Chapter 11 for further discussion.↩
  2. See Chapter 10 to learn more about the relationship between sin and demons.↩
  3. Ironically, John is talking about false teachers in these verses.↩
  4. Chapter 11 discusses these misunderstandings in greater depth.↩
  5. The idea that any Christian can command a demon to go into the abyss is an extension of the deliverance ministry notion that we have the full authority of Jesus to force a demon to obey us. While demons are all too happy to play up this idea, it is an erroneous supposition. We will look at it in more detail in Chapter 11.↩
  6. This is where certain deliverance authors claim a stronger demon is providing cover for a lesser demon who is not budging. While fallen angels do operate in a hierarchy (cf. Rev 12:7–9), there is no biblical support for this assertion.↩
  7. Biblical evidence suggests that fasting is not required to cast out demons. Only some original manuscripts add “fasting” to this verse in Mark, but it is not universal. Word-for-word biblical translations like the NASB leave out this addition entirely.↩
  8. Commanding a demon “in the name of Jesus” is a common instinct among Christians, but this phrase does not mean what many people think it means. See Chapter 11 to learn more.↩
  9. See Appendix C for what the church can learn from this.↩
  10. This is my own label. Deliverance authors describe such services as ministries.↩