Different deliverance ministers have different ways of doing it. There's no one right way, there's lots of ways. But if you can understand the basics, and the principles, and have a plan of how you would approach it, then you can start to minister reasonably successfully to people. I do not think that we can set people free without dealing with the heart. My experience over years now, is whatever's in the heart will show up in the life. You can cast out the demons, but if you don't shift the heart, what people believe and how they function in their heart, then they don't have lasting change. So of all the materials that I have seen around, probably the course by Mark Virkler, Prayers That Heal the Heart, would be the one that I would recommend, as containing good insight and good process for the deliverance ministry.
Perhaps I'll just finish with one last thing and then we'll get on and have a break. How would you know what demons do, or how do demons oppress people? Let's just finish with that for this session. How do demons oppress people? In Luke 13, Verse 11, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity 18 years and could not raise herself up, so here's a woman, has a spirit, and it's affecting her body. A spirit of infirmity for example, the word infirmity means weakness or without strength - a spirit of infirmity, when it comes into a body, you have aches and pains. They just move around, or they're located in the back, the neck, the shoulders and whatever. You can't seem to get of them. Spirits of infirmity can create problems with deafness, spirits of infirmity can be the cause of many sicknesses, spirits of infirmity can also create learning difficulties as well.
When demons come into people's lives - I've listed some of the things they do. Number one, they hinder the person coming to Christ. They just create blocks around the thinking, so the person doesn't understand. Two, they afflict and torment people, they remind them, and bring them into torment and pain; three, they bring people into bondage, particularly addictions; four, they bring drive into people's lives, and compel them to do things, so they feel like they can't stop; six, they deceive, or create a deception around a person's mind. They don't realise what's really happening; seven, they accuse and speak condemning words, and number eight, they obstruct us. They create difficulties, for example when we try to do these seminars we often have trouble with mechanical gear, issues and difficulties and problems. It's always the week we do the seminar, so we've just got used to it all.
So when spirits come in they'll affect a person's body with sicknesses, pains, unexpected pains. When I went to Taiwan for example, every day I had to have a new interpreter, because they would get sick. They just got sick day after day after day after day. The first three visits I made to Taiwan, I got sick every time, then afterwards I broke through it, and I've never been sick since. It was just witchcraft spirits trying to impart this thing onto me, and I had to learn how to step up, and make sure I didn't come under it. So demonic spirits can affect your body, they can affect the soul by tormenting thoughts, emotions and desires. They can afflict a person's will, so they become very passive, and they can create experiences in people's life that torment them.
So how are we going to find out? Well let's go look at the next session. We're going to talk about curses, and what they are, and how to deal with them, then we're going to look at some aspects of how to minister to people. Let's have a break.